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MR. TIERNEY: Well, everybody at that point and time we were susceptible to draft. I was drafted and given my choice of services and I took the Marine Corps. Shortly thereafter I ended up in Parris Island where I took my basic training boot camp. MR. GRAHAM: How long were you in Parris Island? MR. TIERNEY: Eleven weeks. MR. GRAHAM: Where did you go after Parris Island? MR. TIERNEY: I left Parris Island and went to Camp Lejuene, North Carolina. At that time they had one of my records that revealed that as a high school student working after school that I had installed radios and intercoms in tanks and armored vehicles. So therefore I had a communications tag on my record so they sent me to communications school. MR. GRAHAM: After you finished your training there where did you go? MR. TIERNEY: Actually, I didn't finish the training there, in the eighth week of the eleven-week course all of sudden the word came out for everybody to stand by and three days later I'm on an attack transport headed for the Pacific. The ship was an attack transport, THE USS WAKEFIELD. MR. GRAHAM: Where did you pick up the transport? MR. TIERNEY: At Norfolk.
MR. GRAHAM: And where did you sail to? MR. TIERNEY: Went through the Panama Canal out to Pearl Harbor, went from there to Tsing Tao, China. I had understood we were going to Okinawa but they dropped the bomb and decided to send the 1st Marine Division to China and we ended up as replacements for the 1st Division.
The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Charles Tierney. Tierney joined the Marine Corps and trained in communications. He was sent to China for occupation duty as a replacement in the 1st Marine Division. Tierney served as a guard on trains to prevent delays caused by Chinese communists and describes the tactics that were employed. Tierney describes conflict between Nationalist and communist forces. He returned to the US in October of 1946 and was discharged.
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