Voniedoe "Voni" or "Bus" Grimes was named after his uncle on his father's side. As a kid, he wanted a simple name like John or Harry and started going by Voni. He was born in Bamberg, South Carolina in 1922. His mother picked cotton on his grandfather's land, and his father worked in a cotton mill. A relative encouraged them to move to York [Annotator's Note: York, South Carolina] where they could make more money than in Bamberg. [Annotator's Note: There is a break in the interview.] Grimes signed up for a vocational school, learning sheet metal work. After he graduated, he was hired in the naval yard in Philadelphia [Annotator's Note: Philadelphia Naval Shipyard in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania]. He went back to school to become a mechanic. He was part of a team with two assistants and a welder. In 1941 when the war broke out [Annotator's Note: following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941], Grimes was still in school. He was not drafted until the end of 1943. In January 1944, he went into the service. He had six months of exemption for working in the Navy Yard, but that was it and then he was drafted.

Voniedoe "Voni" or "Bus" Grimes [Annotator's Note: after being drafted into the Army in late 1943] was first stationed at an Air Corps base where he worked on P-51s [Annotator's Note: North American P-51 Mustang fighter aircraft]. When the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945] was going on, Grimes was transferred to the 92nd Division [Annotator's Note: 92nd Infantry Division], an Afro-American division, because the Army was segregated at the time. He was on a bus with 11 other black men in South Carolina, and was told they had to go sit in the back which he did not understand, but followed the orders. At the camp, black and white soldiers were separated. They once went on a 25-mile hike with their packs. On the way back, P-51s strafed them. They dropped bags of flour and depending on where the flour hit you, you would have been considered either injured or dead. Grimes was transferred to an ordnance and ammunitions unit, the 246th Ordnance Battalion, in Oklahoma. Had he stayed with the 92nd, he would have been shipped out to Italy. The white troops thought black troops could not fight like them. They also did not want blacks to fly planes, but then there were the Tuskegee Airmen [Annotator's Note: primarily African-American military pilots of the 332d Fighter Group and 477th Bombardment Group] and everyone asked for the "Red Tails" [Annotator's Note: nicknamed as such because they painted the tails of their planes red]. Grimes was working in an office in Oklahoma. The black officers always had a white officer above them. The black troops went through a lot that the white troops did not.

Voniedoe "Voni" or "Bus" Grimes [Annotator's Note: drafted into the Army in late 1943] was transferred to the 246th Ordnance Ammunition Battalion [Annotator's Note: 246th Ordnance Battalion]. Before going overseas, he worked as a mail clerk and would distribute mail and censor outgoing mail. Black officers never got to do their own thing, they had to follow a white officer's orders because the whites thought they did not have the intelligence to do anything on their own. Grimes was sent overseas in 1944, and remained there for nine months before the surrender [Annotator's Note: Victory Over Japan Day, 15 August 1945]. He was first stationed in Guam [Annotator's Note: Guam, Mariana Islands]. The trip took 14 days by ship. Grimes' unit was responsible for getting ammunition to the Marines stationed there. He mostly worked in an office. White and black servicemen did not socialize together. He did not like segregation. Grimes' brother, in an engineer unit, was wounded by shrapnel and never received a Purple Heart [Annotator's Note: the Purple Heart Medal is an award bestowed upon a United States service member who has been wounded as a result of combat actions against an armed enemy].

Voniedoe "Voni" or "Bus" Grimes [Annotator's Note: serving in the US Army's 246th Ordnance Ammunition Battalion] sewed chevrons onto men's uniforms. He did not drink, smoke or gamble. They were given rations of beer, but he would sell his to other soldiers. This was on Saipan [Annotator's Note: Saipan, Mariana Islands] after the war. He would lend people money and make interest, and sent that money back to his wife in the United States. Grimes was always into physical fitness. Before he went overseas, he took six weeks of martial arts. [Annotator's Note: A telephone rings in the background.] After the war, he continued studying martial arts and got his black belt. Grimes was on Saipan when the war ended [Annotator's Note: Victory Over Japan Day, 15 August 1945]. Enemy combatants on Saipan did not know the war was over and continued fighting. They once founded a wounded Japanese soldier and made a stretcher out of their field jackets and carried him back to base. The man kept reaching for his pocket, which worried Grimes because the Japanese were known for never surrendering and exploding grenades to take men down with them. It turned out to be some sort of medicine, which Grimes gave to him.

Voniedoe "Voni" or "Bus" Grimes [Annotator's Note: serving in the US Army’s 246th Ordnance Battalion] only encountered one Japanese soldier during his service. After the war, Grimes and his wife were moving and stopped in a restaurant in Maryland where they did not serve black people. The waitress came and told them that they did not serve colored people, to which Grimes responded "I'm glad you don't because we don't eat them either." [Annotator's Note: Grimes laughs.] He did not allow himself to be intimidated. He was happy to get home to his family after the war. Grimes worked in the mail service before being sent overseas. He never had any problems with his superior officer because he respected him, and earned respect.