Sterling Baker was born in October 1924 in Texas. His mother and grandmother raised five children during the Great Depression. They moved from Sour Lake to Tomball [Annotator's Note: both in Texas] by wagon, pulling a milk cow along. The next he remembers he was in Hearne, Texas. His parents separated. His mother was a waitress and his grandmother took in laundry. They had a garden and Baker would ride into town and help sell produce. He also delivered the newspaper and went to school. They did not wear shoes. Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker [Annotator's Note: Clyde Chestnut Barrow and Bonnie Elizabeth Parker, American criminal couple; killed by police 1934] got killed and he thought that when he grew up, he was going to get the people who killed them. He later became the Chief of Police at the University of Houston, [Annotator's Note: Houston, Texas] so he disregarded that. He quit school and joined the NYA, National Youth Administration. He was in the gym playing basketball one night. He thought a guy tripped him. The guy threw the basketball at him. He told Baker to leave the gym and to not come back until he could conduct himself like a gentleman. This man was his counselor in his barracks. The man invited him to go home with him on the weekend. Baker took him up and went to Lexington, Texas. Baker loved it and the man invited him to move up there. He told him he would have to quit smoking, cussing, and drinking and go to school. Baker took him up on it. In May 1942, he quit school and had to go win the war. He went to Houston and joined and on 7 May 1942 he went to Great Lakes, Illinois for training and volunteered for submarines. He was shipped to Norfolk, Virginia and was put into the amphibious force as a coxswain [Annotator's Note: pilot of landing craft].

Sterling Baker was training in the Chesapeake Bay when he learned his unit had gone on leave and he did not get to. He hitchhiked around the coast [Annotator's Note: to join them]. On that trip, he met his wife. He asked officers on the street what to do [Annotator's Note: apparently he was Absent Without Leave, AWOL]. They told him to go back. He returned to Norfolk [Annotator's Note: Norfolk, Virginia] and his ship was out on the bay training. He went to a Marine Corps base. He got a court-martial and was on the ship. He saw a note one day for eight volunteers. He signed up and was shipped to Little Creek, Virginia [Annotator's Note: Amphibious Training Base] and went through about three weeks of training. He received swim trunks and a Navy knife and scabbard. They were then shipped out to the USS Almaack (AKA-10) in New York. Someone on the ship asked them if they were the suicide squad, the Amphibious Scouts. He was put on the bridge as a gunner across the Atlantic. He stayed aboard ship as a gunner on the 20mm [Annotator's Note: Oerlikon 20mm automatic cannon] and the forward three inch gun. They went to Scotland and then to North Africa invading Algiers [Annotator's Note: Algiers, Algeria]. They were under air attacks there. They had not had much training in aircraft identification. They learned Junkers 88s [Annotator's Note: German Junkers Ju-88 multirole combat aircraft] and 109s [Annotator's Note: German Messerschmitt Bf-109 or Me-109 fighter aircraft]. 88s [Annotator's Note: German 88mm multi-purpose artillery] bothered them most. After the invasion, they were off the coast of Portugal and were torpedoed. Two ships were sunk. Baker was taken with his crew to Gibraltar. The ship was later towed back to the United States. A steam engine could have gone into the hole in the side of the ship. He believes they lost eight men. He volunteered to check for damage in the holds. He was transferred to Casablanca [Annotator's Note: Casablanca, Morocco]. They were bombed all the time they were there.

Sterling Baker was transferred out in the country to a Navy ammunition dump as a guard [Annotator's Note: near Casablanca, Morocco]. There were acres of Army gear nearby with hardly any guards. They walked to a café and people started hollering and screaming at them. There were some military people beating some Arabs. They went back to their base. In June 1943 they got word they were going back to the United States. They were aboard the USS George Washington [Annotator's Note: USAT George Washington]. They took back 10,000 German troops. Baker would check out ten prisoners every day to go topside. They were put on board their ship while it was being repaired. They left there for the Pacific. They participated in nearly every invasion in the Pacific. They were attacked by kamikazes. He saw the USS Houston (CA-30) get torpedoed at Leyte [Annotator's Note: Leyte, Philippines]. Iwo Jima [Annotator's Note: Iwo Jima, Japan] was the last invasion that he made. He returned to the United States in 1945 and was stationed at Naval Air Station Alameda [Annotator's Note: Alameda, California] on a crash boat. He was discharged and applied for a job at the railroad. He only did that to get his discharge there. He hitchhiked to Hearne [Annotator's Note: Hearne, Texas].

Sterling Baker was on the invasions of Kwajalein [Annotator's Note: Kwajalein, Marshall Islands] and Enewetok [Annotator's Note: Eniwetok, Marshall Islands]. They carried both soldiers and Marines. Saipan [Annotator's Note: Saipan, Mariana Islands] sticks out in his mind. He could see people jumping off the cliffs there. They had a lot of air attacks. At night, they had to guard the ship against swimmers. They lost some ships. At Tinian [Annotator’s Note: Tinian, Mariana Islands], their ship was one of the first to transport medium tanks for the Army, Sherman tanks [Annotator's Note: M4 Sherman Medium Tank]. They had LCMs [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft, Mechanized] aboard ship. Baker would be in charge of unloading a hold of the ship. He got out in October 1945. He got married in June 1945. He got a job in an oil field. He had some children. He came home one weekend and Dr. Rhodes [Annotator's Note: person who had taken him in before the war] was a football coach. Rhodes got him a job on the campus police force and told him he could go out for football under the G.I. Bill, in August 1949. In 1953, he was asked to be the Chief of Police.

Sterling Baker was on the invasion of Saipan [Annotator's Note: Saipan, Mariana Islands]. When he was in Leyte [Annotator's Note: Leyte, Philippines], the ships were shooting at planes and bullets were flying through the ship. He thinks he got a piece of shrapnel in his head. A fellow aboard ship was an artist and he drew a picture of Baker with his head bandaged. When they were at Ulithi [Annotator's Note: Ulithi Atoll, Caroline Islands, Micronesia], they were working at anchor and heard an explosion. An LCM [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft, Mechanized] off the bow had turned over. Baker and others went over to it. There was a sailor on the ramp. Baker dove in and the sailor's thigh bone was showing. The sailor warned them of mines. The officer aboard the boat was commended which bothered Baker. They used a smoke screen in Leyte to protect them from kamikazes. They could not see anything. They were just about surrounded by the Japanese fleet. It was scary. In November [Annotator's Note: November 1944], they returned to Leyte and shot down a plane. Baker's gun mount was on the flying bridge. Planes would be coming in and he would not shoot. The officer behind him would tell him to shoot. He had been a hunter so he would wait until they got in close. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks him details of other ships and actions and invasions.] His service record does not say Scouts and Raiders [Annotator's Note: US Navy special operations unit]. He heard stories that his group started the SEALS [Annotator's Note: US Navy Sea, Air, and Land (SEAL) Teams; primary special operations force], but he does not know. He attended a reunion of Scouts and Raiders. He tells people he thinks he started the SEALS. During that time, they were called frogmen. One admiral told him that he thought Baker was the last living of the eight and that they were at least on the cutting edge if not one of the first ones. He was never utilized with that training and was a gunner instead. He tried to get into the submarines again and passed the tests, but his skipper would not let him go.

Sterling Baker's records say that at Casablanca [Annotator's Note: Casablanca, Morocco] he was patrolling a lagoon, but he does not recall that. What he remembers about Guam [Annotator's Note: Guam, Mariana Islands], is that he went ashore and ate coconuts. He got back aboard his ship [Annotator's Note: USS Almaack (AKA-10)] and there were lines of men to use the latrine. A Chief got some paper and lit it and put in the latrine. Back when they were heading to Algiers [Annotator's Note: Algiers, Algeria], Junkers Ju-88s [Annotator's Note: Junkers Ju-88s multirole combat aircraft] would attack them. They were good. It was scary. It was about seven months after he joined. They were torpedoed on a Sunday morning [Annotator's Note: 12 November 1942] and he was in his bunk. They had no light at all and had to go out an escape hatch. He got about halfway up the ladder and was pulled down. He will never forget that. When he was training in Chesapeake Bay, he was on the USS Leonard Wood (APA-12) part of the time, and the Thomas Thorn [Annotator's Note: USS Thomas Stone (APA-29)] part of the time. Both of them were sunk in the African campaign.

[Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Sterling Baker if he recalls a wide variety of ships being hit. He does not]. After Iwo Jima [Annotator's Note: Iwo Jima, Japan], they took on some wounded people, but he does not recall too much about it. They went back to Honolulu [Annotator's Note: Honolulu, Hawaii]. The USS Almaack (AKA-10) often traveled alone. They had too much ammunition on board. Before they got torpedoed, it was one of the cleanest ships. It had a good reputation and had received several commendations. It was an exceptional ship. Baker was in Lexington, Texas going to school on VJ-Day [Annotator's Note: Victory Over Japan Day, 15 August 1945]. Their radio was very seldom turned on. [Annotator's Note: Baker confuses the question and talks about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941.] His mother came out and told them Pearl Harbor had been attacked. Baker had just turned 17 in October 1942 and had talked about joining. Everybody tried to talk him out of it. He stayed until May 1942 and then he hitchhiked to Houston [Annotator's Note: Houston, Texas] to volunteer. He was at Naval Air Station Alameda [Annotator's Note: Alameda, California] when the war ended.

Sterling Baker was in the National Youth Administration and trained to be a carpenter. He was also in charge of the Army mules and wagons. They used the mules to make ball fields. The war was the best education that he could ever get. He grew up and became a man. He graduated from the University of Houston [Annotator's Note: in Houston, Texas] without having finished high school. The diploma did not mean as much as his Navy time. He is very grateful to have been able to do what he did and to have gotten home. He thinks that every individual should serve time in the service. He thinks that is needed to get this country back. A lot of young people have no guidance and no direction. World War 2 put a lot of Americans back to work. Germany was having problems in that time. Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler] did some good for his country and some terrible things that he did not have to do. Roosevelt [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States], being forced to get in a war, did a lot of good for the country. Truman [Annotator's Note: Harry S. Truman, 33rd President of the United States] never got the recognition that he should have gotten. He saved a lot of men's lives by dropping the atomic bomb [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, 6 and 9 August 1945]. He made a decision that not many people would make. Baker looks up to him. It is unfortunate that so many had to suffer for it. It is unfortunate for any war. Baker does not like them. The war changed the rest of the world. It made everybody respect everybody a little better. It helped our country create a feeling that everybody is of one regardless of color. It has helped pull people together. [Annotator's Note: Baker gets slightly emotional.] He thinks it also created a lot of problems for people. Countries and cultures were divided worldwide. The human race has a long way to go yet. If it were not for The National WWII Museum [Annotator's Note: in New Orleans, Louisiana], how would the younger generation understand how the past put them where they are today. His generation has seen so much. His sister had infantile paralysis when she was four and that has been obliterated. Man has been on the moon. He lived in a tent city in Corpus Christi [Annotator's Note: Corpus Christi, Texas] and his dad caught a big fish. Little kids were eating it raw. As a kid, he lived in the woods and on the river. He got an education there. He got to see a lot of the world. He learned a lot. He learned to respect other people.