Roberta Randolph "Randy" Tidmore was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa in March 1922. She has one sister. There was only one man born in her family in 90 years. Her mother died when she was nine. They had housekeepers because her father was a traveling salesman of produce. Her sister was 11 years older and away at college. Her father remarried when Tidmore was 12. Her stepmother did not come to live with them except on weekends. Tidmore graduated high school in 1940. Her first job was selling candy in a grocery store. She then went to the University of Iowa [Annotator's Note: in Iowa City, Iowa] in Nursing and Liberal Arts. She had just started her third year when the war broke out for the United States. She did not like nurses training and decided to go to Rockford, Illinois [Annotator's Note: Rockford University]. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer interrupts to ask what Tidmore remembers about the war in Europe at the time.] Tidmore was at the university when the country got into the war. She was walking from her dormitory to a dance place in Iowa City. Her roommate yelled out the window that the country was at war [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. It was just announced on the radio. Her roommate's brother was in ROTC [Annotator's Note: Reserve Officer Training Corps] and was graduating. Tidmore went out and danced with him that night. He went to Fort Huachuca [Annotator's Note: Fort Huachuca, Arizona]. Black [Annotator's Note: African-American] soldiers were sent there.

Roberta Randolph "Randy" Tidmore went into nurse's training. She did not like it. Two of her friends from school were going to Rockford, Illinois to work at the J.I. Case Company [Annotator's Note: also called Case, now part of CNH Global NV, Amsterdam, Netherlands]. All of the manufacturing companies had turned into factories to make war equipment. This company was making B-26 [Annotator's Note: Martin B-26 Marauder medium bomber] wings. She went with them and got an apartment. Tidmore did sheet metal work. All of the electrical equipment was in the curve of the wing. She fitted the pieces of metal over it. She did that for six months. Her father was very mad at first but then decided it was a patriotic effort and calmed down. There were a lot of women going to work. Her friends were on the day shift in the supply room, so she did not see much of them. Tidmore was the youngest and got the cot. It was fun. Tidmore worked from three to 11. She got bored and went to Chicago [Annotator's Note: Chicago, Illinois] one weekend. Some boys came through who were on their way to camp. Tidmore and her friend went back to Rockford. Tidmore only wanted to go into the Marines because they did not have a medical department. So she joined on 4 January [Annotator's Note: 4 January 1944]. She returned home until March [Annotator's Note: March 1944] when she went to boot camp with a friend. Tidmore did not know a lot about the war going on. She has only been recently reading World War 2 stories. She did not know then what was going on other than that there was a war going on. Her father was extremely patriotic. Her roommate's brother left and went to Fort Huachuca [Annotator's Note: Fort Huachuca, Arizona]. She does not know when he went overseas as a paratrooper.

No one encouraged Roberta Randolph "Randy" Tidmore to join the Marines. She chose the Marines because they did not have a medical department. She ran into some trouble and did not realize they disliked her as much as they did until she got on the train. They did not give her a seat or any leeway. It was a troop train and she stood most of the way to Quantico [Annotator's Note: Quantico, Virginia] from Chicago [Annotator's Note: Chicago, Illinois]. She got to North Carolina [Annotator's Note: Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, Jacksonville, North Carolina] and found they were very segregated. Women joining the service was like nurse's training or being a stewardess. The Marine Corps was going to make certain they did not have a nickname and had a good reputation. She did not get involved with men until out of boot camp. Tidmore learned a lot of history and a lot about living in boot camp. They lived in barracks with a bunk and footlocker. They had calisthenics every day. They had no live ammunition but carried guns and learned to clean them. They practiced once with a gas mask. By the time she finished, she was really proud and still is to be a Marine.

Roberta Randolph "Randy" Tidmore could go to officer's training after basic training [Annotator's Note: Marine Corps, April 1944]. She did not want to do that. She wanted to be a mechanic. She had liked working on airplane wings. She got motor transport school at Quantico [Annotator's Note: Quantico, Virginia]. Her friend went to San Diego [Annotator's Note: San Diego, California]. She learned to change spark plugs and how to back-up trailers. It was fun. She went to Quantico for a four-week course where she learned to drive. Tidmore was assigned a staff car. She drove staff officers from Quantico to Washington, D.C. for a month. She did not like doing that. She wanted to drive a truck. She asked for one and was given a garbage truck. It was a two-and-a-half-ton [Annotator's Note: two and a half ton, six by six truck, also known as deuce and a half] truck with two colored [Annotator's Note: an ethnic descriptor historically used for Black people in the United States] Marines in the back who dumped the garbage cans into the truck. She did that for about a month. She was coming down a hill and a car was coming towards her with a star on the front, which meant a general's car. She kept going and she should not have done that. When she checked in, she had been reported and her license was taken away. She had two months of mess duty. After that, she was given a broom and stick with a nail on the end. She had to pick up the cigarette butts and sweep the streets. The general did not want women or dogs on the base. She swept streets for nine months. She kept trying to transfer to San Diego. She finally transferred in December [Annotator's Note: December 1944] and got her license back. She would drive to the pier when the ships came in. Women were not allowed to drive the men, only the baggage. She was really mad at the Marine Corps then. She should have known that is the way the military is. Once she and three other Marine women wanted to get a drink at a hotel. They were in line for a half an hour at the Willard Hotel [Annotator's Note: now InterContinental San Diego]. They got to the door and were told there was no room. She asked for a booth and was told she could not have it. An officer and his girlfriend got the booth. You had to be an officer to get anything decent.

Men returning from the Pacific would come in for R&R [Annotator's Note: rest and recuperation] in San Diego [Annotator's Note: San Diego, California]. Roberta Randolph "Randy" Tidmore did not see them once they got off the ship. They were pulling into the dock to pick up the luggage and the Red Cross was out giving the men cookies. A lot of the flights coming in were commercial. Tidmore asked a Red Cross lady for a cookie, and she told her no. She liked her job in San Diego better than in Quantico [Annotator's Note: Quantico, Virginia]. She drove the boys to bivouacs [Annotator's Note: temporary camp] in the hills. She would park her truck and have a picnic while waiting for them. When the war ended, she was in the barracks, and everybody said not to go out in San Diego. It was full of sailors. There were not a lot of Marines stationed there then. A monument was just put up for the women in Pendleton [Annotator's Note: Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, San Diego County, California] and one is being put up in San Diego. After the war, she was asked if she wanted to stay in and she did. She went to San Francisco [Annotator's Note: San Francisco, California] in the transportation department to make train reservations for personnel coming home. They kicked her out [Annotator's Note: Tidmore laughs] in August 1946.

Roberta Randolph "Randy" Tidmore, and everybody else, was scared the Nazis were going to take over Europe. When VE-Day [Annotator's Note: Victory in Europe Day, 8 May 1945] came, that was a big day to celebrate. Regarding VJ-Day [Annotator's Note: Victory Over Japan Day, 15 August 1945], the things that had been going on were so horrific and awful, it was scary. It is terrible to say she hated the Japanese, but she did. When the war ended, almost all the boys she knew from the university that she had danced with had been killed. They were all happy it was over. They did not go downtown in San Diego [Annotator's Note: San Diego, California] because of all the sailors. She went to get a banana cream pie right across from the entrance to the Marine base. In the barracks, they celebrated with that. She got a transfer. Mo [Annotator's Note: her best friend; no last name given] transferred with her to San Francisco [Annotator's Note: San Francisco, California]. They had an apartment and did not work long hours. They had a good time. When they got out [Annotator's Note: in August 1946], they went to Los Angeles [Annotator's Note: Los Angeles, California] and got an apartment. They lived on 52-20 [Annotator's Note: a government-funded program that paid unemployed veterans 20 dollars per week for 52 weeks]. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Tidmore if she met any interesting men or heard any stories when she was making their train reservations to go home.] She did not. She would hear stories about how horrible everything was, but no particular stories and she did not meet any men. One time she was sitting and having a drink. A man walked up and a Navy girl with her named Kelly [Annotator's Note: no last name given], was really cute. The man offered to buy them a drink to stop and keep his girlfriend busy while he went to shower. There was no girlfriend. He came back after he cleaned up to get a date with Kelly. Tidmore thinks that was pretty clever.

Roberta Randolph "Randy" Tidmore was discharged in August 1946 as a sergeant. She used the G.I. Bill twice. She went to work with United [Annotator's Note: United Airlines, Incorporated] as a stewardess out of Salt Lake City [Annotator's Note: Salt Lake City, Utah]. She did not want to go back to school, but she started to learn to fly. She got hours of solo flight but could not make herself do a spin. She was up for an hour and 15 minutes, but could not do it, so she never got her license. Her older sister lived in Flint, Michigan. Her husband died and she had two children. She moved to California. Tidmore bought a house on the G.I. Bill, and they lived together. Tidmore's most memorable experience of World War 2 is crossing in front of a general [Annotator's Note: as a driver in the Marine Corps, she did not stop for a general's car, lost her license, and was assigned to menial tasks for nine months]. She knew for sure she was being made an example of. Tidmore served because it was the thing to do. She loves her country and did not want to lose her freedom. Her grandmother, whom she lived with from age 12, had lived in Germany. She was watched all during the war, to be sure she was not part of any conspiracy. Every letter she got from her family had been opened. Her father had been in World War 1. Tidmore hopes that everybody would feel that way now, if the country was attacked. She became a much better person by being in the Marine Corps. It would not hurt everybody to have a year or two of military life. Tidmore thinks the military found out they needed women. Nobody knew until after the war, is that a woman broke the Japanese code along with the Code Indians [Annotator's Note: Native American code talkers were people employed by the military to use a little-known language as a means of secret communication]. A woman in Washington, D.C. broke the Nazi code. Women can do a lot to help. Tidmore did not think she was smart enough to be anything. Her service means a lot. She still belongs to the Women Marines Association and Women in Military Service. Maybe eventually New Orleans [Annotator's Note: The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana] will have a building just for women. It is a wonderful museum. She went on the Gary Sinise [Annotator's Note: Gary Alan Sinise; American actor, director, musician, producer, philanthropist] flight [Annotator's Note: the Gary Sinise Foundation, a charity and veterans services organization, sponsors trips to The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana for World War 2 veterans] with 20 veterans and 20 students who had a parent in the service. Tidmore thinks it is wonderful because they do not have any idea of what World War 2 was about. It is not taught. It is wonderful that he is doing that. People need to be kept aware of what happened, and they certainly can by seeing the museum [Annotator's Note: The National WWII Museum].