The following text was automatically extracted from the image on this page using optical character recognition software:
Mr. Farmer: Interviewer: Mr. Farmer: Interviewer: Mr. Farmer: Interviewer: Mr. Farmer:
Interviewer: Mr. Farmer: Interviewer: Mr. Farmer:
And when you're out like I was...one morning about 2, 6 or something or other...four hours...I think...standing guard duty out on a...marching ground is a lonely, long ole night. But I have no particular complaints...there. Now...now that was in San Diego... At Camp Decatur. At Camp Decatur and you were there for...what... four or five weeks...six weeks? Oh, let's see, I think it was three months...I believe. And then I went from there...let's see...there's Camp Decatur; Camp Farragut.. .I can't think of that...the other camp they called it. It...it had joined the Marine base. Okay, the...where were...what were you trained to do? Well, I chose...I didn't get my choice...my options were...I chose to be a cook...at...no first I chose to be a stenographer, a cook and...and a gunner's mate. Well, the first one, I...if I'd of gotten in it, I would have had excelled, I'm pretty sure in the Navy...that's no brag...because that's what I later did when I got out of service and I done very well. But the cook part and the mechanical, I was not mechanically inclined...I liked guns...but I'm not mechanically inclined.
Where did they put...I...I'm...what did they put you in then? They put me in the gunner's mate. Okay, so to operate a gun on a ship? Right, and I went to school there I believe it...oh, I don't remember...two or three months and in the fall of...well it must have been a little longer than
The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Nels Farmer. He was born in Wortham, Texas 24 December 1924 and enlisted in the Navy in 1943. Completing boot camp at San Diego, California, he was sent to Farragut, Idaho as assistant gunnery instructor. After nine months he was assigned to the USS Willard A. Holbrook (AP-44) working in various capacities. After arriving at Hollandia, New Guniea he was assigned as a machine gunner to USS PT-146 in Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron 12. He served on board for nine months and saw no action during that time. He returned to the United States and was discharged March 1945.
Tools / Downloads
Get a copy of this page or view the extracted text.