Robert M. Solomon was born in New Orleans, Louisiana in July 1920. His father was an inspector and they moved to Birmingham [Annotator’s Note: Birmingham, Alabama] and then to Savannah, Georgia. He started school when they were in Savannah. Then they moved to Atlanta, Georgia. He went into the service in October 1940. He went to New York to work at the World’s Fair [Annotator’s Note: The 1939-1940 New York World's Fair was a world's fair held at Flushing Meadows in Queens, New York]. Solomon met a lot of famous people there. He met the people who played in the Wizard of Oz because he set up a village for them at the World’s Fair. Solomon enlisted for three years in the Army. He signed up at Fort Benning, Georgia. He was going to be under General George Patton [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.] in the medical field. He was in the 48th Medical Battalion. They were supposed to be combat medics. Solomon was put in charge of the squad. He was in Atlanta, Georgia at a movie when he heard about Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. They stopped the show and made the announcement for all military personnel to report to their base. They had to train for war through maneuvers. They went from Georgia to Texas. He spent the whole time sleeping in a pup tent [Annotator's Note: small sleep tents often shared by two soldiers]. After that, they moved to Fort Bragg [Annotator’s Note: Fort Bragg, North Carolina] and prepared to go overseas. It rained and they all caught pneumonia. Solomon was left behind because he was in the hospital. Solomon was put in charge of a casual camp. He was a sergeant. He was in contact with the Red Cross. Then he went to Fort Meade, Maryland before he got his assignment. He was sent to Pittsburg, California to Camp Stone. Then he went to San Francisco [Annotator’s Note: San Francisco, California] and shipped out. Twenty-nine days later they landed in New Caledonia [Annotator’s Note: a French territory in the South Pacific]. They left there and got attacked by Japanese planes. They thought they would not get out of the ship because they were in water up to their knees.

Robert M. Solomon was on deck when they got a submarine. He had to hold on, or he would have gone overboard when the ship rocked. He made it to Guadalcanal [Annotator's Note: Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands] and the 20th Station Hospital. They got to the beach and were met by some ambulances. He stayed there for two years. They had a tent set up for the mess hall. He was there in June 1943. Eventually, he became sergeant major of the hospital. He was flown to Hawaii from the South Pacific. He was evacuated on a hospital ship back to San Francisco [Annotator’s Note: San Francisco, California]. A week later, the Japanese surrendered. He slipped out of the hospital and went to participate in the victory celebration. They had a lot of patients go through the hospital at Guadalcanal. They had Japanese prisoners who were treated there. Some of the Japanese had a string with ears hanging on it. The Japanese ruler’s son was killed on Guadalcanal. Solomon spent a lot of nights sleeping in a foxhole. Solomon’s brother-in-law was on MacArthur’s [Annotator's Note: General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander, Southwest Pacific Area] staff in Australia. Solomon received a radio in a package and he became very popular after that. The native women wore grass skirts and smoked pipes.

Robert M. Solomon remembers that it was very hot during monsoon season. [Annotator’s Note: He was stationed on Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands.] It rained all the time. When it rained, they would be standing in mud. It would rain so hard that it would knock coconut trees over. Almost every month they would report that three guys were killed by getting hit in the head by a coconut falling from the trees. The island was a jungle. They went to a gold mine. They were gone for three days. There was a three bedroom house back in the mountains. It started raining on the trip. One man almost slipped down the mountain. Solomon had to grab his shirt and pull him back up. They ran out of food the second day. Fortunately, they found a banana tree. On their way back, the natives caught up to them. Solomon left Guadalcanal in July 1945. He was glad to be getting out of the Army. He got a medical discharge on 17 October 1945. He had been in the Army for five years. He was 20 years old when he joined, and 25 years old when he got out. He decided to become a photographer when he returned home.

Robert M. Solomon lost a girlfriend when he had to go participate in the maneuvers. He felt like the United States should have helped the British when the Germans were bombing them. He thinks they should have museums like this museum [Annotator's Note: The National World War II Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana]. They had a 500-bed hospital [Annotator's Note: the 20th Station Hospital on Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands]. They dug the foxholes under the ward and a bomb shelter. In 1944, the Japanese thought the war would be over. There were bombs going off. There was a switchboard in the hospital. Solomon operated the switchboard at nighttime. When the bombs were going off they had to evacuate the hospital. Solomon put a table over the switchboard and continued to operate it. The bombing lasted for 24 hours. When they were loading ammunition on the ship it blew up. There were pieces of bodies floating in the water. There were Marines on the island as well. Solomon’s commanding officer had a buzzer hooked up from his desk to Solomon’s desk. He was like the commander’s personal secretary.