Robert Barnett was born in November 1926 in Cincinnati [Annotator's Note: Cincinnati, Ohio] and has lived there all of his life. He dropped out of high school and his father signed for him to join the Navy when he was 17 in November 1943. He went to Great Lakes [Annotator's Note: Naval Station Great Lakes, Illinois] for boot camp and then got some leave. He volunteered to become a radioman gunner on dive bombers. He had never been in an airplane. Barnett went to school outside of Memphis, Tennessee. After six weeks, he started helping the other guys and he was bored. He heard that Scouts and Raiders [Annotator's Note: early naval Special Warfare group] was looking for radiomen, so he volunteered for that. He went to Fort Pierce, Florida for training. Initially they were put into crews of one officer and six noncoms [Annotator's Note: noncommissioned officers]. There was a radioman, signalman, two gunner's mates, coxswain, and a motorman. They cross-trained in everything. They learned how to handle .22 caliber to .50 caliber machine guns. It was very tough training. He does not understand how today there is concern about sharks. They were concerned about alligators and snakes.

[Annotator's Note: Robert Barnett looks for some notes.] The Scouts and Raiders was formed in 1942. They [Annotator's Note: US Military planners] realized that they could not go from Australia to Japan, it had to be done in steps. There needed to be someone to go ahead and see what things were like. Gene Tunney [Annotator's Note: James Joseph "Gene" Tunney] was a heavyweight champion boxer in the 1930s. He was a commander in the Navy and was involved in the physical training. He selected ten men to start up the Scouts and Raiders. Their first operation was in North Africa. At that point, it was Navy and Army. Afterwards, it was decided it would be Navy only. Phil Bucklew [Annotator’s Note: later US Navy Captain Phil Hinkle Bucklew] was the most highly decorated Scout and Raider. [Annotator's Note: Barnett describes Bucklew's life before the war in detail.] Bucklew operated in both the European and Pacific Theaters.

Robert Barnett went to radio training for six weeks and then went to Fort Pierce [Annotator's Note: Fort Pierce, Florida] for six more months of training. He then went to California until the end of 1944. Ten Scouts and Raiders were assigned to a ship USS Charles Lawrence (APD-37) in the Pacific as part of the ship's crew. They were on an APD [Annotator's Note: High-speed transport] for amphibious operations that had four landing craft. They were a versatile type of ship. They had sonar, radar, and depth charges. They did convoy work. His first and only major operation was at Okinawa [Annotator's Note: Okinawa, Japan]. The first week they would unload ships. The beachhead at Okinawa was five miles. The picket line would try to protect the beachhead. It was a well-run operation, the biggest amphibious operation in the Pacific. [Annotator's Note: Barnett gets a list of where they went and pages through it.] They crossed the equator twice. [Annotator's Note: Barnett reads the list in order, most of the Pacific.] They went to and from Okinawa ten times. Barnett was in the Navy about two and a half years on the USS Charles Lawrence (APD-37), a converted destroyer escort. They had facilities to take on a company of Marines or Army if need be.

Robert Barnett was at Ulithi [Annotator's Note: Ulithi Atoll, Caroline Islands] about ten days before the invasion of Okinawa [Annotator's Note: Okinawa, Japan]. He came out in the morning to get breakfast and there were ships all over the horizon. It was unbelievable. There was not much Japanese resistance at the landing sites. They stayed about a week and then brought back the empty ships. They escorted the ships back and forth. Once at Okinawa, they would be assigned to a picket line. The Navy had high losses at Okinawa. Easter Sunday, 1 April [Annotator's Note: 1 April 1945], was D-Day [Annotator's Note: for the Battle of Okinawa]. At night, everything is completely black. The ship's wake would give the kamikazes the path to the ship. They had one five inch gun, three 40mm guns [Annotator's Note; Bofors 40mm antiaircraft autocannon], and six 20mm guns [Annotator's Note: Oerlikon 20mm automatic cannon]. They had some .50 caliber machine guns [Annotator's Note: Browning M2 .50 caliber machine gun] on the fantail [Annotator's Note: overhang of the deck extending aft of the sternpost of a ship]. Barnett volunteered for the .50 caliber guns. In combat, the crews were four [Annotator's Note: hours] on and four off. It always seemed that the kamikazes knew his off time, and he got very little sleep. He saw one hit a destroyer close to them. They only had one incident were someone was wounded and it was questionable as to whether it was enemy or friendly fire.

Robert Barnett came back to the United States through the Panama Canal on Christmas Day, 1945 to join the Atlantic Fleet. Barnett was anxious to get out of the service. He had no plans and did not have a high school diploma. He went to UC [Annotator's Note: University of California] and they told him he needed to have History. He took a test and passed that. He got into UC and used the G.I. Bill. He worked a lot of different jobs. He would not have gone to college without the G.I. Bill. The war took a little boy and made a man. His officer in his training was a Heisman trophy [Annotator's Note: Heisman Memorial Trophy, awarded annually in college football] winner. He had all classes of people. There were some black men on the ship who were limited to cooking, baking, and laundry. Barnett thinks it is absolutely important to teach World War 2 history to future generations. We are going through a lot of things today. One of our staunch enemies was Japan and is now our friend. It is difficult to understand why people cannot learn to live. We have to know what we went through and what it was like. Barnett was discharged as a Seaman 1st Class. The Scouts and Raiders were one of the organizations that eventually became the Navy Seals. Phil Bucklew [Annotator's Note: later US Navy Captain Phil Hinkle Bucklew] was at Xavier University [Annotator's Note: in Cincinnati, Ohio] as the Athletic Director and returned to the Navy in 1950 for Korea. In 1962, Bucklew formed the Navy Seals [Annotator's Note: US Navy special operations force].