William Hall was born in Denver, Colorado in July 1920. His family soon moved to Green River, Wyoming where his father worked for the railroads in the mountainous country. After a few years, the family moved to Kansas City, Missouri where he was raised. His father worked for several railroads during those years and eventually became a yard master switchman. Hall's mother worked as a waitress at the train station. That work kept her very busy during customer arrivals at the station diner where she was employed. Hall, in his youth, fell on a horse trough and had a bad cut on his lip. The cut had to be stitched without anesthetic. The doctor complimented the young boy on his strength. Hall was known as "Scarface" after that. Life in Kansas City was run by Democratic Party office holders. Over the years, Hall transitioned from being a Democrat to a Republican. His father worked five to six days a week. That helped his father pay for Hall's college education. The schools and people were good in Kansas City. Hall played hooky a lot in high school. He was not at school when the Union Station Massacre occurred [Annotator's Note: a gangland shootout between criminals pitted against police and agents on 17 June 1933]. He observed all the shooting that happened at the station. Hall was a member of the National Guard from 1936 to 1939. As the Great Depression waned and times improved, Hall's father bought a new house in Kansas. Hall decided to enlist in the Marine Corps Reserve with a couple friends on 4 June 1940. His decision was based on input from two pilots who were neighbors. One had formerly flown for the Navy and the other had been a Marine pilot. On 1 October 1940, Hall was called up for active duty.

Despite his father's initial objection, William Hall was excited to be activated as a Marine. Hall was sent to San Diego [Annotator's Note: Marine Corps Recruit Depot, San Diego, California] for his training. Hall had an uncle who was a master sergeant on the base. It was a growth time for Hall. He was happy. As a reservist who had been called up for active duty, he bypassed boot camp training. Issued a uniform, he was sent directly to North Island where the large Marine and Navy air base was located. He trained there until he was sent to school at Jacksonville, Florida. Transiting through the Panama Canal on that voyage, he worked in the mess hall. While in Florida, he was a member of a large contingent of Marines serving as an honor guard for President Roosevelt [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States]. The weather was hot and the wool uniforms heavy. Men were passing out until someone wised up and told the men to stand at ease. The experience agitated Hall. When the Marines were dismissed after two hours, Hall ran to get water and remove the wool uniform. After graduation from the ordnance school at Jacksonville, he went by rail back to the West Coast. The ride was fabulous and full of adventures recounted by Hall. Making it back to San Diego, Hall remained there for a year until deployment. His mother joined him in San Diego.

William Hall reached North Island and was assigned to one of two Marine Corps fighter units being organized. Fighter squadrons 211 [Annotator's Note: Marine Fighting Squadron 211 (VMF-211)] and 221 [Annotator's Note: Marine Fighting Squadron 221 (VMF-221)] were forming up and Hall was sent to VMF-211. VMF-211 was deployed first and sent to Wake Island. After six months, VMF-221 received word that they were going to relieve 211. Orders had directed the unit's departure from San Diego [Annotator's Note: San Diego, California] on 7 December 1941 destined for Wake Island. The squadron was excited, even though they did not know where Wake Island was located. The planes were put aboard the carrier Saratoga [Annotator's Note: USS Saratoga (CV-3)]. There seemed an uproar on 7 December prior to the men finding out about Pearl Harbor. Hall was angry at the Japanese for the attack and then considered the extent of preparation and experience the enemy had and became more circumspect. The Navy took the squadron's new planes and gave the Marines the old Brewster Buffalos [Annotator's Note: F2A fighter] that had been on the Saratoga. The Buffalos shot through the propeller. Hall had to learn quickly how to synchronize the machine gun firing so as not to damage the propeller. The older Marine planes were stored in the overhead of the Saratoga's hanger deck. Boot camp sailors were crammed aboard the carrier before it departed. The carrier patrolled the West Coast for some days until the small convoy headed west. On 16 December, the ship entered Pearl Harbor. The sailors were angered by what they observed. Following a brief stay and disembarking the newly trained sailors, the Saratoga headed to Midway and then made for Wake Island. Before the ship could reached Wake, the island surrendered. The ammunition Devereux [Annotator's Note: then US Marine Corps Major, later Brigadier General, James P. S. Devereux, commanding officer of the 1st Defense Battalion on Wake Island] needed was on the Saratoga. The ship returned to Midway and crossed the International Dateline with the associated ceremony. It crossed on Christmas and had two Christmas Days as a result.

William Hall reached Sand Island in the Midway Atoll with his personal equipment. Midway was a stopping point for Pan-Pacific flights. The international communication cable from Hawaii toward the Philippines ran through the island. There were civilian accommodations away from the Marine installations. Contractors had built three runways and facilities for the military. Two squadrons, including Hall's VMF-221 fighter group [Annotator's Note: Marine Fighting Squadron 221 (VMF-221)], were based on the island. Hall and a few others were quarantined because they had been with a contagious man in their group. The bunker installation they were sent to for isolation had water in it because it was below sea level. When the men were released to rejoin the squadron, the hardest preparation work was complete. In May 1942, the admiral visited the island. Hall had night duty at the time. He had the opportunity when he got off duty to take a shower. He would then go to the mess hall where the food was bad. He hated Spam and the canned milk had bugs in it. The officers were fed better food. Hall was a PFC [Annotator's Note: Private First Class]. His promotion was accelerated given the normal duration required at the time. He had two friends who were sergeants. One of the sergeants improvised lighting for the dugout the three men manned. During his visit, the admiral revealed to the island's defenders that they were the bait to lure the Japanese to attack Midway. He failed to mention that the information had been gleaned through listening to Japanese military communiques and breaking their codes. Hall did not hear the talk because he was on night duty and slept during the day. The admiral was interested in seeing the dugout with the improvised lighting. Hall was sleeping when all this happened. In his sleepy state, he told the admiral of the Pacific [Annotator's Note: Commander in Chief Pacific Theater, or CINPAC, was US Navy Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz] to turn out the light or he would get up and kick his butt. The next morning, the Colonel [Annotator's Note: US Marine Corps Colonel Harold D. Shannon commanded the 6th Marine Defense Battalion on Midway] joked with Hall about his unwitting mistake with senior brass. Nimitz had laughed about the incident as he left the dugout. Coincidentally, Hall received a promotion to corporal. [Annotator's Note: Hall laughs.] One of the cautionary messages Nimitz gave to the island defenders was to beware of the potential of Japanese poison gas that smelled like fish. It was supposedly very deadly. Hall heard of the warning second hand as he slept through the admiral's daytime address to the troops.

William Hall heard a Japanese bomber fly a scouting mission over Midway Island. The squadron [Annotator's Note: Marine Fighting Squadron 221 (VMF-221)] scrambled but were not able to down the enemy aircraft. Word came that the enemy were approaching Midway. Troops rushed to their fighting positions. The 6th Defense Battalion personnel went to battle stations as did Hall's outfit. The first bomb that fell hit the mess hall. The Marines cheered despite not having breakfast [Annotator's Note: Hall earlier had complained about the poor quality of the chow served to the enlisted men on Midway Island]. When the alarms went off, Hall thought it was the beginning of hell. Few of the defending aircraft based on Midway would return. Many of the aircraft were old and had never faced combat. The Japanese were combat experienced in superior aircraft and showed it. It was a massacre for the American planes protecting the island. Ultimately, the Japs [Annotator's Note: a period derogatory term for Japanese] lost four carriers to the one lost by the Americans. Hall enumerates the lopsided American naval victory. The island's antiaircraft guns did well in defense of the islands. The heavier guns never had to fire on the Japanese ships because they withdrew. A mistake was made by a sailor when he blew the refueling lines from the main island. The Marines had to use 55 gallon drums with a hand pump to refuel planes until a repair to the pipeline could be made. The B-17 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber] crews left all the refueling and rearming work to Hall and his fellow VMF-221 ground crew members. Hall had to squirm into a tight tail gunner's position to un-jam a machine gun when the bomber crewman could not figure out the repair. One bomber crew returned from their mission and claimed to have sunk an enemy cruiser at French Frigate Shoals. Hall had some payback for the Air Forces crewmen who he felt took advantage of his ground crew outfit. A submarine at the Shoals had been a victim of friendly fire from a B-17. The submariners had Hall tell them the location of the B-17 crewmen. The sailors proceeded to knock out five bomber crews. They thanked Hall when they departed Midway. Fights also broke out between Navy and Air Forces personnel on liberty in Hawaii as a result of that unfortunate bombing incident that cost the life of one crew member of the submarine. Hall had regrets that the Japanese troopships off Midway were not targeted during the battle. During the battle, Hall saw several close calls. He remembers one wounded man being hit by shrapnel which still had a "Singer Sewing Machine" decal embossed on it. Had Hall not been given a different job, he may have been at his previous location which was hit and resulted in the death of two men. Hall could have been killed with them.

William Hall had bad things happen to him but he never turned religious until he was in Vietnam. At that point in his life, he went to church every Sunday and as often as he could. He converted to Catholicism. At Midway, men said their prayers, but it was rare to see a chaplain. After the battle of Midway, an Air Forces P-40 [Annotator's Note: Curtis P-40 Warhawk fighter aircraft] squadron relieved Hall's squadron [Annotator's Note: Marine Fighting Squadron 221 (VMF-221)]. Other aircraft came in to relieve the other island veteran air crews. Hall's outfit transferred to Ewa Field in Hawaii. It was a Marine Corps base. From there, he was sent to Palmyra to join the reorganized 211 [Annotator's Note: Marine Fighting Squadron 211 (VMF-211)]. Sent back to Ewa, he then returned to the United States. Before returning home, Hall had liberty at Hilo, Hawaii. The authorities catered to the men from Midway on leave. Hall chanced to meet an old friend from back home. The soldier had been decorated for fighting at Midway even though he was in Hawaii at the time. That disturbed Hall. He was not too happy either to receive recognition in the mess hall for being in the battle. He just thought he was having fun during that time. He remembered rearming a B-17 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber] when a submarine fired at the runway. Hall ran for a slit trench and when he jumped in, he smelled fish. Having been forewarned about Japanese poison gas smelling like fish, he thought he was doomed. It just turned out to be an old can of sardines left in the trench. When Hall's outfit left Midway, they were accompanied by a few of the Japanese survivors of a sunken carrier. The prisoners were brought to Hawaii with Corporal Hall being in charge of them. He treated the enemy captives well despite one of them having been a spy in the United States prior to the war. The enemy commander was particularly treated well by the Americans.

William Hall had no extreme feelings about the Japanese even though he knew some of the harsh and brutal things they did during the war. On Midway, he saw Marines who were very bitter toward the enemy. In Korea, Hall had a friend who was a former prisoner of war held by the Japanese during the Second World War. When the war ended and the camp was liberated, the former POWs [Annotator's Note: prisoner of war] went into town to search for food and water. Some were angry but there were no men to beat up so they treated the women like anyone else. Hall was in El Toro [Annotator's Note: Marine Corps Air Station El Toro, Irvine, California] in the United States preparing to go overseas when the word came the war had ended. It was a wild celebration in Los Angeles [Annotator's Note: Los Angeles, California]. The worry was over. The assault on Japan was not necessary. Everyone was happy.

William Hall settled down after the war with the Marines but grew angry with the Marine Corps and quit. He did not like civilian life because of the insecurity so he reenlisted in the Marine Corps after a year. He married a woman who did not like the Marine life. They could not work things out so they split up. The war in Korea started and Hall knew what to expect. It was worse than the fight with the Japs [Annotator's Note: a period derogatory term for Japanese]. He served with many World War 2 veterans during the war. Marines tried to work with the other personnel around them; however, there was one warrant officer that took a dislike to Hall. No matter where they saw each other, it was the same. Hall realized that nothing he did could turn that feeling around. In Vietnam, Hall would see the results of that man's incompetence. It resulted in serious injury to troops that individual commanded. In retrospect, World War 2 made a man out of Hall. He learned to have more confidence and take chances in life. He is proud of his service and the people he served with during those years. It is important for the youth of today to learn about what was happening before they were born. There was evil that had to be defeated. That evil could have adversely affected the lives of those living today. They should be thankful for the effort of Hall's generation.