William Pierce was born in Queens Village Long Island, New York in January 1925. He grew up in Queens and attended Catholic high school there. Between home and the Catholic schools, he experienced discipline at an early age. His father owned an automobile repair shop during the Depression. His father was a good craftsman and manager so the family never wanted during the Depression. There was always good food and enough to eat. Life was safe and good for Pierce. Pierce felt that the parents of the World War 2 veterans were the greatest generation because of their discipline and sacrifice for their children who went on to serve during the war. Pierce had a sister and two brothers. One brother who was in the United States Army Air Forces as a flight tower director in the China-Burma-India Theater advised Pierce not to go into armor because tanks were very vulnerable to enemy fire. When Pierce learned of Pearl Harbor, he did not know the impact until days later. After graduation, Pierce tried to get into the Navy. He was not able to because enlistments were filled. After seeing his cousin return from Guadalcanal as a Marine, Pierce was impressed. He tried to join in 1943, but the Marines were not allowing any enlistments. He did receive a letter recognizing his efforts so when his draft notice came, he was able to join the Marines as a result of his good health and the letter. The next thing he knew, he was headed to Parris Island, North Carolina for training.

William Pierce was in Parris Island boot camp for eight weeks. He did what he was told and experienced the rigors of training and the harsh punishments for not keeping in line with expectations. The environment was hot and uncomfortable. On a couple of occasions, Pierce even fainted as a result of some of the harsh experiences. Pierce's graphic descriptions of the hardships of boot camp help explain the ingrained United States Marine Corps discipline and training.

William Pierce never fired a rifle until he was in the Marine Corps. He became a marksman and then an expert rifleman. He first trained with a .22 caliber rifle and then with an M1. He knew that all the men with him in combat knew what they were doing with their weapons. The training was very good. There was some training with the BAR [Annotator's Note: Browning Automatic Rifle]. Pierce loved the BAR on Okinawa. It is a fine weapon even though it dated back to World War 1. There were three BARs to 12 men. The 12 men comprised a squad. The 30 men in a Marine platoon had nine BARs. The Japanese would aim at automatic weapons men or men who had shoulder holstered pistols, and medics. Even though the M1 was powerful and effective at long range, the .30 caliber carbine was the preferred weapon for Pierce because it was easier to carry as a weapons unit man. It also provided more flexibility at close range against Japanese in caves. Pierce would exchange his M1 for a carbine with a buddy that wanted to switch. The carbine became Pierce's weapon of choice unless he used the BAR in certain cases.

After Parris Island, William Pierce went to Hingham, Massachusetts which housed a huge naval ammunition manufacturing and storage site. [Annotator's Note: Hingham served as the main ammunition storage depot for the United States Atlantic Fleet.] He was posted on guard duty there. He carried a Reising machine gun [Annotator's Note: Reising M50 submachine gun] but did not care for it because of its unreliability. While on night guard duty in a jeep with a BAR [Annotator's Note: Browning Automatic Rifle], he was reprimanded for not recognizing an officer in the correct military manner. On another night, he shredded the tires on the jeep, and after that, he had no more duty involving a jeep. Pierce would alternate days of guard duty with days of liberty. The base commanding officer was an older man who could not serve overseas so a place was found for him domestically. Pierce had some good and some bad officers and non-commissioned officers. Pierce was caught sleeping on guard duty one time but his sergeant did not punish him. Once on Okinawa, a buddy slept on watch and almost got them killed. During his tenure in Massachusetts, Pierce learned to walk guard duty while he slept. One individual accidentally fired his .45 caliber pistol and nearly shot someone in an adjacent room. The shooter was put in confinement. His buddies took such good care of him while he was incarcerated that he was overweight when he was released.

William Pierce remembers a buddy being wounded on Okinawa. It was the same buddy who had fired a shot erroneously and been confined in the stockade in Hingham, Massachusetts. The remarkable thing about the wound was that it was a head wound that had entry and exit on the opposite sides of the temple. The man never lost his sight or experienced long term negative effects. It is a surprising story of a Marine being wounded, brought to the rear, being hospitalized, and then recovering.

William Pierce went to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina following his tour in Hingham, Massachusetts. Because he had been trained on multiple weapons at Hingham, he was assigned to a weapons company. He trained on the 37mm anti-tank and anti-personnel gun. It was accurate up to two miles. During the Okinawa campaign, the weapons company used the 37mm to cover the Marines as they assaulted strong points. It was mainly used to clean up the enemy that remained in the rear of the advancing Marines. When the 37mm was used at night, both Japanese soldiers and civilians would often be killed. The Japanese would send civilians out to trigger the Marine warning flares that indicated infiltration. The Marines could not distinguish good Japanese from bad Japanese at night so many civilians were killed by being forced by their own army into these probes. The Japanese army had no mercy on the civilians on Okinawa. In the beginning of the campaign, the Japanese had considerable fire power, but that dwindled over the course of the battle. The US Navy would also fire parachute flares over the Marine positions to illuminate possible infiltrating enemy soldiers. One night, one of the Navy flares fell into the foxhole that Pierce and his buddy occupied. They had to quickly bail out to avoid being burned.

William Pierce had steak and eggs before boarding the Higgins Boat [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft Vehicle, Personnel, or LCVP] for Okinawa. They hit a reef before reaching the beach and were forced to exit the landing craft. Their 37mm gun went down in water over four feet. An alligator tractor [Annotator's Note: Landing Vehicle, Tracked, also known s an alligator or amtrack] helped them move the gun to the beach. Fireworks were going off all over the area that night. One Marine who was killed early had a pearl handled pistol. The pistol was missing from the corpse. The casualty report stated that he died of an armpit wound. Pierce feels that someone wanted the pistol and shot the Marine in order to get it. Pierce thought he knew who did it. The suspected individual went mad in China after the end of the war.

William Pierce was assigned to Weapons Company, 29th Regiment [Annotator's Note: Weapons Company, 29th Marine Regiment, 6th Marine Division] at Camp Lejeune. The training was realistic and very good. Points were made as to survival techniques while in a shooting war. The lessons were remembered. Night training included live fire with silhouettes suddenly coming into view. The troops were placed in pits with silhouettes appearing in motion before them. Live fire was common. The 37mm gun that Pierce manned was a noisy weapon. There were four 37mm guns to a platoon with six or seven men to each gun. There were three platoons of 37mm guns in a weapons company. There were eight M-7 tanks [Annotator's Note: M-7 Priest 105mm self propelled artillery]. There was one .50 caliber machine gun to each platoon. The .50 caliber was deployed rarely because of severe shortages in the weapons. It was a good weapon when advancing ridge to ridge. The machine gun would draw fire so the gunner was admonished not to fire too much. The weapons were so rare that stateside training was very limited. There was an air cooled .30 caliber with each gun, but it was rarely needed because the enemy never closed enough to threaten the gunners. The 37mm shell was effective against Japanese armor but would not have been against heavier armored tanks such as those deployed by the Americans or Germans. Pierce never saw an enemy tank on Okinawa. Their gun fired only high explosive shells against personnel. Pierce's job was gunner on the 37mm, but each crewman knew how to do all the jobs in case someone was wounded. The 37mm could fire rapidly when needed. Pierce explains in detail deployment of the gun and the actions of its crew. Pierce never had malaria overseas. He only contracted it when he returned home. The medication given to the Marines to prevent malaria seemed to be effective. Tropical diseases were common before Okinawa but limited during that campaign. From Camp Lejeune, Pierce was sent to California where he assisted in loading the ship with the equipment for his weapons company in preparation for overseas deployment.

Deployment overseas for William Pierce was originally to be to Saipan. Because that battle had ended, Pierce's ship was diverted to Guadalcanal. One of the three battalions in the 29th Regiment [Annotator's Note: 29th Marine Regiment] did arrive on Saipan, but the other two battalions went to Guadalcanal. Those two battalions were landed using DUKWs [Annotator's Note: an amphibious truck]. Pierce's unit was stationed close to the ocean. They were ordered to learn to swim. Pierce taught a buddy how to dog paddle through repeated practice. Derelict enemy ships were beached close to them, but they were ordered not to go on the marooned ships. Training was extensive in the hot weather. The Marines were trained to carry just two canteens of water. Pierce learned to use chewing tobacco to control his thirst. His commanding officer was not a good officer. Pierce had a dislike for him when he made his troops remove their ponchos in rainy weather so they would learn to fight while wet. There were other incidents that made Pierce dislike the officer even more. That officer was relieved of command shortly after the start of the Okinawa campaign. The harshness of training and confinement on Guadalcanal is revealed by Pierce as he further explains why he disliked certain officers.

William Pierce tells the story of his duty on Guam while he was training for the invasion of the Japanese home islands. The atomic bombs were dropped so the invasion of Japan never happened. One duty he had to do was throw Marine sea bags on a large fire. Civilians would attempt to steal from the bags before they burned. It came to be known that the bags were personal effects from dead Marines from Okinawa. Those government and personal items all went into the fire rather than transport home to the family.

William Pierce recounts an instance of Japanese night time infiltration [Annotator's Note: during combat operations on Okinawa]. He discusses a near fatal assault by a Japanese soldier that he experienced that was associated with the incident. He discusses his reaction and the feelings he had toward the enemy infiltrator. Pierce's feelings of disgust toward his platoon commander are evident. Conversely, the respect for his immediate sergeant is expressed. The discussions of personalities and decisions in combat are revealing about who responded to pressure and who did not.

William Pierce reveals a lucky find of a BAR [Annotator's Note: Browning Automatic Rifle] trigger assembly with a hand grip that he discovered during an otherwise bad assignment concerning a Marine assault on a Japanese held mountain. He used it on a BAR on Okinawa. Pierce was assigned with a reconnaissance patrol to bring up his two 37mm guns to support the group. The action was near the Naha waterfront. An island loaded with Japanese was just offshore. The 37mm guns were sighted in and blasted the island. Pierce saw that the recon team had Nambu machine guns. They claimed the Japanese gun worked well. The team spotted the Japanese from the island advancing on them over a causeway. Pierce had his chance to use his BAR. It jammed. When he turned to clear the action, he was hit in the back of the neck. Soon the Marines had to exit their position. As they were leaving, a Marine Corsair [Annotator's Note: Vought F4U Corsair fighter aircraft] flew over and strafed them. Luckily, the fire missed them. With the green uniforms the Marines wore, they must have been made for Japanese so the fighters strafed them. Pierce got back to the aid station and was treated for the neck wound. Seeing some badly wounded troops in the station, Pierce left as quickly as he could. On his way back to his unit, he asked a Marine who was repairing weapons about the hand grip on the BAR and whether it could be worked so it did not jam. The repairman replied that the hand grip trigger assembly was for a CAR, or Colt Automatic Rifle, not a BAR. [Annotator's Note: In the 1930s, Colt produced a weapon similar in appearance to the BAR except for its pistol grip and larger Cutts compensator on the barrel. It fired the same .30 caliber round as did the Browning Automatic Rifle. The Colt weapon was called the Monitor Model R80 or Colt Automatic Machine Rifle. There was a limited issuance of this weapon to some Marine units.] It would require quite a bit of effort to prevent it from jamming. Pierce figured that the faulty CAR trigger assembly inserted into the BAR saved his life. If he had not turned, he would have been hit in the face with the enemy round. Additionally, the neck wound was very close to the spinal column which, if hit, could have meant death or a lifetime of being paralyzed. It was a bit of luck for Pierce. On another occasion, Pierce and his 37mm gun crew were commended in the field for their destruction of a Japanese mortar crew on a hill. On one firing mission on Okinawa, a buddy who drove a truck hit a Japanese mine. The man died from the concussion. His luck had run out even though he had been very helpful friend to Pierce and his crew.

William Pierce had good duty for the six or seven months that he was in China [Annotator's Note: serving occupation duty after the war]. They were given easy duty and were left alone because of their recent experiences on Okinawa. When they emptied materials left behind by the Japanese after surrender, the Chinese civilians were scrambling for the items even though they were in very poor condition. The Chinese scavenged the Marine garbage cans for anything they could find. The Marines did come in contact with the Chinese Communists but the show of American force kept the Communists at bay. Pierce noticed the large amount of American weaponry carried by the Communist troops. There were few souvenirs picked up in China by Pierce. He brought very few items home with him when he returned to the United States from China.

William Pierce recounts the lack of success for the 37mm gun in Europe. He discusses a Marine Medal of Honor recipient from the Okinawa campaign and their views toward the success of the 37mm in the Pacific campaign. The attacks made by Marines up a hill often used the 37mm to suppress enemy action from caves in the rear of the American advance. When the enemy set up a position outside a cave, the 37mm would fire on that location. With many individual enemy sappers, the 37mm could have been used to fire on one or two enemy soldiers at a time instead of targeting groups of the enemy. In retrospect, it was lost opportunities. When the enemy climbed on American tanks, Pierce thought he should have shot them off the American tanks. This might have been fatal to the crewmen inside the tank since gasoline instead of diesel fueled the tanks on Okinawa. The American vehicle might have ignited as a result of Pierce's friendly fire. Mines were a peril for the American tanks. Pierce saw tanks upended or overturned as a result of mine explosions. Pulling the 37mm gun up a hill was difficult. As a result, Pierce had little experience during the battle for Sugar Loaf Hill on Okinawa. Pierce's battery was much more efficient during the southern campaign near the Naha coast. The Japanese used burial tombs as bunkers. The 37mm would fire on the tombs and destroy the enemy resistance. Pierce's guns had to be moved quickly after a fire mission because the enemy would target the battery. The Japanese retreat from Shuri Castle was a success because they disguised themselves as civilians to reset their position. At Naha, there was street fighting against an invisible enemy. Bullets would be going by and the gun crew would return fire even though the enemy shooter's position was not visible. The fighting on the peninsula against the Japanese Navy personnel was more intense than the Naha combat. Tunnels under the surface were used to reinforce the enemy after the Marines inflicted heavy losses. The 29th Marine Regiment received the Presidential Citation for the fight on Sugar Loaf Hill. [Annotator's Note: The 6th Marine Division was decorated with the Presidential Unit Citation for heroism on Okinawa.]

William Pierce hated the Japanese before landing on Okinawa. Propaganda influenced his animosity. His feelings were even more negatively affected after seeing the abuse the enemy performed on Marines who had been killed or captured. The sight of dead Japanese did not bother Pierce at all. On Okinawa, Pierce went through underground caves where Japanese were dead or being killed. There were extensive tunnels dug by the enemy that connected the caves. Some caves even had Japanese comfort women in them. Some of the Marines enjoyed the company of the females they captured. Pierce's weapons unit [Annotator's Note: Weapons Company, 29th Marine Regiment, 6th Marine Division] often had the advantage of view on Japanese caves. As a result, the Japanese would not come out of the caves facing the American guns. On rare occasions, enemy artillery fired at Pierce, and he knew the fear from incoming rounds. An incoming Japanese artillery bombardment was a frightening experience. Okinawa civilians were more prevalent in the north end of the island. It was an agricultural area with farm lands. The Marines were usually nice to the civilians who gave up. Collateral damage was obvious in the north, but in the south, the civilians would occupy caves with the Japanese soldiers. The worst fight for Pierce was when the Japanese attacked his 37mm guns with civilians interspersed with them. The loss of life was terrible. There would be multiple civilians killed with only a few Japanese soldiers in the middle of them. There was sorrow for the Japanese civilians but not enough to stop them from fighting. It only confirmed his hatred for the enemy. He lost no sleep when the enemy soldiers killed themselves.

William Pierce looked at the invasion of Japan as just another battle. His Marine regiment [Annotator's Note: Pierce served as a gunner on a 37mm anti-tank gun in Weapons Company, 29th Marine Regiment, 6th Marine Division] was due to land in February 1946. They would have more time to rest and refit after Okinawa because of the severe losses of the battle for Okinawa. It was not until after the war that they learned how many casualties were projected. When the atomic bombs were dropped there was considerable celebration. After the war, the 29th Regiment was sent to China. The surrender of the individual Japanese troops was not certain after the Emperor said to do so. The enemy largely followed the Emperor's direction. There were some encounters with the enemy where Marines would manhandle Japanese troops because of the cruelties they performed toward Chinese civilians. Occupation duty in China was not bad duty. Some officers were more acceptable than others. Pierce recognized the respect and admiration the country feels for World War 2 Marines.

William Pierce returned to San Francisco in March 1946. He was discharged in April 1946. He was shipped back to New York on a train with terrible sanitary conditions and overcrowded sleeping arrangements. He had skin diseases upon arrival at home. Pierce was busted from corporal to private first class at discharge. If he had made sergeant, he would have stayed in the Marines. He might have gone to Korea as a result. His transition to civilian life included lots of girls and fun in his father's car that had been customized for Pierce's use. He never suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder even though he saw some Marines coming off the front line who had battle fatigue. Some would be just sitting on the side of the road with no reaction to orders. Sugar Loaf Hill was particularly bad about bringing on battle fatigue. Pierce's platoon was part of a weapons company [Annotator's Note: Weapons Company, 29th Marine Regiment, 6th Marine Division] so it did not lose as many men as a Marine assault company. On Guam and in China, Pierce was with some of the same men he was with at Hingham before he was deployed. This helped with sharing experiences and preventing PTSD. The timing of a Marine's return was based on a point system for experiences, duration in combat and other factors. When he left the Corps and returned home, the street had been decorated for his homecoming. It was a good welcome home. He rode a bike for a year and then went to college. His major was business. He found some of the college courses irrelevant when he compared them to his combat experience. He lasted two years and then got out of school. He went to work for his father in his car repair shop, but he hated that.

William Pierce felt it was his patriotic duty to fight during the Second World War. The Japanese had attacked the United States and there were many young men who felt the same. The war changed his life by making him realize the comradeship of the Marine Corps. Long after the war, the Marines still try to take care of their brother Marines. There was a tremendous competition with the Army. The Marines always felt they were better by comparison.