Robert "Bob" Lowry was born in New Orleans [Annotator's Note: New Orleans, Louisiana] in August 1926. He had three brothers and three sisters. He grew up in Greenwood, Mississippi. His father was a life insurance salesman before the Depression [Annotator's Note: The Great Depression, a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1945]. He lost his position during the Depression. He does not know exactly what he did after that. When Lowry was about six years old, they moved to Baton Rouge [Annotator's Note: Baton Rouge, Louisiana]. Then they moved to Placquemine, Louisiana where his youngest sister was born. His mother had a nervous breakdown. Lowry's aunt took the seven children to live with her in Greenwood. Lowry wound up in Bourbon, Mississippi and stayed about a year before returning to Greenwood. He volunteered for the Navy in 1943. It was tough times in the Depression. They put paper in their shoes and had holes in their clothes. He was embarrassed. His uncle had pigeons and one would sit on his shoulder while he walked to school. He would fly home and then come back when Lowry got out of school. In Plaquemine, he lived near Bill Lee [Annotator's Note: William Crutcher "Big Bill" Lee], who pitched for the Chicago Cubs [Annotator's Note: American professional baseball team] in 1932. He wound up as a sheriff in Plaquemine. He had a big house that Lowry could run around underneath. Lowry was always getting in trouble. He would listen to the radio broadcasts at a local power station house. In the fourth grade, Hannibal Correllis [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling] talked to Lowry about football and Ole Miss [Annotator's Note: University of Mississippi in Oxford, Mississippi]. Lowry loved Ole Miss and knew every player.

Robert "Bob" Lowry went to Great Lakes [Annotator's Note: Naval Station Great Lakes, North Chicago, Illinois] for boot camp. [Annotator's Note: Lowry gives an unintelligible name], a professional football player for the Cleveland Browns was the Chief of his Company. Lowry was in Company 1769. Lowry learned a lot from him. He left Great Lakes for Camp Bradford in Little Creek, Virginia where he was assigned to an LST [Annotator's Note: Landing Ship, Tank]. He picked it up in Evansville, Indiana [Annotator's Note: the USS LST-538 on 5 January 1944]. He was on a skeleton crew. They took the ship down the Mississippi River. He went to Norfolk, Virginia and then to the Mediterranean. [Annotator's Note: Lowry reaches off camera for some materials and looks through them to show the interviewer pictures of his ship.] They went through the Straits of Gibraltar. They had two nights there. He was on a gun crew and German planes were coming over bombing them [Annotator's Note: part of convoy UGS-36 on 1 April 1944]. He tells people it was like the Fourth of July [Annotator's Note: American Independence Day] because every third bullet was a tracer. He does not know what happened exactly that night. He got a Battle Star [Annotator's Note: device worn to denote subsequent awards on medals and ribbons; also called campaign stars or service stars] for it. A light cruiser and two other ships were sunk. The second night was not as bad. That was his first action. Lowry had no fear. The men had no worries about the world. They did not have homes or marriages and he thinks that is what helped win the war, the young people. From there they went to the tail end of Sicily [Annotator's Note: Sicily, Italy]. They then went to Bizerte [Annotator's Note: Bizerte, Tunisia], picked up tanks and personnel and took them up the coast into Wales [Annotator's Note: Wales, England]. They picked up an LCT [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft, Tank] in Wales and went to Plymouth, England and Bournemouth, England.

Robert "Bob" Lowry had about 200 or 300 soldiers they [Annotator's Note: as crew on the USS LST-538 in Plymouth, England] picked up. In the afternoon, an officer called the men and told them what they were going to do. Lowry was on the deck but does not recall what he said. They started to move a short way and then they stopped. Their mission [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944] had been postponed. He had no idea what they were talking about. The next night they left the bay at Plymouth and picked up a convoy. The next morning, all he could see was ships as far as he could see. As far as he could see in the sky, were airplanes. They launched their LCT [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft, Tank] and the LCVPs [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft Vehicle, Personnel or LCVP; also known as the Higgins boat]. Lowry was on the starboard [Annotator's Note: in nautical terminology, starboard indicates the right side and port means the left side] side where a big rope was for the men to climb down into the LCVP. The sea was rough. Lowry saw the soldiers were having a hard time getting in. They got their legs caught between the LCVP and the ship. The LCVPs merged, formed a flotilla, and went into shore. Lowry's ship did not go in. That afternoon they received wounded people and became a hospital ship. They wound up on Omaha Beach [Annotator's Note: Omaha Beach, Normandy, France] and got the gear, consisting of trucks and tanks, off. He saw a bunch of wounded coming in onto the ship. Four German prisoners came on too. Lowry took a message to the operating room. He saw guys cut open. That night, he was in his bunk near a table. They brought a man in and started amputating his leg. Lowry could not stay there. They returned to Southampton [Annotator's Note: Southampton, England] and got troops to take to either Gold [Annotator's Note: Gold Beach, Normandy, France] or Juno [Annotator's Note: Juno Beach, Normandy France]. On the night of 10 June [Annotator's Note: 10 June 1944], they went to GQ [Annotator's Note: general quarters, or battle stations] about ten o'clock. He could see boats riding around in the water. He saw a torpedo go right in front of his ship. Lowry went up into the air with the ship. His helmet was black from powder. They lost four people overboard. The gun turret went straight up, and the crew went off.

Robert "Bob" Lowry and his ship [Annotator's Note: USS LST-538] finally got beached and dropped out of the convoy [Annotator's Note: after being damaged on D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944]. Lowry does not recall which beach. People came in from small towns and built a concrete bulkhead on the ship. They went to London [Annotator's Note: London, England] and stayed in dry dock for six months. They had the V2s [Annotator's Note: German Vergeltungswaffe 2, or Retribution Weapon 2, ballistic missile] for the six months. They turned the ship over to the British [Annotator's Note: November 1944] and boarded the SS General Black [Annotator's Note: the USS General W. M. Black (AP-135)] and went back to New York [Annotator's Note: New York, New York]. They were on Long Island [Annotator's Note: Long Island, New York] and had a USO [Annotator's Note: United Service Organizations, Inc.] show. Lowry saw Bob Hope [Annotator's Note: Leslie Townes "Bob" Hope KBE; British-American entertainer who was famous for entertaining American troops serving overseas during World War 2, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War] with dancers and singers. He then went to the Newport, Rhode Island naval base for training. He went to New Orleans [Annotator's Note: New Orleans, Louisiana] and caught a converted LST [Annotator's Note: Landing Ship, Tank] that had a top deck with an airplane engine room. The ship was ARVE-3 [Annotator's Note: USS Aventinus (ARVE-3)] and did aviation engine repair. They went to Hawaii. Their sister ship, ARVA-5 [Annotator's Note: USS Fabius (ARVA-5)] went with them. Lowry was on the fenders and met an officer who had been on his ship that had been torpedoed, the 538 [Annotator's Note: USS LST-538]. They went to Okinawa [Annotator's Note: Okinawa, Japan] and in a few days, the war was over. Before they got to Okinawa, they ran into a typhoon, and it was terrible. Lowry was afraid. The worst storm they ever had was on 6 October [Annotator's Note: 6 October 1945]. If the invasion of Japan had happened, it would have been postponed due to the damage from the storm.

Robert "Bob" Lowry left the Navy as a Seaman 1st Class. When he was young in Greenwood [Annotator's Note: Greenwood, Mississippi], he was out of school for a year or two. He was always two years older than people ahead of him later. During the Depression [Annotator's Note: The Great Depression, a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1945], an aunt had a department store. Her husband owned businesses on a solid block. He lost it all during the Depression. He kept a small store. He had strokes [Annotator's Note: damage to the brain from interruption of the blood supply] so his aunt ran the store. Lowry worked there at ten years old. He would watch for people trying to steal things. He made 75 cents on Saturday, working from seven o'clock in the morning until 12 o'clock at night. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Lowry what he thinks of The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana.] His wife passed away three years ago [Annotator's Note: from the time of this interview]. She had a brother the same age as Lowry who was in the Seminary [Annotator's Note: a college that prepares students to be priests, ministers, or rabbis]. He was a Marine who was killed in Iwo Jima [Annotator's Note: Iwo Jima, Japan]. She did not like the Japanese too much. She loved the Museum and was a Charter Member until the day she died. They went to the Museum a couple of times. Lowry volunteered to work on the LCVP [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft Vehicle, Personnel or LCVP; also known as the Higgins boat]. He went on a Sunday to do the work, but could not get in. Lowry had an ACE Hardware Store. He closed it and went to work for another ACE Hardware so he could not work on the boat. When the name was changed [Annotator's Note: from The National D-Day Museum to The National WWII Museum], it really killed his wife. She only believed in D-Day [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944]. She felt so badly about Iwo Jima, she did not want Lowry to have a Toyota [Annotator's Note: Japanese brand of automobile]. The Museum is great, but to Lowry, you have to be in the service to understand some of it. He does not see how people can come off the street and look. It is a beautiful place and is terrific. [Annotator's Note: The segment ends with Lowry speaking about a donation.]