Robert Riddle was born in Gainesville, Texas in May 1924. When he was three years old his father bought a farm and moved his three sons and wife to a big time cattle, hog and pecan operation outside of town. The Great Depression hit when Riddle was 12 years old, and his father, averting a financial disaster, sold the farm and equipment and moved the family, which now included a little girl, to a farm in Arkansas. There, Riddle had a grits route, and was working on a Sunday when he stopped for lunch at a meat market. The butcher told Riddle that Pearl Harbor had been attacked, and although he didn't know where Pearl Harbor was, he said everyone had been expecting war. Riddle was eager to get involved. His father had served in World War 1, and his brothers were already in the armed forces. After graduating high school in 1943, Riddle went to Little Rock, and, never having been on a ship, enlisted in the Navy.

Robert Riddle went to San Pedro, California for boot camp. He was excited to see the ocean for the first time, and loved basic training. He was taught to distrust and hate the Japs [Annotator's Note: period derogatory term for Japanese]. After boot camp he was assigned tot he medical corps school in Balboa Park after which he went to the Marie Island [Annotator's Note: Mare Island] Naval Hospital for further training to be a corpsman. There he was treating soldiers fresh from Guadalcanal who were suffering from malaria and ulcers, and later worked in a mental ward with patients who had difficulty readjusting after battle.

Robert Riddle was assigned to the Merchant Marine ship SS Typhoon, transporting supplies and soldiers throughout the Pacific. As a Navy corpsman he helped man the sick bay. After dropping off troops at Enewetak, an aerial bombardment hit the ammunition dumps on Ralik, causing violent explosions. [Annotator's Note: Enewetak and Ralik are island chains within the island nation of the Marshall Islands.] The Typhoon rolled six or seven feet from the repercussions. Riddle and his shipmates watched the fireworks for quite a while, and he had gone to bed when the casualties began flooding in. Over 2,000 troops were wounded, 500 of them hurt seriously. The Typhoon helped transport the injured to Guadalcanal, which had become the staging area for the Pacific.

The SS Typhoon was occasionally under aerial attack when at anchor; when at sea, the threat came from submarines, but Robert Riddle wasn't often concerned for his own safety. The exception was the time he went ashore on an inland to escort a patient back to his outfit. When Riddle returned to the beach, the tide had dropped quickly and left about 20 LCIs [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft Infantry] on the sand. There were air raids every night, but on this particular occasion the planes came in right over where he was standing, and he could see shrapnel raining down. Riddle thought he might take cover under the bow of a boat, but there was no space, so he got between two boats and stood at attention, knowing in that position his body would be least exposed. Riddle said it was a biblical scene, with the horrific noise and hot steel hitting the beach. Riddled noted that after the disaster at Guadalcanal, Admiral Halsey [Annotator's Note: US Navy Fleet Admiral William F. Halsey] would not allow more than 35 to 40 troop ships to congregate in any one group, in that way minimizing losses.

Robert Riddle's introduction to war came shortly after the Battle of Tarawa, where thousands of Marines perished. Riddle's ship, the SS Typhoon, was in the vicinity during the aftermath, and when it passed near the island, Riddle saw his first Japanese ship, sunken, with a hole in its side that he could see through. Official word spread that 53 Japanese survivors had been captured and each ship in the area would transport some of the prisoners. The SS Typhoon's sick bay had an isolation ward that was barred, and would work well for the purposes. Riddle was part of the small group that went ashore to take the prisoners into custody. On the boat ride in, he began to see the floating bodies of hundreds of Marines. Riddle described an underground city that had been bombed, and looked like nothing but shell holes. Just past the dock, the bodies of dead Japanese were piled high, and a bull dozer was hollowing out a huge pit in which to bury them. Riddle said it made an impression on him when he saw a Marine still alive, on his back, with a Japanese rifle and bayonet sticking up from his body, being tended by a corpsman. Riddle though back to a time when he almost volunteered to be a Marine, and was glad he hadn't.

Robert Riddle was at Okinawa when the atomic bombs were dropped. His crew, on hearing of the surrender, was a little distrustful of the Japanese keeping their word. They had experienced Kamikaze attacks and seen men die. Regardless, everybody started shooting the big ship's guns, until they got orders to cease fire. Riddle mentions that 55 men were killed that day by falling shrapnel from the Americans' celebratory fusillade. The SS Typhoon headed back to Seattle, and Riddle found it strange to travel with lights on at night. They had a great leave, but were soon called to another ship to ferry soldiers from the Aleutians. Riddle had plenty of points, and wanted to go to school to be a doctor, so he took a discharge after a couple of relays. Now, he regrets that he didn't stay in for another year to help get all the guys home.