Wallace Edward Spencer, originally Wallace Smigirow, was born in Woodside, New York in October 1925. He has one older brother who served in the Air Force. His brother went in and wanted to be a pilot but they told him they had enough pilots. They had a different job for him. A "bombigator" was a bombineer and a navigator and he was one of the first men to have this job. He was on a B-24 [Annotator's Note: Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber] that got shot down. They got off the plane and all lived. He got a medal for walking his crew out because he knew which way to go. He did not want to go home and they did not want to send him home. He was back on a B-24. He got hit again and his eyes got cut up from the glass. They operated on him immediately. It took one and half years for him to get his eyesight back. He served in Europe and his name was Lee Spencer, also Smigirow at that time. Lee Spencer was the youngest officer in intelligence. He got out after the war. Spencer's father was a head chef in a restaurant in New York City [Annotator's Note: New York, New York]. Spencer grew up during the Great Depression [Annotator's Note: the Great Depression was a global economic depression that lasted through the 1930s]. They would play outside. He does not remember Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. His brother went in right away. His mother did not want him to join. He was working at a defense plant when he got his papers [Annotator's Note: his draft notice or notice to report for induction]. His boss told him he did not have to go because he worked at a defense plant. Spencer did not want that. He wanted to go into the service. He volunteered for the Navy. All the young guys were lined up [Annotator's Note: to volunteer for military service] after Pearl Harbor.

Wallace Spencer was in Sampson, New York [Annotator's Note: Naval Training Station Sampson in Sampson, New York] for a month of boot camp. They would get up between two and three in the morning and march for an entire day. Then he was sent home for a month. After furlough [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] he was put on a train to California. When he got to California he was assigned to the aircraft carrier USS Essex (CV-9). As he walked onto the ship he thought he was going to get killed and there was no reason to worry about it. When they took off they headed toward Hawaii, they were under attack. He was put on the 20mm gun [Annotator's Note: Oerlikon 20mm antiaircraft automatic cannon]. The next time they were under attack a bomb was dropped right next to his position. He was 60 feet above the water and the water came all the way up to him. They were making their own liquor and they had all the water in a compartment. They could only open the hatch a little bit and put the stuff in. Then after a few months, they opened the hatch to check the liquor and it blew up. It needed a vent to breathe and did not have one. They had a crew of 3,000 guys and they could smell the liquor. One guy came into the compartment and sniffed and told everyone else which compartment it was. He asked if they could have some. Spencer told him they could have as much as they wanted. They could lick the deck. It smelled all over the ship. He thought the ship was pretty big. His bunk was under the flight deck. He could get to his gun in minutes. He was the gunner. He was strapped to the gun. The man who was supposed to be his loader would disappear frequently, Spencer thinks out of fear. He would have to unstrap sometimes and load his own gun. He was on the deck force. He would sit below the bow for hours just watching the water. If a supply ship came they would do everything by rope. All the supplies would come onto the flight deck. They would move the planes then all the merchandise had to be put away, including the food. When the lights went out people would take cases of anything. Spencer had a case of fruit cocktail. The ship had no air conditioning. They would paint the whole ship in one day. The designs and the solid colors were painted by all 3,000 guys. The Japanese would listen in on radio communications so the men would fake that a new crew was coming in and they were going out. Tokyo Rose [Annotator's Note: nickname given by Allied servicemen to any English-speaking female radio personality broadcasting Japanese propaganda in the Pacific Theater] would get on the radio and say this and then tell the men they better hurry home or those other men would steal their girls. It was their entertainment. They wanted her to say the changing of the crews to mess with the Japanese.

Wallace Spencer remembers the air groups and the pilots stayed away from the sailors. In one attack, all the colored men [Annotator's Note: an ethnic descriptor historically used for Black people in the United States] were killed. They waited on the pilots. When they got attacked there was a terrible sound. He was in the mess hall, you cannot get lower in the ship than that, and the sound went off. This meant the planes were already diving. He had to make it up many steps in order to get to his gun on deck. He was running. By the time he got to the deck, the crew on watch had already shot them down. They shot down about ten planes. They had stopped one time at the island of Eniwetok [Annotator's Note: Enewetak Atoll, Marshall Islands]. The crew decided to throw a party on the island. Spencer and two other guys were in charge of carting the crew from the boat to the island. It was very hot. They had to take the beer over to the men. Spencer and the other two guys saved three cases for themselves, a case for each of them. Another time, his division was on watch and an officer was wanting him to take him over to the island. Spencer had never run that kind of boat before. The officer said it would be okay. It was an armored boat with torpedoes on board. It was a wooden boat and it had a flat front. This boat delivered the torpedoes to submarines. Spencer took them over to the island. When they got near land he could not see the dock because it was only six inches out of the water. He put the boat right into the dock and put a hole in the front of the boat. He was standing in the middle of the boat to run it and the officer went flying over the seats in the front. The officer saw the hole in the boat and told Spencer to take them back to the ship. He took it back to the ship and had to get three guys to get the boat up. One man to lift the boat. One man to get the water out of the boat. One man to patch the boat. They put a piece of lead on the boat to patch it. All the guys gave Spencer trouble about it. Typhoons were bad. One ripped the front of the flight deck off. The flight deck is 60 feet above the water and the ship extends 60 feet under the water. First, the water was coming over the flight deck and then you could look under the bow. The ship was going up and down 100 feet or so. There is no walking during this. Either you roll forward or break a knee. They would watch the destroyers disappear under the water. They tied the planes down and did not lose them. The USS Essex (CV-9) went all over. They would send their planes to go bomb and then the Marines would go in. They would stay and help them if they needed help. Then they would move on to the next island. He thought the Kamikazes [Annotator's Note: Japanese suicide bombers] were crazy and they were going to destroy all the ships. They did get a lot of ships. The Essex put their pilots' radios on the intercoms and listening to them during flights was their entertainment. Spencer was always happy on the ship. He got battle stars [Annotator's Note: a device worn on a campaign ribbon to indicate the number of campaigns a ship or individual took part in] and that is Navy to Navy, not the islands. He got ten Asiatic-Pacific medals when the war was over. He went to get a plaque and told the guy he had ten Asiatic-Pacific medals and the guy said there was no way he was in ten battles. Spencer told the guy he had two more for the Philippines. He has 12 out of 13 battles. He has so many because he stayed on the ship. He never left it or got transferred. The guy could not believe this. He only has one friend he can remember. He has pictures of them hanging on the five inch gun [Annotator's Note: five inch, 38 caliber naval gun].

Wallace Spencer and two others stole a whaleboat after the war. A wooden one. They were in Bremerton, Washington where they got discharged. They tied up to the ferry dock and went to have drinks. On their way back, one of the guys said the boat was out of the water. The lifeboat was out of the water because the tide had gone out. They let the boat down and it was sitting on two beams and it was a huge boat. They would need 50 guys to lift this boat. A PT boat [Annotator's Note: patrol torpedo boat] came by and they asked them for help. The PT boat was helping but nothing was happening. Then they told the guys on the PT boat they thought they had power, and then they hit the power and the boat hit the water and went under and popped back up. There was three feet of water in the boat. Spencer did not think the engine would start. It is a lifeboat and the engine can run underwater. They got back to the ship and their division was on watch. People were looking for them. They were told they could be dishonorably discharged for what they did. Each one of them had a bottle of Canadian Club [Annotator's Note: a bottle of liquor]. They gave one bottle to the man that lifted the lifeboat out of the water. He told them if they steal another boat to take him with them. They went to the man who let the water out of the boat and he was mad too. They gave him a bottle and he responded the same way the first man did. Next, they went to the officer who was just below the Captain. The officer told them they could be dishonorably discharged. They gave him the last bottle and he told them the next time they steal a boat they better take him. They had a great crew on the ship. They did not have to salute the officers when they got on board. Everything was regulation, but they could talk and have a good time.

Wallace Spencer remembers when they were under attack. All the guns were firing. The crew was sitting there watching them fire their guns. The officer in charge told them if they see a plane shoot it down. He told them not to wait for orders. They did what they were told. The admirals saw this and they put this officer in charge of the whole thing. There was an antiaircraft cruiser that was sent to protect a carrier that had been hit and had to leave formation. The cruiser shot everything down that got close to the carrier. Spencer thought his gun was good. He did not use the sights. He had to learn how to aim and hit the planes. He learned elevation on his own without training. He had no training on his gun prior to being on board. He did have one hour of training as the loader for the 40mm gun [Annotator's Note: Bofors 40mm antiaircraft automatic cannon]. Once he was on the 20mm gun [Annotator's Note: Oerlikon 20mm antiaircraft automatic cannon] he loved it. He did not like the 40mm. He cannot take credit for anything because there were so many guns shooting at the same plane. The Japanese would fly in between the carriers so they would end up shooting at each other. They know they shot the plane that was on the USS Enterprise (CV-6). It was a plane that was supposed to be launched. There was no pilot inside. Toward the end of the war, the Kamikaze [Annotator's Note: Japanese suicide bombers] fight got stronger. When the war ended the Japanese on the islands did not know and they kept coming. Spencer was scared he would get killed on his way home.

Wallace Spencer describes life aboard the USS Essex (CV-9). There was one man aboard who never took showers so they all got together and forced him in the shower. They scrubbed him down while he was bleeding. He always took showers after that. Then they told the officer he stank and needed to wash his clothes. The officer told him he better wash his clothes or else. The laundry was nothing to brag about but it got the job done. They had a barbershop. If a plane is in bad shape and coming in they made them go into the drink [Annotator's Note: they made them land in the water]. Then they pass them and the guys would be sitting on top of the plane. A destroyer would pick them up and bring them back to the ship. Then they would give all their ice cream to the destroyer. They could not eat the cold cuts because they were terrible. The cooks would put them in tomato sauce and they still could not eat it. One officer would eat with the crew and he thought the meal was terrible. He had it changed. He changed it to steak for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for a whole week. Halfway through they were all dying. They wanted the steak gone. When the lights went out, someone stole a big can of Spam [Annotator's Note: canned cooked pork made by Hormel Foods Corporation] and that was good. They had a hot plate that they cooked the Spam on. The guys also stole clothes. They were going to have their lockers checked and one guy had a bunch of clothes. Spencer helped him throw it overboard to get rid of the evidence.

Wallace Spencer is honored that he was able to serve. He did his job and it was an honor to do it. His hat helped him get girls to dance with him. He went to a reunion and he danced with all the girls there. Three of his grandchildren are married. One of his grandsons made him their best man. He went on a tour on a ship. He loved being at sea for a year and a half. He would still be there but the war ended. He knew the Japanese were surrendering. He was in Tokyo [Annotator's Note: Tokyo, Japan] at the end. They took all the planes off and took on passengers. They had Army, Navy, and others with a total of 3,000 passengers. There was an officer who lost his mind, he was sending everyone to get killed. He was a passenger. There was a boot in the hanger and when the lights went out that officer went in the boot and hit fire. The water came in with all the people in there. He later apologized to the crew for what he did. Spencer spent 90 percent of his time in the Navy on the ship [Annotator's Note: the USS Essex (CV-9)]. He was discharged in Bremerton [Annotator's Note: Bremerton, Washington]. He was a Seaman First Class. He did not want to stay in. He just wanted to go home. Spencer wanted to be an aircraft mechanic after the war. He worked for Slater's Electric after the war. He ran the assembly line. In the mechanic school, Spencer told them their tools were no good. He was teaching them how to do things. He was running a commercial pool. Spencer was a mama's boy when he went in and he was a man when he came out. When he got older he chased girls. His brother thought they should change their last name from Smigirow to Spencer after the war.