Robert D. Shaner was born in February of 1924 in Porterville, California and grew up during the Depression [Annotator's Note: the Great Depression was a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1939 in the United States]. His father was a carpenter and they lived in the rather humble part of town comprised of working people. Shaner's sister was about three years older and saw him as a pest. He spent a lot of time alone. His mother enrolled him in kindergarten early and that was a mistake. He grew up and went to school there until he went into the service in 1943. His mother's family came from Germany, but his mother was born in the United States. Her father built a school in Kansas. His mother attended Kansas State Agricultural College [Annotator's Note: now the College of Agriculture at Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas] and graduated in 1914. In his hometown, she was the carpenter's wife. No one knew she had a degree. A woman having one was unusual in those days. His family did not talk about the impending war growing up. Shaner worked in a grocery store and the old-timers who came in in the wintertime would sit around a kerosene heater and talk about the war in Europe and of the Japanese. Shaner was aware the country was headed to war. He got quite an education as they were telling stories a little boy should not hear. As he got older, he got very depressed seeing the newsreels of the Germans going through Belgium. None of the old-timers had been in World War 1, but they were wise. When Shaner was nine or ten, he was pretty responsible. The grocery store was a family operation. One Thanksgiving, the family hired him to run the store. It had five gasoline pumps. Mr. Casselberry [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify] told him what he should do and told him there was a loaded German Luger [Annotator's Note: German P08 Luger 9mm semi-automatic pistol] under the cash register. Mr. Casselberry told Shaner if he was robbed, to just give up the money and not go for the Luger. He was only ten years old and had to close the store at night. He had to carry the cash to Mr. and Mrs. Casselberry's bedroom and put it in a drawer. That was scary. Kids were different then.

Robert D. Shaner's mom was German and was upset with the Germans after the First World War and her German relatives who wanted help from her. She did not say too much about Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler] but disapproved of what was going on. Their German relatives were impressed with Hitler. The family never really talked about the Germans and the Japanese. They were aware that the Japanese were taking lands in Asia, but it was different than the Germans who were on a roll to take all of Europe. His friends did not talk about it too much. They were too busy playing. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Shaner if he remembers where he was and what he was doing when he heard about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, 7 December 1941.] Shaner was at Tulare Lake [Annotator's Note: in California] with his dad. He was 17. He was putting gas in his dad's car when he was told that Pearl Harbor had been bombed. He was in a state of shock. Overnight everything was on guard and on alert. Shaner knew that at some point he was going to be in the service. He was in junior college and kept going to school. They were alarmed and were watching the war. Older friends were going into the service. The next semester a Marine major came to town. He had been a radio sportscaster. His name was Doug Montel and he signed up the whole football team into the V-12 Program [Annotator's Note: V-12 US Navy College Training Program, 1943 to 1946]. So Shaner and the football players all became Marines. The other students went into the Navy. Shaner was going into the Marine Corps Officer Training Program. He was proud to be a Marine and felt superior to the Army and Navy guys.

Robert D. Shaner was called up 1 July 1943 to go to a school in Flagstaff, Arizona, the Arizona State Teachers College [Annotator's Note: now the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona]. He went by bus and got there on 4 July [Annotator's Note: 4 July 1943]. All the Navajos [Annotator's Note: Native Americans of the Southwestern United States] had a pow wow [Annotator's Note: Native American sacred social gathering] in Flagstaff. He went to the school and the Indians went back to the Reservation. They had scared him when he got there. He spent about eight months there taking college courses. There were so few instructors that they had people teaching courses that made no sense. He took courses on the Navajo Nation and others that had no focus on a major. One professor, Clyde Tombaugh [Annotator's Note: Clyde William Tombaugh, American astronomer], was from the Lowell Observatory [Annotator's Note: in Flagstaff, Arizona]. He had discovered the planet Pluto. He was a photographer. He was teaching physics to Marines who were all kind of dumb. Nothing ever worked. One day the professor picked up an eraser and dropped it. He said, "gravity." They gave him a standing ovation. That was the first experiment that worked. Tombaugh is now in the Space Hall of Fame in New Mexico [Annotator's Note: International Space Hall of Fame, New Mexico Museum of Space History in Alamogordo, New Mexico] for his photo imaging. Shaner had just turned 20, and the school was being closed. He was to go to Quantico [Annotator's Note: Quantico Marine Corps Reservation, Virginia], but the older students went instead. The rest were to be transferred to a school in Louisiana. The Navy was in the process of building out the amphibious forces and wanted officer candidates. Shaner had the opportunity to switch and took it. He went to Asbury Park, New Jersey to wait for an opening at the midshipmen school. Shaner then went to Northwestern University in Chicago [Annotator's Note: Chicago, Illinois] for four months. He then became an ensign [Annotator's Note: lowest rank of commissioned officer in the U S Navy and Coast Guard; O1] in the Navy. He was asked what he wanted. He knew an LCI [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft, Infantry] was about 280 feet long and had seen one. He had heard that an LST [Annotator's Note: Landing Ship, Tank] was about 328 feet long and said that was what he wanted. He got orders to go directly to San Francisco to LST-475 [Annotator's Note: the USS LST-475]. He got on a Pullman sleeper [Annotator's Note: railroad sleeping cars] for the first time ever. He spent two weeks in Porterville [Annotator's Note: Porterville, California] and then went to San Francisco [Annotator's Note: San Francisco, California] and boarded an APA or Auxiliary Personal Attack ship [Annotator's Note: attack transport ship]. There were 600 replacement officers on board. He boarded his LST-475 in New Guinea. He was a brand-new ensign and had the top bunk going over. The Red Cross [Annotator's Note: Red Cross, an international non-profit humanitarian organization] gave them a kit bag with a toothbrush and toothpaste. The toilet facilities were just a big trough with slats across. You had to sit shoulder-to-shoulder with other men. One guy got up when the water came in and lit some newspaper that he floated own under the men downstream. It was quite a giggle.

Robert D. Shaner came into New Guinea and his ship, the LST-475 [Annotator's Note: USS LST-475], was not there so he went aboard an LSD or Landing Ship, Dock. Within an hour and a half or so, he was on deck. The ship was rolling, and he was getting sick. In Hollandia Bay [Annotator's Note: in Hollandia, Dutch New Guinea; now Jayapura, West New Guinea], a bunch of ships were coming in. He asked what those awful looking things were. He was told they were LSTs [Annotator's Note: Landing Ship, Tank] and his was among them. Fifteen minutes later, he was ordered to report to it. A full lieutenant [Annotator's Note: third rank of commissioned officer in the Navy and Coast Guard; O3] told him he was his replacement, and he was to bunk with him. Shaner got the top bunk. Shaner asked him what he did. He was essentially the cargo officer and was over half the ship's crew. Shaner loved it. He became the ensign-in-training [Annotator's Note: lowest rank of commissioned officer in the U S Navy and Coast Guard] to be third in command. They went on an invasion and when they got back, he was "the man." The invasion was the invasion of Luzon [Annotator's Note: Battle of Luzon, 9 January to 15 August 1945, Luzon, Philippines]. Months before this, the landings at Leyte [Annotator's Note: Battle of Leyte, 17 October to 26 December 1944, Leyte, Philippines] had happened with MacArthur [Annotator's Note: General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander, Southwest Pacific Area] coming back to the Philippines. There were other islands that had been invaded, but this was the big one going up to Luzon where Manila [Annotator's Note: Manila, Philippines] was. They went past Manila to a big gulf which was an ideal place to land troops and equipment. They landed there in early January 1945. They took in tanks with the 1st Cavalry [Annotator's Note: 1st Cavalry Division]. Shaner received no training and just followed along. After the invasion, they returned to Leyte Gulf [Annotator's Note: Leyte Gulf, Philippines] and Lieutenant Foley [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify] told him he was now "the man." Shaner thanks God for the crew and other officers as Foley did a very poor job of teaching him how to be the cargo officer. Shaner had been an Eagle Boy Scout [Annotator's Note: highest achievement in the Boy Scouts of America] and was mechanical, so he taught himself how to do the things he had to do on the ship. One of the skippers [Annotator's Note: captain or commander of a vessel], introduced him years later as the best lieutenant in the Navy.

Robert D. Shaner says that the landing at Luzon [Annotator's Note: Battle of Luzon, 9 January to 15 August 1945, Luzon, Philippines] was not handled well. Tanks were up in the bow of the ship [Annotator's Note: the USS LST-475], and they are heavy. They hit ground quite a way out. The tanks were waterproofed with snorkels. The tanks went completely under the water and then got up on the beach. They got the tanks off and were lining up halftracks [Annotator's Note: a vehicle with front wheels and rear tracks] that then started floating away. If they had kept the other equipment back, the bow [Annotator's Note: the front of a ship or boat] would have come up and they could have gone further up the beach. Once they started floating away, the ship pulled back. They came back later and went right up on the beach. Shaner was out and did not know where Foley [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify; Foley was the lieutenant who was supposed to be training him] was. Mortar fire was coming down and word came to retract from the beach. The Japanese were in caves and decided to come out about eight or nine hours after the initial landing. They were hitting the ships with mortar fire, and some were hit hard. One hit Shaner's ship at the bow doors, but it hit where it was double-reinforced. Five inches over and Shaner might not be here today. An Army guy was bleeding from the rust on the inside of the bow doors. They were very lucky no one was seriously hurt. Other ships suffered serious casualties. They pulled off last, so they were right up next to the beach. Word came that the Japanese were coming out in boxes and tying explosives to ships close to the beach. Guys with guns would shoot anything that was floating. Before they went on this invasion, they had installed a smoke maker on the fantail [Annotator's Note: overhang of the deck extending aft of the sternpost of a ship] of the ship to use as cover for the convoy. They were making smoke before sunup and the wind was blowing the smoke to cover the other ships. His ship was in pure sunlight so they would have been the only target. Nothing came in. The next night they returned to Subic Bay [Annotator's Note: Subic Bay, Philippines] where Shaner would then become "the man." He did not think too much about this first combat. He does not know what Foley was doing. When Foley was on watch, Shaner was with him. Shaner heard gunfire way back in the convoy and a kamikaze [Annotator's Note: Japanese Special Attack Units, also called shimbu-tai, who flew suicide missions in aircraft] came down between his column of ships and the next one. They could not fire a shot because they would hit their own ships. Shaner could see the pilot. He had a cloth helmet on and was looking straight ahead as he hit the water. If he had turned the stick, he would have hit their ship. Shaner thought he must have committed suicide without hitting them on purpose. He could have easily done so. They did not discuss it among themselves. They just went on and did their jobs. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Shaner what he thought about the kamikazes.] Shaner knew the emperor was God to the Japanese. What mattered to their military was honor and taking their own lives was part of it. It came as a surprise, but the more he thought about it, the more it made sense. When Shaner saw the plane hit the water, he hoped the pilot did not bounce up because he did not want to go rescue him. He knows it is not very Christian of him to say, but that would have complicated things.

Robert D. Shaner made a trip to the Lingayen Gulf [Annotator's Note: Lingayen Gulf, Philippines aboard the USS LST-475]. Commander Van Zandt [Annotator's Note: US Navy Reserve Commander James Edward Van Zandt] was called "Uncle Van, the Congressman." He knew all the Navy guys on the great big ships. On the initial bombardment of the invasion site [Annotator's Note: Invasion of Lingayen Gulf, Philippines, 6 January 1945], there were three battleships and cruisers. Van Zandt knew all the commanders. He was a politician [Annotator's Note: in the United States House of Representatives as a Congressman from Pennsylvania] and in the Naval Reserve. Van Zandt asked if they could help the cruisers and battleships. They had been firing 16 inch and eight inch shells. They said he could take their powder cans off the ships. Their LST [Annotator's Note: Landing Ship, Tank] went up to a cruiser and off-loaded the aluminum cans. They were beautifully built. Shaner did not know what to do with all the cans on their next trip. They had trouble keeping their ramp afloat, so he had the cans filled with sand to make a bulwark. They left the other cans on the beach and went back to Leyte Gulf [Annotator's Note: Leyte Gulf, Philippines]. Their next trip was into Manila [Annotator's Note: Manila, Philippines]. The 1st Cavalry [Annotator's Note: 1st Cavalry Division] and their tanks liberated some prisoners of war. Shaner saw one of them that had been blown up. Shaner made an invasion in Borneo [Annotator's Note: Operation Oboe, also called the Borneo campaign, 1 May to 15 August 1945]. It was not too significant. He later learned the Australian people were sore at their military. There was really no need to invade Borneo, but the Australian generals wanted to do it. The Japanese were fierce, and the Australian Army paid a price for that invasion. After that, Shaner and his outfit went back to Morotai [Annotator's Note: Morotai, Indonesia] and then were dispatched to Finschhafen [Annotator's Note: Finschhafen, Papua New Guinea] to pick up an Army Air Corps field unit and take it to Okinawa [Annotator's Note: Okinawa, Japan]. They loaded them and were on their way to New Guinea to get more ships. That is when the first atomic bomb [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapon dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, 6 August 1945] was dropped. Shaner was on the watch at two in the morning and the radioman gave him the message. He was quite shaken by the description of it and did not wake the skipper [Annotator's Note: captain or commander of a vessel] to tell him. He spent the next two hours thinking it was serious to have that sort of weapon in the hands of man. They got into New Guinea and left in a bigger convoy to Leyte [Annotator's Note: Leyte, Philippines] when the second bomb was dropped [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapon dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, 9 August 1945]. By the time they got to Leyte, the Japanese had surrendered. They went to the Officers Club to celebrate. He got sick as a dog. He was in awe of the bombs. He had been on watch and had to gauge the distance between ships using binoculars to keep in station. He had a lot of time to think and was shaken by the enormity of the device. The report was sketchy, but it described it as one big boom. He did know that it might well save his life. He knew they were staging Okinawa. No one ever talked about Operation Downfall [Annotator's Note: proposed Allied plan for the invasion of Japan], but he knew they were getting close to the big one. They stopped overnight in Okinawa after maneuvering around a typhoon. They spent the night and were then on the way to Japan with the Air Corps unit. They went into Tokyo Bay [Annotator's Note: Tokyo Bay, Japan] and off in the distance was the Missouri [Annotator's Note: the USS Missouri (BB-63)] and the other ships. They were directed to beach in Yokohama [Annotator's Note: Yokohama, Japan]. Shaner took some pictures. Years later, he went on Google Earth and discovered that where they beached is now Haneda Airport [Annotator's Note: also called Tokyo International Airport, Tokyo, Japan].

Robert D. Shaner got off the ship [Annotator's Note: the USS LST-475] and explored [Annotator's Note: after they landed in Yokohama, Japan]. The Navy could not get off the ships near Tokyo [Annotator's Note: Tokyo, Japan]. Commander Van Zandt [Annotator's Note: US Navy Reserve Commander James Edward Van Zandt] said the officers could go ashore but the enlisted men had to go ashore in groups of 20 with an officer. Shaner was a senior ensign [Annotator's Note: lowest rank of commissioned officer in the U S Navy and Coast Guard] by then and wanted no part of that. He went across a field and found where the rapid transit came in. There were three of them that figured out how to get to Tokyo. They got off right near the Imperial Palace where MacArthur [Annotator's Note: General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander, Southwest Pacific Area] was setting up headquarters. Shaner went to a department store and bought some things. The Japanese he saw spoke perfect English. The Japanese stayed far away from them due to what they had been told the Americans would do to them. He stayed in Japan for three or four days. There was a storm they were concerned about and were not there long. They went back to the Philippines until November [Annotator's Note: November 1945] and then headed back to the United States. Shaner never went ashore in the Philippines. Some of the sailors go out and had jungle juice. One gunner's mate was a delightful kid. He went on liberty [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] and had jungle juice [Annotator's Note: powerful or roughly prepared alcoholic liquor]. He came back to the ship and was totally wild. Shaner was not the officer of the deck but sized it up and told them to wrap and tie him in a small cargo net to get him on the ship. He was crazy. Shaner said that he and the officer of the deck should get out of sight, so the kid did not go crazy again. The officer of the deck disagreed but Shaner told him to go. Shaner told the troops to tie the kid in a bunk until the kid came out of it. The next day, the kid did not have a clue as to what had happened.

Coming back to the United States was kind of boring for Robert D. Shaner. They [Annotator's Note: Shaner and the crew of the USS LST-475] returned with one other ship. Their dog got kicked over the side and had to be brought back aboard. He stayed with the ship until it decommissioned. A sailor took him back to the Hawaiian Islands. His name was Alpheratz, after a star [Annotator's Note: Alpheratz, Alpha Andromedae, a star in the Andromeda constellation]. He had been picked up after an invasion. The name of the star in the star book was accompanied by a description that said it was small and not very bright. Their only excitement was when they saw a floating metal sphere. They thought it was a mine and they sunk it. It was a net buoy that had gotten loose. They got into Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii] and unloaded their ammunition. They picked up their first fresh milk in 16 months and went to San Francisco [Annotator's Note: San Francisco, California]. The supply officer did not have the sense to get warm clothing. They had to use their watch coats. Getting back was fun. Shaner's fiancee was going to Cal [Annotator's Note: University of California in Berkeley, California] and was a significant woman on campus for the ASUC, or Associated Students of the University of California. The skipper [Annotator's Note: captain or commander of a vessel] told Shaner they could either go back to San Francisco or Los Angeles [Annotator's Note: Los Angeles, California]. They chose San Francisco. They got underway to go around to the Panama Canal to go to Texas to decommission the ship for scrap. The man who became their skipper only outranked them by about two weeks and knew nothing about ships. The skipper wanted to get to Texas quickly and said to go at flank speed [Annotator's Note: term for a ship's true maximum speed]. Right off of New Orleans [Annotator's Note: New Orleans, Louisiana], they blew an engine. They were put into New Orleans instead of Brownsville, Texas and that was great. They docked and they decommissioned the ship there.

Robert D. Shaner had some exciting times aboard his ship [Annotator's Note: USS LST-475]. They had gotten back from Japan. Captain Nelson [Annotator's Note: US Navy Reserve Captain J. F. Nelson] had enough points [Annotator's Note: a point system was devised based on a number of factors that determined when American servicemen serving overseas could return home] to get out of the Navy. The Executive Officer, Jerry Ciccarone [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify] became the skipper [Annotator's Note: captain or commander of a vessel]. Before he went into the Navy, he had spent his whole life studying to be a Catholic priest but decided not to become one. He got commissioned and assigned as a cargo officer. He had high regard for Shaner. "Chic" could speak Latin and would hold mass aboard the ship. He was kind of a crazy guy and he told Shaner they should get a jeep. They were at Samar Island [Annotator's Note: Samar, Philippines] loading matting to take to Subic Bay [Annotator's Note: Subic Bay, Philippines]. Chic and Shaner walked to the Officers Club and had a couple of drinks. There was a jeep next to a Quonset hut [Annotator's Note: prefabricated metal building]. Chic started it up and they drove it back to their ship. There was no place to put it aboard ship and Chic left Shaner with the jeep. He knew the Military Police would find it. He had the crew lower their landing barge and run it onto the beach. They drove the jeep in the barge, and he told them to go off into the dark. About 20 minutes later, the Military Police came by to inspect the ship and then left. They then tied the barge with the jeep to the stern [Annotator's Note: back] of the ship. He had them take it out into the bay early in the morning. They got out in the bay and brought the jeep aboard. The crew was happy to get it and they painted it. They got to Subic Bay and the skipper drove it around there. In Manila [Annotator's Note: Manila, Philippines], they were at an Officers Club and a guy who was supposed to pick them up came into the bar. They asked who was with the jeep and he said he had left it running outside. They went out and someone had stolen it from them. Shaner told Chic that was for the best, but Chic was indignant and reported it stolen. A message came that said the jeep had been found. Chic and Shaner went to pick it up. Shaner saw that their paint had been scraped off and the official number was visible. He got nervous but they got it back. They almost dumped the jeep in the bay getting it off the ship in San Francisco [Annotator's Note: San Francisco, California]. Shaner heard that the jeep ended up in a motor pool and nobody knew where it came from.

Robert D. Shaner opted to get out of the Navy and had not really given thought to staying in. He wanted to become a police officer. His fiancee was at Cal [Annotator's Note: University of California in Berkeley, California], and he heard they had one of the best Criminology departments in the country. He enrolled in September 1946 while he was still in the Navy. He attended two years using the G.I. Bill [Annotator's Note: the G.I. Bill, or Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, was enacted by the United States Congress to aid United States veterans of World War 2 in transitioning back to civilian life and included financial aid for education, mortgages, business starts and unemployment] which was a godsend. His wife worked in the Admissions Office. They lived in student housing for veterans. His wife was a big-time politician on campus and the kids called him Mister Primo after his wife's maiden name. She was a big shot around campus. Shaner adjusted to civilian life easily. There were a lot of veterans. They were serious and focused. He graduated in February 1948 and was going to become a Berkeley police officer. He took the exam, and the recruit class was to start in September [Annotator's Note: September 1948]. He heard that they were hiring Navy guys at the probation department. He was hired on the spot and went to work as a Probation Officer in Alameda County [Annotator's Note: Alameda County, California]. There were a lot of Navy veterans who did as well. Buckley [Annotator's Note: Lorenzo S. Buckley] was the Chief, and they became known as Buckley's Navy. Shaner got out of the adult division and went to the juvenile department. He had a case with a kid who had stolen a car and that gave him a little qualm because of his experience with the jeep [Annotator's Note: Shaner had helped steal an Army jeep while he was in the Navy]. He had a great career and retired after 35 years in 1983. He was lucky and spent five years as the Chief Probation Officer. He started with 900 staff, but the notorious Proposition 13 [Annotator's Note: the People's Initiative to Limit Property Taxation, amendment of the Constitution of California enacted in 1978] hit and he had to lay-off 150 people. He never had to layoff anyone who was actually doing the work.

Robert D. Shaner's most memorable experience of World War 2 was reporting aboard his ship [Annotator's Note: USS LST-475] and going into the wardroom [Annotator's Note: space in a warship allotted for living quarters for commissioned officers]. In 1942, Doolittle bombed Tokyo [Annotator's Note: Tokyo, Japan; Doolittle Raid; bombing attack on the Japanese mainland on 18 April 1942 carried out by 16 North American B-25 Mitchell medium bombers launched from the aircraft carrier USS Hornet (CV-8) and named for the raid's commander, then US Army Air Forces Colonel, later US Air Force General, James H. Doolittle]. Somewhere a ship was built and launched in two days, 23 hours, and 50 minutes. Shaner only knew it was a warship of some sort. That was awesome and stuck in his mind. When he boarded the 475, he went into the wardroom, saw the pictures, and realized he was riding that historic ship. From the laying of the first section, to the launch was two days, 23 hours, and 50 minutes. He was blown away by that and by the fact that it held together. They gave it some rough knocks. When he left the ship, he took those original pictures. They are now in the Oakland Museum [Annotator's Note: Oakland Museum of California in Oakland, California]. Most of the LSTs [Annotator's Note: Landing Ship, Tank] took two months after starting out taking four months. They were built on the Mississippi, floated down, and then out to war. There were over 1,000 of them built. After it was decommissioned, it was sold to the Suwanee Fruit Company [Annotator's Note: Suwanee Fruit and Steamship Company] and used for a couple more years before it was scrapped. Shaner decided to serve because you had to do it. He had made up his mind and had started to grow up and wanted to be an officer. It changed his life by giving him confidence to be a leader, to get married and start a life. He is very proud of his service. Right after the war, things were changing. Almost all of them who served had grown up in the Depression [Annotator's Note: The Great Depression, a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1945]. He tried to instill those characteristics in his kids. Shaner thinks the Museum [Annotator's Note: The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana] is awesome and the war should be taught to future generations. It goes back to the start of the war. There was a group of people who said it was going to work out alright. It did not and we were in the war. After that, we were in a power struggle with the Communists. Shaner questioned Reagan [Annotator's Note: Ronald Wilson Reagan, 40th President of the United States] as a governor [Annotator's Note: the 33rd Governor of California, 1967 to 1975], but he instilled fabulous things in the country [Annotator's Note: the United States] in later years. Now we [Annotator's Note: the United States] are in another war of ideology, and we are not going to change that. We better make sure we recognize it and protect ourselves. A big problem in World War 2 was the Japanese loyalty to the emperor. Now it is Allah [Annotator's Note: standard Arabic word for God] who says do this and it is done. How do you get Allah to say to knock this stuff off? We have to tough it out. He sees a spark of brightness but is very fearful. A lot of the same things he heard before World War 2, he hears today. It is not going to work out because it is religious commitment. Back when he was taking his ship up the Mississippi River [Annotator's Note: after returning from the Pacific], he said to lower the inboard LCVP [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft Vehicle, Personnel or LCVP; also known as the Higgins boat], the Higgins boat, and tie it up alongside the ship. He wanted to learn to operate the boat. He would get bored and take it up the Mississippi having fun. Other officers knew he could run it. They met some girls from Sophie Newcomb School for Girls [Annotator's Note: later called the H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College, Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana] and they invited them to go to Lake Pontchartrain [Annotator's Note: in southeastern Louisiana] to go swimming. They asked Shaner to run the boat for them. Shaner noticed an industrial canal and went in. Shaner had to sign an authorization to fill the loch [Annotator's Note: gates in a canal that open and close to adjust water levels] and then the drawbridges had to open. This was three officers and three girls going to the lake. They lowered the ramp, and they went swimming. They came back that evening and did the same thing. They all got back. He had nightmares about held responsible for that. It was a great place to decommission the ship. It was right after Mardi Gras [Annotator's Note: also called Fat Tuesday; refers events of Carnival]. They had a welfare fund that was the profits from the ship store. They were supposed to send the money to Washington [Annotator's Note: Washington, District of Columbia]. They used it to take the crew to dinner instead. It was a great experience.