William J. Twigger was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and lived his entire life there. He was the eldest of four children, one of whom died young. He graduated high school during the Depression [Annotator's Note: the Great Depression was a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1939 in the United States]. He got a job with the National Tube Company, a division of U.S. Steel [Annotator's Note: United States Steel Corporation, American steel producer]. He worked for them for ten years until the war came along and he enlisted in the Marine Corps. He served for three and a half years and then went back to U.S. Steel for a year and a half. He then had a life-changing opportunity. His great-uncle, who was a customs house broker, asked him to come work for him. It took him three months to think about it during which he got married. He decided to do so in October 1947. His uncle died a year and a half later. Twigger ran it for the next ten years and then they incorporated. Importing grew at a tremendous rate after World War 2. He left in 1971. He learned a lot about the world in that business. He went in and out of it for the next 20 years until 2005. His marriage was blessed with one child who moved to Phoenix to work. Because she loved it so much, she was after her parents to move there too. She is a successful pharmacist.

William J. Twigger had a cousin his age. His cousin and his brother had joined the Marine Corps early in the war. Twigger had a deferment [Annotator's Note: postponement of military service] because he was the sole support for his mother. When the deferment ran out and the draft was looming, he thought that if his cousins could make in in the Marine Corps, so could he. He enlisted. Not for one moment, has he ever regretted it. He enlisted in November 1942. Because he was an expert rifleman, he was kept at Parris Island [Annotator's Note: Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, Parris Island, South Carolina] as an instructor for the rifle. He had never fired a weapon in his life before joining. That was his only period of boredom in the Marine Corps. He spent a year and a half doing that and could not take it any longer. He joined a combat unit in May 1943 [Annotator's Note: Company F, 2nd Battalion, 29th Marine Regiment, 6th Marine Division]. He trained, went across the United States to San Diego, California, and shipped to Guadalcanal one year after the campaign there [Annotator's Note: Guadalcanal Campaign, 7 August 1942 to 9 February 1943, Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands]. It was a training place and he trained vigorously for eighth months. In March 1945, he boarded ship with no idea where he was going. Two days before landing, they were told they were landing on Okinawa [Annotator's Note: Battle of Okinawa, codenamed Operation Iceberg, 1 April to 22 June 1945, Okinawa, Japan]. They landed Easter Sunday morning, 1 April 1945. After fighting for 48 days, he took part in the now-famous Battle of Sugar Loaf Hill [Annotator's Note: 12 May to 20 May 1945]. He had no idea he was at Sugar Loaf Hill [Annotator's Note: one of three hills that were part of the Shuri Line, defensive positions in southern Okinawa, Japan] or that it was a history-making venture. At dusk on Saturday, 18 May [Annotator's Note: 18 May 1945], a Japanese sniper shot him and gave him a happy wound in the thigh that disabled him completely. He went to a hospital for 30 days and then went to the rear echelon of the 6th Marine Division.

William J. Twigger joined the remnant of the division [Annotator's Note: he had originally been a member of Company F, 2nd Battalion, 29th Regiment, 6th Marine Division] on Guam [Annotator's Note: Guam, Mariana Islands after recuperating from being shot in the Battle of Sugar Loaf Hill, Okinawa, Japan, 18 May 1945]. They were in vigorous training to invade the island of Honshu [Annotator's Note: Honshu, Japan]. Fortunately, in August 1945, the atomic bombs [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima, Japan on 6 August 1945 and Nagasaki, Japan on 9 August 1945] were dropped. Their training was diminished for a while. They were garrisoned in Tsingtao, China [Annotator's Note: now Qingdao, China, September 1945] on occupation duty to accept the Japanese surrender there. He spent three months there. In hindsight, he wishes he had stayed longer, but he wanted to return home. He was 26 and wanted to reestablish himself in business. He had enough points [Annotator's Note: a point system was devised based on a number of factors that determined when American servicemen serving overseas could return home] to get home. He went back to work at U.S. Steel [Annotator's Note: United States Steel Corporation, American steel producer] until October 1948 when he went to work for his great-uncle. The three years and three months he spent in the Marine Corps are probably the most meaningful years of his life. He does not exactly know why. He was in the 29th Marine Regiment [Annotator's Note: 29th Regiment, 6th Marine Division]. The 29th, the 4th [Annotator's Note: 4th Marine Regiment, 6th Marine Division], and the 16th [Annotator's Note: 16th Marine Regiment, 6th Marine Division] comprised the 6th Marine Division. He was in 2nd Battalion, Fox Company [Annotator's Note: Company F, 2nd Battalion, 29th Marine Regiment, 6th Marine Division]. A company has roughly 200 men and you can get to know them. A division is 17,000 and there is no way to make a relationship with each other. A group of men from the 6th Marine Division started the 6th Marine Division Association. They have had 37 reunions since. Twigger has attended 18 or 19 of them. They are tangible events for the validity of camaraderie. These men are all 80 years of age or more. It is a very interesting factor about Marines different from the other services.

William J. Twigger's training [Annotator's Note: on Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands, in September 1944] was mainly physical. His company [Annotator's Note: Company F, 2nd Battalion, 29th Marine Regiment, 6th Marine Division] had an officer with a British background and was a "Marine's Marine" who had suffered the loss of his parents to the Japanese in Hong Kong. He was in charge of their training. When they finished a day's training in that tropical heat, they were totally exhausted. He established a very viable fighting machine that paid off. Fox Company, 2nd Platoon was first committed at the Battle of Sugar Loaf Hill [Annotator's Note: 12 May to 20 May 1945, Okinawa, Japan]. Sugar Loaf [Annotator's Note: one of three hills that were part of the Shuri Line, defensive positions in southern Okinawa, Japan] changed hands 13 or 14 times and was one of the bloodiest places on Okinawa. Out of the 200 men in Fox, 48 men gave their lives and another 60 or 70 were wounded, including Twigger. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer backs Twigger up to the landing on Okinawa.] They finished training 15 March 1945. They boarded a vessel but did not know where they were going. They were on the water for 15 days, landing on 1 April 1945. The 2nd Battalion, 29th Regiment were last ashore. For the first troops there was little resistance and almost without casualties. The first 47 or 48 days was spent chasing troops [Annotator's Note: Japanese troops] all over the Motobu Peninsula [Annotator's Note: in Yanbaru region of Okinawa]. It was physically demanding. Then came the commitment to the battle in the south of Okinawa, which began around 18 May [Annotator's Note: 18 May 1945]. The Battle of Okinawa [Annotator's Note: Battle of Okinawa, codenamed Operation Iceberg, 1 April to 22 June 1945, Okinawa, Japan] was secured on 21 or 22 June 1945. The troops made their way back to Guam [Annotator's Note: Guam, Mariana Islands]. The 6th Marine Division were being reconstituted for the Battle of Japan [Annotator's Note: Operation Downfall, the proposed Allied plan for the invasion of Japan].

William J. Twigger [Annotator's Note: and Company F, 2nd Battalion, 29th Marine Regiment, 6th Marine Division] came ashore as the last echelon to be landed at four o'clock in the afternoon [Annotator's Note: Battle of Okinawa, codenamed Operation Iceberg, 1 April to 22 June 1945, Okinawa, Japan]. They got on the Higgins Boats [Annotator's Note: LCVP; landing craft, vehicle, personnel] around noon. That would have been the time to get seasick. They went ashore at low tide in broad daylight. They were fearful that the Japanese would finally come out and start firing. A number were stranded on coral reefs. The water was so clear that you could not tell how deep it was. They went inland as far as they could before night. He remembers that night vividly. They had been given orders to dig a foxhole then they got in them. At dusk, the sky was cloudless and deep blue. Suddenly, the sky was filled with pockmarks where the Japanese air force was coming in. The antiaircraft on the vessels lit up the sky. That is etched in his mind. He saw one kamikaze hit a vessel on his way to the south. That was the only one he ever observed. He never saw any Japanese soldiers except dead ones. He saw many in their infamous spider holes. They were treachery personified. They had to cope with that kind of fighting that was very difficult. They often learned about combat after the fact. They had received excellent training, but in the end, what paid off was their own judgement. War is not fun. He would not take a million dollars for it, nor would he give a million to go back to it.

The first time William J. Twigger took fire from the Japanese was on 18 May [Annotator's Note: during the Battle of Sugar Loaf Hill, 12 May to 20 May 1945, Okinawa, Japan]. They [Annotator's Note: Company F, 2nd Battalion, 29th Marine Regiment, 6th Marine Division] were harassed the day before by sniper and artillery fire. He was in a draw [Annotator's Note: low ground between two parallel ridges] and heard a shell coming. You learned quickly what they sounded like and if they were close by. A piece of shrapnel took part of his fingernail off. He was on the battlefield for the next 24 hours until he got shot. He never saw any identifiable Japanese soldiers at the time. He could seem them moving about and they ordered a tank to come fire on the cave where the snipers were. Twigger was out of commission. The tank got close and Twigger thought he was going to run them over. It fired point blank at the cave on Sugar Loaf. As the Japanese came out, the Marines picked them off. Following that, it was dark before he was removed off the line. He had been tossing hand grenades at Japanese he could hear yelling at one another. Those are memories that are not brought to the forefront very often because they are so fatal and cruel. Twigger cannot put anything he was thinking as he entered combat into words. Marine Corps military training is that you do not even entertain any thoughts of being a casualty. You are trained to be a survivor. The other factor is that young men do not look to death even in strange circumstances.

William J. Twigger was training on Guadalcanal [Annotator's Note: Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands, in September 1944] which was probably the most meaningful time in his Marine career. He was there for eight months. They [Annotator's Note: Company F, 2nd Battalion, 29th Marine Regiment, 6th Marine Division] lived in pyramidal tents [Annotator's Note: tent, pyramidal, M1934]. They built a company street with pebbles from the beach, and they planted palm trees. They were eight men to a tent and had no secretes. Pete Madigan was the runt of the crowd. Twigger asked him in February 1945 if he ever thought of not getting back home again. Pete said he never thought of that because he had a two-year-old daughter he had to get back to. Pete never went back. He was a victim of losing his head. Pete's best friend, Victor Hanson, was killed, Pete lost his moorings. He jumped out of his hole, cursing and swearing he would get the bastards who killed Hansen. They got him first. Twigger knew at least a dozen of the 48 men who were killed on Okinawa [Annotator's Note: Battle of Okinawa, codenamed Operation Iceberg, 1 April to 22 June 1945, Okinawa, Japan] well. They got back to Guam [Annotator's Note: Guam, Mariana Islands] two months later. Between 18 May to 22 July [Annotator's Note: 1945], Twigger was absent, but Fox Company, 2nd Battalion did a lot of combat. The night of Sugar Loaf [Annotator's Note: The Battle of Sugar Loaf Hill, 12 May to 20 May 1945, Okinawa, Japan] they lost eight men, but 40 more lost their lives later. Back on Guam, the company commander was required by regulation to write a personal letter to each of the next of kin how and why the person had died. Twigger could type and was chosen to type them. He still has copies of those letters and prizes them highly. He only knew three or four of them intimately. One man in his tent, John Griffith, got through the entire campaign without a scratch, which was very rare. Twigger has great respect for the commander [Annotator's Note: of Company F, 2nd Battalion, 29th Marine Regiment, 6th Marine Division]. On Guadalcanal, he was the epitome of Marine Corps psyche. He was a magnificent leader. He was shot and killed [Annotator's Note: 12 June 1945]. His name was Robert Fowler [Annotator's Note: US Marine Corps Captain Robert Fowler]. Bob Fowler had been a lieutenant on Guadalcanal and survived that campaign [Annotator's Note: Guadalcanal Campaign, 7 August 1942 to 9 February 1943, Solomon Islands]. The man who succeeded him is still alive today [Annotator's Note: at the time of this interview], Bob Sherer [Annotator's Note: US Marine Corps First Lieutenant Robert Joseph Sherer]. Sherer guided them through the rest of the campaign. Moments before Twigger was shot, the same sniper or someone alongside him at the cave had taken aim on Keith Ryan, twin brother of Kenneth Ryan. Keith was shot right in the ear. Kenneth was taken off the firing line then. Another buddy lost his moorings like Pete Madigan did and took two expeditionary cans and put them butt to butt in front of his face in a vain attempt to protect himself. He was surveyed [Annotator's Note: Twigger means removed] quickly because he was a worthless soldier. They had very few of those. They did not have a lot of battle fatigue because of their excellent training. They never gave a thought to losing their minds.

The first weapon William J. Twigger had when he entered the Marine Corps was the Springfield rifle [Annotator's Note: .30 caliber Model 1903, or M1903, Springfield bolt action rifle]. The Garand M1 [Annotator's Note: .30 caliber M1 semi-automatic rifle, also known as the M1 Garand] was brand new. The Marine Corps took on the Garand as the issue rifle on 1 January 1943. The M1 was a fine rifle and he shot for record with it and made expert rifleman. He improved over the years. He had a glimpse for a couple of hours of the weaponry that is issued to Marines today when he was at a reunion last October [Annotator's Note: of the year of this interview]. He cannot believe the sophistication of the weapons. They are excellently calibrated. The Garand was lighter than the Springfield. The weapons today are heavier but can do everything but talk. At Parris Island [Annotator's Note: Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, in Port Royal, South Carolina], Twigger learned all about the weapons that were part of the Marine Corps armory. There were eight small arm weapons. The M1, the carbine [Annotator's Note: .30 caliber M1 semi-automatic carbine], the Reising submachine gun [Annotator's Note: .45 caliber Reising submachine gun; Model 50, Model 55, and Model 60], the Browning Automatic Rifle [Annotator's Note: M1918A2 Browning Automatic Rifle], the Browning water-cooled machine gun [Annotator's Note: Browning M1917 .30 caliber water cooled heavy machine gun], the Browning air-cooled machine gun [Annotator's Note: Browning M1919 .30 caliber air cooled light machine gun], and the .45 pistol [Annotator's Note: .45 caliber M1911 semi-automatic pistol]. He got so he could field strip them blindfolded. The Marine has to keep his weapon clean. The hardest working men in the Marine Corps were the men who manned the machine guns. He saw men on Okinawa [Annotator's Note: Battle of Okinawa, codenamed Operation Iceberg, 1 April to 22 June 1945, Okinawa, Japan] literally struggling for their lives to keep the machine guns operating. One officer lost an arm from a shell to the elbow two days before Sugar Loaf Hill [Annotator's Note: The Battle of Sugar Loaf Hill, 12 May to 20 May 1945, Okinawa, Japan]. He was a mortar officer. The Marine officer is separate and distinct from the enlisted in every aspect. You never called an officer anything but "mister" except in battle. When Twigger was wounded, he called out, "Mister Sherer" [Annotator's Note: for US Marine Corps First Lieutenant Robert Joseph Sherer] and was told to shut his mouth. The Japanese knew the misters were the guys to shoot and get rid of. One enlisted man, Wayne Snyder, came to reunion after reunion. At any reunion, he could never call Bob Sherer, Bob. It was always Mister Sherer. Each officer had a codename and Sherer's was "Scissors."

William J. Twigger saw very little fighting at Sugar Loaf [Annotator's Note: The Battle of Sugar Loaf Hill, 12 May to 20 May 1945, Okinawa, Japan]. The troops [Annotator's Note: Company F, 2nd Battalion, 29th Marine Regiment, 6th Marine Division] were committed to the battle on 17 May and he was wounded 18 May. The night of the first assault, six or seven men died, and the corpsman [Annotator's Note: Navy medic attached to a Marine unit] worked himself to exhaustion pulling the wounded off the battlefield. In the middle of the night, he came falling into the hole that Twigger had dug for them both. It was chilly and he had no blanket. Twigger offered to share his and the corpsman pulled the whole thing off and fell fast asleep. Those are things you never forget. His name was John Dundam and he was a Navy enlisted man. Three or four of the men who come to the reunions are corpsman. Twigger kept up correspondence with many of the men. Bob Sherer [Annotator's Note: US Marine Corps First Lieutenant Robert Sherer], the company commander, is 93 years old [Annotator's Note: at the time of this interview]. It is interesting to see them all at old age and walking around with canes and walkers at reunions. Twigger took a bullet from a Nambu [Annotator's Note: Nambu Type 96 light machine gun] in the mid-thigh. It came out of his buttocks. He has had no difficulty from it. He was wounded on a Saturday evening and taken off in a jeep with a compress. He was frightened on the ride. They got to the first aid station in a cave. He was dropped off and got a tetanus shot [Annotator's Note: tetanus vaccine to prevent tetanus, often called "lockjaw", an infection caused by bacteria]. He was put on another vehicle to a remote hospital where he got a second tetanus shot. He was sure he would come down with lockjaw, but he did not. He was put on a cot, his first in 48 days. On Sunday morning, he could not walk because his leg had stiffened. He had not wanted to leave the firing line, but it was the right thing to have done. Monday, a surgeon operated on him on Okinawa. The operating table was an ironing board. He got sodium pentothal [Annotator's Note: trademarked name of sodium thiopental, a general anesthetic]. He got 54 penicillin [Annotator's Note: an antibiotic] shots over the next week. On the 30th day, he had his first plane ride from Okinawa to Guam [Annotator's Note: Guam, Mariana Islands]. He spent a week in the hospital on Guam and then returned to the rear echelon until the troops returned at the end of July [Annotator's Note: July 1945]. Guam was the hottest place on earth. Guadalcanal was bad, but different. The plane ride was in a DC-3 [Annotator's Note: Douglas DC-3 cargo and passenger aircraft] with bucket seats and racks for stretchers. The flight was a treat. He had never been in an airplane before. He looked down and could see lumber yards.

In civilian life, William J. Twigger had a dear friend who became an officer in the Navy. By stroke of luck, he wrote his mother that he was on Guam [Annotator's Note: Guam, Mariana Islands with Company F, 2nd Battalion, 29th Marine Regiment, 6th Marine Division]. She told the friend's mother who told him. The friend got the letter the same day his ship, the USS Mount Olympus (AGC-8), anchored in Guam's harbor. He found Twigger in his tent in mid-afternoon. Twigger thought it was an apparition. Twigger said the food was awful and his friend invited him to the vessel. They went down and hailed a boat. He remembered his training for military protocol and used it. It worked and they got his friend. They went downstairs to the officers' quarters. A man who outranked his friend asked where he was taking him. He could not take him to the officers' mess, so he took him to his quarters instead. His friend then went and got food to bring back. The two things Twigger remembers are a quarter head of lettuce and a glass of milk. Twigger returned to his quarters. His friend retired as a Lieutenant Commander and then worked for the Navy as a civilian. The 6th Marine Division Association at one time had over 3,000 members in it. Now they are down to around 1,200 due to the death of members [Annotator's Note: from old age].

William J. Twigger's duty [Annotator's Note: with Company F, 2nd Battalion, 29th Marine Regiment, 6th Marine Division] in Tsingtao, China [Annotator's Note: on opccupation duty in what is now Qingdao, China] was very interesting and different. The war was over and everything military was relaxed. The Marine Corps tried to keep stern, military discipline, but they were allowed freedoms, including fraternization with civilians. They were at the entrance to the Yellow Sea. The city had been settled in the 1900s by the Germans. Twigger had a close affinity with the chaplain. The chaplain made contact with the minister of the German church. He was German and knew Chinese but only poor English. He permitted the Marines to use the church. Twigger played the organ and directed the choir. He met two families. One was a widow and her teenage sons. They were German but were fluent in Chinese. They knew some English. He spent three months with them. The two boys needed educations after the war. Through the chaplain, they managed to get to the United States to study. Twigger got to meet them three or four years after the war was over. He regrets not keeping up with them. Those three months were totally different and Twigger got to have a feeling again for human beings. He was there over Christmas [Annotator's Note: 1945]. He now regrets the short time, but back then he only wanted to get home. The mother was killed by an automobile the week after Twigger left in the third week of January [Annotator's Note: January 1946]. He was discharged at Great Lakes Naval Training Station [Annotator's Note: Naval Station Great Lakes in Lake County, Illinois] on 15 February [Annotator's Note: 15 February 1946]. He learned of the car accident when the sons came to the United States. He wonders if he could find them now using a computer but does not think so. The boys would be in their 60s today [Annotator's Note: at the time of this interview].

There has not been three and a half years of William J. Twigger's life that have had such a profound effect on him as his time in the Marine Corps. Twigger did not have enough contact with Japanese soldiers, other than dead ones, to learn much about them. From all accounts, they were a very effective military as a whole. They did not have the poor eyesight they had been told they did. They did not recoil from dying for their country. It was an honor to die. They did a job on some of his guys but that is the way war is. War is a curse. The day shall come when men shall make war no more and that is an important day. He does not see it in the immediate future, but it is coming. Whether we should study World War 2 or not is a good question. There is a lot to learn regarding the conduct of warfare. There is little to be learned regarding diplomacy and negotiation. War is a serious, deadly conflict. He is opposed to war, but the necessity of life motivated him to participate in it. He feels the Museum [Annotator's Note: The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana] is important. The heritage is an important element. He heard a story about a young lady in school. The teacher said something about the war with Japan. The young lady's question was "who won the war?" That means the war needs to be in the curriculum. When he was in school, they had no questions about the Revolutionary War [Annotator's Note: American Revolutionary War, or, American War of Independence, 19 April 1775 to 3 September 1783], the War of 1812 [Annotator's Note: war between the United States and the United Kingdom, 18 June 1812 to 18 February 1815], or the Civil War [Annotator's Note: American Civil War, 1861 to 1865]. They were taught the principles fought for. Her question tells him a great deal about the lack of education. It also cast a vanity against those who sacrificed their lives. They did not sacrifice in vain, because Democracy stands practically around the world now. Twigger would want to tell future listeners that there is no question about the validity of serving one's country. He believes in Democracy and if warfare is still an agent that mankind engages in to support that way of life, he will espouse the cause of being a Marine and fighting for it. He is thanked for his service all the time and he is proud of that.