June the 4th, we wound up in the Battle of Midway.
How many planes came in on us?
I don't know.
There wasn't a way to keep up with them.
In 1941, global war was in full swing throughout much of the world.
But for those in the United States, like Roger Spooner of Iron City, Georgia,
their focus was not on war, but on recovering from the Great Depression.
I went in the Navy to earn seventeen dollars a month.
Of course, no one was making money back in 1941.
That was a hard time.
That's the reason I joined the Navy.
I had followed that mule long enough.
October the 27th, I went to Norfolk, Virginia and was sworn in.
And I went through boot camp.
I was supposed to come home on the 14th of December,
and I was in a rest area, waiting to be transferred, and I didn't get home.
The Japs bombed Pearl Harbor on the seventh.
I said, "Where in the world is Pearl Harbor?"
Although the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was devastating,
it united the American people, and the decision to go to war was unanimously settled.
Roger quickly went from peacetime sailor, to being swept up in the fight
to stop Japan’s aggressive conquest across the Pacific.
They put me aboard the Yorktown.
I wound up going through the Panama Canal on Christmas Day.
We left from there, not knowing where we were going.
We never knew anything.
Everything was secret.
We bombed the Marshall and Gilbert Islands.
Of course, nobody told us what we were doing.
But the planes were going off and bombing and coming back.
On May the 4th, we were off of Australia.
And we were laying up on the deck, sunning.
We spotted a four-motor bomber up overhead.
We notified the bridge, right quick.
And then, they sent two fighter planes up.
They were gone just a short time, then over the loud speaker,
they came back with a message that said, "I just shot his tail off."
And here he came down, burning.
Receiving word that Japan was to invade another two crucial islands in the South Pacific,
the US Navy had sent the Yorktown - along with two task forces - to oppose the offensive.
The Battle of the Coral Sea was underway.
We got bombed and torpedoed.
The planes coming in, some of them came out of the sun.
They were dive bombers.
The others were torpedo planes.
They came right off the water.
I was the first loader on a 5/38 gun.
And those planes coming in would open up their guns,
firing, trying to get us to where we couldn't be shooting back.
Nothing else could attract your attention.
You did just what you had to do.
One guy within six or eight feet of me - I didn't know he was dead until after that.
The Japs disappeared then.
When the battle was over, the US Navy had lost a destroyer, an aircraft carrier,
scores of planes, and over 650 lives.
But for the first time since Pearl Harbor,
the United States Armed Forces had proven themselves a formidable opponent,
capable of stopping Japan’s Pacific conquest.
But the road ahead was long, and the Yorktown was in need of repairs.
We were throwing oil where we had been torpedoed.
They pulled in a little island called Tongatabu.
We wanted to go ashore, but the Queen wouldn't let us ashore
until she had taken all the girls up in the mountain.
Eventually, the crew was permitted to come ashore,
and the Yorktown underwent rapid repairs.
It wasn’t long before the ship and crew were headed back out to sea.
In June of 1942, Japan devised a plan to draw the United States Navy into an ambush
and finish the job they started at Pearl Harbor by wiping out the entire Pacific Fleet.
But the US had once again received word of Japan’s intentions,
and came up with a plan of their own.
The two opposing fleets were now sailing head-on into what would become
one of the most significant battles in naval history.
June the 4th, we wound up in the Battle of Midway.
They were coming to bomb us, and our planes were going to bomb them.
Our pilots sunk four of their aircraft carriers.
How many planes came in on us?
I don't know.
There wasn't a way to keep up with them.
One pilot dove into the bridge.
He just gave up life and flew right into the bridge.
And we got sunk.
We were leaning over like that.
You couldn't hardly walk on the flight deck at all.
The Captain passed the word, "All crews, prepare to abandon ship."
We went back to the fan tail.
That's the aft part of the ship.
You had to pull all your clothes of, except your skivvies and your life jacket,
and went down a line, into the water.
As the battle continued to rage, Roger and the surviving crew of the Yorktown
tossed helplessly in the waves, completely at the mercy of the sea.
After several hours, darkness began to fall.
I tell you what, one night out there in that Pacific -
wondering if a shark or a whale was going to reach up and swallow you whole -
it's something that you have nightmares about today.
It was something that you don't want to experience.
The next morning, just before day, I felt a little vibration in the water.
And it was a ship, just easing along.
I wasn't going to let that ship get away from me.
I felt the side of the ship as it was easing along, and it had lines hanging down.
And I found one of the lines and I hung on there until sometime that morning.
They had a crew up top that started pulling and brought me on up top.
I was so tired, I couldn't even get on my knees.
I told them to just drag me off to the side where I could rest
and nobody would be running over me.
The Battle of Midway was a major victory for the United States
and a turning point in the war in the Pacific.
Japan would never regain superiority at sea,
and the strength of the US Navy would only continue to grow.
And as for Roger, he was heading back to Hawaii.
Nearly two years since his deployment,
having endured two major battles and a night stranded at sea,
Roger was longing to go back home to Iron City to see his family.
I said, "I gotta go home.
I haven't been home since I joined the Navy."
So I put in for submarine duty.
The morning, I was transferred down to Honolulu
and boarded a ship down there that was coming back to the States.
I went through submarine school, and when my time was up there
they were ready for me to get back out in the Pacific.
I didn't get to go back home.
I wound up in Australia.
I made nine war patrols out of Perth, Australia.
After we made those nine war patrols, we wound up at Guam.
We were sleeping on hammocks up there, resting up.
All at once, we heard ships blowing their horns and firing their guns.
We thought, "Heck, we're under attack here!"
I was ready to find a hole.
News didn't get around fast, but after about thirty minutes we found out the war was over.
After 4 long years, Roger was finally returning home.
Following the war, Roger would marry, raise five boys,
and start a trucking company which he still runs to this day.
But the memories of World War II are still with him, and remain as clear as ever.
It kind of reruns life again.
That's about the best I can say it.
Even today.
It's been over seventy-five years since the first battle I was in.
You still have nightmares over them.
It's something that sticks with you.
I'd like to forget it, but you can't.
You'll never forget it.
It will be with you as long as you live.
There aren't very many of us left.
Tomorrow I'll be ninety-seven years old.
I don't feel like I've missed anything.
But, If I had known I was going to live this long I would've taken better care of myself.