Bill Lunt (age91) served as a pilot in the US Army Air Corp from 1942-1945 where he flew B24s.
Bill Lunt (age91) served as a pilot in the US Army Air Corp from 1942-1945 where he flew B24s. — Nelvin C. Cepeda / Photo By Nelvin C. Cepeda U-T S

They were a walking, talking World War II history book — 32 San Diego vets who came aboard the USS Midway Museum recently to share their stories.

Collectively, they were at many of the war’s most significant battles, from Pearl Harbor to Iwo Jima, from D-Day to the Bulge. They talked about what they

remembered. And what they would never forget.

Their videotaped oral histories were recorded on June 5-7 on

the flight deck of the Midway as part of the U-T’s yearlong series, “The Legacy of WWII.” The U-T’s video partner on the project, Media Arts Center San Diego, produced the videos, which can be seen in their unedited form at

Here are portions of some of their stories, as captured by U-T San Diego writers Peter Rowe and John Wilkens.

More WWII veteran stories can also be found at

Cannon fodder

Gus Apostolas was an Army infantryman during World War II, drafted at age 18 in 1944. “You’re cannon fodder,” his father told him. “Don’t try to be a hero.”

He was afraid of getting killed, and shortly after arriving in Germany saw American bodies stacked outside a camp. In one of his first battles, enemy fire cut down soldiers fighting on either side of him. In the Battle of the Bulge, pinned down by artillery, his rifle jammed with snow, he prayed out loud. A piece of shrapnel landed near him, the perfect shape and size for digging the snow out of the barrel.

“I knew I was going to make it then,” Apostolas, 86, said.

Fighting in the snow, Apostolas suffered frostbite on his feet, and toes on both eventually had to be amputated. But some of his deepest wounds were emotional. He lost friends in the war, and afterward found it hard to make new ones. He didn’t want to get close to people who might die.

The retired La Jolla businessman kept his war experiences buried until his wife convinced him they were worth sharing and needed to come out.

One day, she told him, “Let’s take a ride.” They wound up on Mount Soledad, at the war memorial. A new plaque was there — one with his name and picture on it. He was moved to tears.

A slap on the back

Robert Barto came ashore on the first day at Iwo Jima, and it wasn’t long before he was dodging enemy fire. A shell exploded and killed two officers in a foxhole near his. It also wounded a Marine in the foxhole with him.

Barto helped patch the wounded and sent for a stretcher. As he and a lieutenant were carrying the injured Marine, Barto felt a hard slap on the back. “I’ve been hit,” he said.

They put down the stretcher. The lieutenant looked at Barto’s back and said, “You’re all right.” They picked up the stretcher and continued to the aid station.

It wasn’t until five days later that Barto had a chance to change his shirt. When he tried to pull it off, it was stuck to his back — by blood. He had been hit, by a small piece of shrapnel. It says something about war that he hadn’t thought much more about it — and something about Iwo Jima, the legendary battle that lasted more than 30 days in February and March of 1945.

Barto, 86, was also involved in the occupation of Japan. After the war, tired of what he called a year of “drinking and carousing,” he joined the Air Force, first as a mechanic and then as a pilot. He flew in Korea and Vietnam.

Stars for an admiral

Jack Clabaugh was a firefighter, but this was a fire unlike any other. Pearl Harbor was ablaze.

On Dec. 7, 1941, Clabaugh was 21, a foundryman and firefighter stationed aboard the Whitney, a destroyer tender. He was on the deck when he saw the first plane coming in low. It turned, and he saw the red sun on the wing.

Before long, he had volunteered to go aboard the battleship West Virginia, partially sunk by torpedoes in the harbor, to keep flames from an oil fire on the water from spreading. He manned a hose for seven or eight hours.

“I wasn’t afraid,” said Clabaugh, now 91. “War is a young man’s game.”

After Pearl Harbor, the Whitney saw action in the South Pacific. Clabaugh was asked one day to make the stars for Adm. William “Bull” Halsey’s uniform. The ship’s officers sent coins down to be melted into the stars, but it was too late. Clabaugh and other sailors had already donated theirs.

Clabaugh spent 20 years in the Navy. He lives in La Mesa.

Tea with the first lady

Pearl Harbor made Evelyn Coy mad. She wanted to do her part to win the war. She joined the Navy’s WAVES, Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service.

From 1942 to 1945, she was a cryptologist, a fancy way of saying she helped break German and Japanese codes.

Born in Chicago, she was sent to Washington, D.C., to work. But first she had to pass a background test. Why, her mother wanted to know, is the FBI interviewing your kindergarten teacher?

Coy worked in a building where her badge restricted her access to one room and she wasn’t allowed to talk with others about what she was doing. She worked six days on the day shift (8 a.m. to 4 p.m.), then six days on the swing shift (4 p.m. to midnight), then one day off, and then six days on the graveyard shift (midnight to 8 a.m.). Then she got two days off and started the cycle again.

When it was too hot in the barracks, they’d go to air-conditioned theaters and sleep there, she said.

One day, she got orders to report to the White House. She had tea with first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who regularly hosted get-togethers with women serving in the military.

Coy, 90, lives in Point Loma. So why did she choose the WAVES instead of the Women’s Army Corps? She said she didn’t want to wear khaki underwear.

In war, a charmed life

Several times during World War II, Basil Duncan wondered about fate.

Once, a Japanese soldier stuck a pistol under Duncan’s chin and pulled the trigger. The gun jammed.

Another time, a fellow Marine arrived 10 minutes early to take Duncan’s place at the switchboard of a battlefield communications center. Moments later, a shell exploded near the switchboard, killing Duncan’s replacement.

“That should have been me,” Duncan said, tearing up today as he told the story.

Duncan fought on the Marshall Islands, Saipan and Tinian. He was wounded on Saipan, shot four times in the legs, back and left hand. But mostly he talked about the near-misses, like the time he tripped over a booby-trap wire, but no bomb went off. Another Marine came by later, hit the same wire, and was killed.

“I started to think I was living a charmed life,” he said.

Then he was assigned to be part of the invasion of Japan. He told his wife that he didn’t expect to survive that one. “I just knew as sure as I’m sitting here that I wouldn’t make it,” he said.

Then the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Japan and the war ended. And Duncan left the Marines, came home to San Diego and had a long career with the post office. He is 87 and lives in Rancho Bernardo.

WWII Battle Against A Relentless Enemy ... The Pacific

In 1944, 19-year-old Ed Fitchhorn was already a seasoned sailor. The gunner's mate had come under Japanese fire while aboard the destroyer Hickox, while off the islands of Peleiu and Tarawa. His ship would later be the target of kamikaze attacks that fell short.

But perhaps his most desperate battle was fought against the sea.

Fitchhorn, now an 87-year-old Paradise Hills resident, told his story Wednesday aboard the carrier Midway as part of U-T San Diego's series, "The Legacy of WWII."

On Dec. 17, 1944, the Hickox was part of a U.S. Navy task force off the Philippines. The destroyer was short of fuel, but high winds and heavy seas foiled a refueling effort.

"We decided to wait until the next day," Fitchhorn said. "But the next day, the storm worsened."

Winds reached 150 knots and waves rose to 60 feet. The destroyer was tossed about; at times, the vessel turned on its side and men on the bridge were able to reach over and touch the waves.

Three destroyers sank. Fitchhorn and others aboard the Hickox kept her afloat by forming bucket brigades, scooping up water as it poured into the vessel and tossing it over the side.

"We went to the point of no return," Fitchhorn said, "and then we did return."

Fitchhorn's complete videotaped interview will be posted at in late June.

PBY's Rear Gunner Saw The Good And The Bad

A South Philadelphia boy, George W. Glicker enlisted in the Navy in 1942. His training, divided between Jacksonville, Fla., and San Diego, provided a study in climatic contrasts.

"It was like being in hell in Jacksonville," he said, "and arriving in heaven here."

Then he was sent to the South Pacific, as a rear gunner in a Catalina PBY. That's where he learned what hell is really like.

Glicker, now an 87-year-old La Mesan, told his story Thursday aboard the carrier Midway as part of U-T San Diego's series, "The Legacy of WWII."

Glicker's PBY patrolled the South Pacific, rescuing downed airmen from the sea. They flew into war-torn islands soon after Marines or GIs had captured them from the Japanese. These were ferocious, merciless battles given -- until the shooting ended. Then, Glicker often saw Americans tenderly treating wounded and dying Japanese.

"I was able to see the good and the bad," he said, tearing up.

‘The worst flying weather’

Charles Goldsmith Jr., a native San Diegan who grew up in North Park, always wanted to fly. He got his chance in the Army Air Corps, flying one of World War II’s most daunting routes: from India and over the Himalayas, to resupply the embattled “Flying Tigers” — a band of American airmen who fought the Japanese in China.

“This was the worst flying weather in the world,” Goldsmith said, “over the tallest mountains in the world.”

Goldsmith, 89, a radioman and gunner, was stationed at an Army Air Corps base in northern India and flew 198 combat missions.

A Raider’s tale

The Marines are the few and the proud, but Frank Guidone spent part of his 20-year military career as one of the even fewer: the Corps’ First Raider Battalion.

The Raiders, designed to carry out quick missions behind enemy lines, only existed two years (1942-44) and only numbered four battalions. They were extremely mobile but also extremely outgunned.

“The Japanese had 90 millimeter mortars, we had 60 millimeter,” said Guidone, a 92-year-old San Diego resident. “They had heavy machine guns, we had light machine guns.”

Earning His Wings In Another Way

Robert Guthrie was a fighter pilot in World War II, trained to kill. But his proudest moment involved saving lives.

He was on his way to the China-Burma-India theater when his transport plane crashed on takeoff in Casablanca. Half of the 30 passengers were killed, and those who survived were in danger of dying in the subsequent fire. Guthrie wound up pulling several of them from the wreckage.

He had the option of returning to the States after the accident, but he wanted to fly. "Fighter pilots are cocky," he said. He wanted to prove his mettle.

His unit switched from P-38s to P-47s, which were loaded with rockets in preparation for the planned land invasion of mainland Japan. He, like many, feared that invasion would be especially bloody. Then "my friend Harry Truman" dropped the atomic bombs on Japan and the war was over. No invasion.

Guthrie came home and never flew again. He'd seen enough. His best friend had died in a P-38 training crash that he witnessed.

But he's proud of his service. He had his pilot's wings made into a bracelet that he wears and plans to pass along to a grandson.

Guthrie, 91, lives in El Cajon. He shared his story today aboard the Midway Museum as part of the U-T's Legacy of WWII project.

Recalling The White, Bomb-Blasted Cliffs Of Dover


During World War II, Robert Jacoby fought in the Battle of the Bulge and was among the troops who invaded Germany before the Nazi surrender in April 1945.

But, the San Diego County resident noted, his artillery unit suffered its heaviest casualties while serving in England in 1944.

"Most people don't realize that," Jacoby said. "But the U.S. Army had a lot of men in the Dover area."

That scenic locale was a danger zone in 1944. With other U.S. and British artillerymen, Jacoby was stationed there to shoot down the buzz bombs Germans on the French coast fired across the English Channel. Clouds often obscured these missiles, but Jacoby’s unit often knocked them out of the sky. At times, though, the buzz bombs and German shells fell on the GIs.

One day, he recalls, his gun struck a buzz bomb that had been heading toward London. Knocked off target, the buzz bomb turned around -- and headed straight back to Jacoby and his men. Everyone ran for cover. The bomb passed overhead and splashed down in the channel.

Jacoby told his story Tuesday aboard the carrier Midway as part of U-T San Diego's series, "The Legacy of WWII."

Iwo Jima's Long Shadow

It's been 67 years since Glen Kanig landed on Iwo Jima as a 21-year-old Marine Corps corporal. But he'll never forget the intensity of that battle.

"You have some ghosts who come back with you," he said.

Kanig, 88, told his war story Tuesday aboard the carrier Midway, as part of U-T San Diego's series, "The Legacy of WWII."

His company hit the beach on this volcanic Pacific island with 270 men. When the battle ended five weeks later, only 28 men were present -- and many of them had been wounded.

Kanig, for instance, had shrapnel in his right temple. It remains there, an enduring reminder of the hell he endured on Iwo Jima.

"It was just a continuous bombardment of rockets and artillery and small arms fire," he said. "There was no letup whatsoever."

Iwo Jima was of strategic importance to both the United States and Japan. While less than three miles long, the island would provide a base from which U.S. bombers could reach the Japanese mainland. About 22,000 Japanese died in a desperate and doomed attempt to keep the island out of U.S. hands -- and about 6,000 Americans died there, too.

But once Iwo Jima's airfields were captured, more than 2,200 distressed B-29 bombers were able to safely land there.

"And there were 24,671 airmen aboard those B-29s that landed on Iwo," Kanig said.

Kanig, who also served in Korea before leaving the Corps as a first sergeant, credits his military career with giving him "a good outlook on life." But his time in combat left some scars.

"It either kills or dampens your emotions," the Clairemont resident said. "You are afraid to get too close to people, for fear you are going to lose them."

51 missions over Europe

As pilot of “Sleepy Time Gal,” a B-24 bomber stationed in Italy, Willis “Bill” Lunt led his 10-man crew on 51 combat missions.

Only one man suffered a wound; all 10 survived the war.

His accomplishment is even more impressive considering some of the Gal’s missions — attacking Axis industrial targets in Ploesti, Romania, and a heavily defended oil refinery on the Danube.

On that latter mission, the Gal was in a formation of eight U.S. bombers.

Six were shot down.

“It was strictly luck in that case,” said Lunt, a 91-year-old Coronado resident.

For his interview aboard the Midway, Lunt brought with him the gloves he used while flying. He wears them in the photo above.

Going To The Movies

Ask Mike Meyer what he was most afraid of during World War II, and what he was most proud of, and he gives the same answer: himself.

A Marine who fought in the bloody Battle of Tarawa, he was afraid he wouldn't be able to do it when his lieutenant told him to crash the beach. But he did, fighting all three days on that storied atoll. He was shot in the upper right arm on the final day.

Sent to a string of hospitals stateside to recuperate, he was in New York City one day when he saw a movie marquee advertising a documentary short about Tarawa. The footage is famous for the way it shocked American audiences into a fuller understanding of the ultimate price being paid in the Pacific theater.

Meyer watched the film, and cried. He went back the next day and watched it again. More tears.

Then, a few days later, he was at a different theater, watching a different film, when an usher during intermission was sent in front of the audience to ask for donations to the USO. The usher kept apologizing, as if it were a burden for him to be there. That made Meyer angry.

He went up to the usher and offered to buy him a ticket so he could watch the Tarawa documentary. See what sacrifice is all about, Meyer told him.

As he walked back to his seat, the audience applauded. People came over and shook his hand, tried to give him money. Outside, a World War I vet stood up slowly from a bench and saluted him.

Meyer, 90, told that story aboard the Midway Museum as part of the U-T's Legacy of WWII project. The El Cajon resident's interview and more than 30 other oral histories are being recorded and will be available later at

As he talked, he was transported back in time, and the emotions for him were fresh again. He cried.

Taking care of the wounded

A lot of gangrene. That’s what Rita O’Neil recalls from her stint as an Army nurse during World War II.

She worked on a hospital train that followed the troops into France and Belgium.

The wounded were brought to the train and then taken to hospitals or ships for transport back to England. She saw a lot of patients who fought in the wintry Battle of the Bulge, and many of them were suffering from frostbite, which led to gangrene, which led to amputation.

“It was hard having to tell a young man he was going to lose a foot or a leg,” said O’Neil. She also saw soldiers who had been burned in tanks. Some things, she said, you never forget.

Like the time Gen. George Patton was brought into a field hospital where she was working, injured in a car accident. He didn’t recover. Or the time she went to a Glenn Miller concert, only to have it canceled because the band leader’s plane had gone down over the English Channel that day.

O’Neil, who lives in La Jolla, will be 90 later this year.

"What The Hell Is An Atomic Bomb?"

As an aviation radioman, John Preston flew 18 combat missions in 1945. But one of the Alpine resident's most vivid memories of World War involves a mission he never flew.

"Our flight was scrubbed," said Preston, 86.

All flights were cancelled on Aug. 6, Preston said, due to the new weapon that was dropped on Hiroshima.

"We'd never heard of an atomic bomb," he said. "'What the hell is an atomic bomb?'"

Preston, who told his story Thursday aboard the carrier Midway as part of U-T San Diego's "The Legacy of WWII" series, enlisted in the Navy at the age of 17. After two years of training, he flew Privateers -- modified B-24s flown by the Navy -- out of Tinian and Iwo Jima.

The Privateers hunted Japanese submarines and attacked freighters bringing war supplies to Japan's home islands. His plane was attacked several times by Zeroes -- after one flight, he counted 28 bullet holes in the Privateer -- but he finished the war without physical wounds

A POW Remembers

James Reily Sr. was a bombadier in a B-24 during World War II, flying missions out of Italy to destroy German airplane factories. On his 10th mission, the plane was shot down.

The 10-person crew all bailed out and parachuted into Yugolsavia. When they landed they ran, but were quickly captured. They spent several months in captivity. They were in the camp made famous by "The Great Escape," although not when that happened.

They were in a camp where they were treated almost like guests, decent food and baseball equipment for exercising.

They were also in another camp infested with rats. And they survived a 10-day march, much of it through snow, as the Russians pushed into Germany near the end of the war.

Reily talked about all that this morning aboard the Midway Museum, where the U-T is filming oral histories as part of a year-long Legacy of World War II project. Then he remembered something that made his face break into a wide smile.

At the last camp, a tank from Gen. George Patton's army rolled in. The thousands of prisoners were being liberated. Off in the distance, Reily could see a Nazi swastika flag being taken down. The U.S. flag went up in its place.

"I've never heard louder cheering in my life," Reily said.

A Lucky Man, Jumping Into Combat

Russell "Buddy" Rodgers can still remember his thoughts on Sept. 17, 1944.

He was preparing to jump out of a plane and into combat. German tracer bullets were flying up; they were waiting for him below in Nazi-occupied Holland.

"Here I was about the jump into Holland with the famed 101st Airborne," he said. "I thought 'How lucky I am. How lucky I am.' I just couldn't believe it."

Rodgers, 88, recounted this story Wednesday aboard the carrier Midway as part of U-T San Diego's "The Legacy of WWII" series.

A New Jersey native, Rodgers was rejected by the Marine Corps and then the Army before finally talking his way into the military in 1943. After fighting outside Einhoven, Holland, he was sent into the Battle of the Bulge, where he helped defend the besieged village of Bastogne.

That famous flag photo

Four days into the battle for Iwo Jima, Marine Capt. Dave Severance sent some of his men to capture Mount Suribachi. On the way up, they were handed a flag.

They raised it when they got to the top. And the rest is history, right?

Not exactly, as Severance explained recently.

A second flag was raised later on Suribachi, and that’s the moment that was captured in the famous Pulitzer Prize-winning photo by Joe Rosenthal of The Associated Press, perhaps the most recognizable picture from the entire war.

Severance said a second flag was raised to keep the first one out of the hands of Navy Secretary James Forrestal, who wanted it for a souvenir. The Marines were determined to keep the first one for themselves.

Severance, 93, lives in La Jolla. He spent 30 years in the Marines. Like many of those fighting on Iwo Jima, he thought the battle was over when the flag went up. It lasted another month. About 75 percent of his company was wounded or killed. Many of the men received medals for valor, including Severance, who received a Silver Star.

Mad dash

Germans had set up in a house and were picking off American soldiers on a January day in 1945 when Norman Sokay got his assignment: Take out the house.

His Army squadron directed fire into the windows, and Sokay dashed across an open field, dodging bullets, until he was at the house. If he’d had a grenade, he might have tossed it in the window, but he didn’t, so in German he told the men inside to surrender.

They did.

Out walked 15 Germans, including a lieutenant and an older man who had an Iron Cross from fighting in World War I. The Americans took them into custody.

Then Sokay noticed smoke coming from the basement. He went down and pulled out a U.S. soldier who had been wounded and captured.

For his actions that day, Sokay received the Bronze Star.

Sokay also fought in the Battle of the Bulge, where he received a Purple Heart for frostbite wounds to his feet. It was so cold, he said, that a couple of soldiers shot themselves in the leg just to get out of there.

Gen. George Patton put a stop to that by telling the troops that the next soldier with a self-inflicted gunshot wound would be put in front of a firing squad, he said.

Sokay, 89, lives in Rancho Bernardo.

A monthlong fight for survival

When Richard Stutzman enlisted to fight in World War II, there was never any doubt in his mind about what he wanted to do — fly airplanes.

He flew 34 strafing missions in P-51s before he was shot down by Japanese ground fire over China on Aug. 14, 1944. He parachuted near an island and swam ashore. He figured he’d be rescued that day, or at the very least the next.

He was on his own for more than 30. He ate bamboo shoots and small birds he’d trapped. He tried to fashion a raft out of logs. Once, when he saw an American boat go by, he fired his gun. Putting it back in the holster, he accidentally fired again, shooting himself in the left foot.

Chinese guerrillas found him and took him to an American church group. He was disguised in Chinese clothes and eventually taken back to his unit. They thought he was dead.

And after all that, there was still only one thing he wanted to do — fly.

Stutzman, 91, taught shop in Bakersfield, his hometown, after the war. He passed away Monday at his home in Rancho Peñasquitos.

He saw MacArthur return

Gen. Douglas MacArthur had promised to return to the Philippines, and when he did, famously wading ashore at Leyte in October 1944, Forrest Trimm was there.

He was a shipfitter on the cargo ship Hyperion. They’d been all over the Pacific during the war, ferrying people, fuel and food. They’d seen kamikaze attacks and shot down two Japanese planes at the end of the Battle of Leyte Gulf. And now they were resting in the harbor when Trimm heard someone yell, “That’s MacArthur!”

Trimm borrowed a pair of binoculars and watched the general walk through the surf to shore and then back again. News cameras were there, and MacArthur did the stroll multiple times.

Trimm, 88, lives in Tierrasanta.

A Corpsman On Iwo Jima, Trying To Save Lives

In a troop ship, Leo Tuck tried to imagine what awaited him on Iwo Jima, a small volcanic island 650 miles south of Toyko.

The U.S. Navy had been shelling Japanese positions there for months.

"So we didn't anticipate any problems," said Tuck, now an 87-year-old El Cajon resident. "We soon found out that wasn't true."

Tuck told his story Thursday aboard the carrier Midway, as part of U-T San Diego's "The Legacyof WWII" series. The native San Diegan and Hoover High graduate entered the Navy in 1943. After beginning his training as a corpsman, he was transferred to the Marine Corps.

Iwo Jima was his first experience of combat and, at first, it seemed quite peaceful. As part of a 57-man medical company, Tuck landed on the island on Feb. 19, 1945, the first day of the battle. The landing proceeded without any opposition until the Marines had climbed off the beach and a ridge of loose volcanic soil.

"Then the Japanese let loose," Tuck said.

By the battle's end, one member of his company would be dead and another 27 wounded. Tuck escaped without physical injuries.

The long battle, one of the bloodiest in the Pacific, was "kind of a blur," he said. The corpsman tended to wounded Marines -- and, on one occasion, a wounded Japanese soldier -- in an aid station behind the front lines. But not too far behind, as Tuck and other corpsman continually dashed onto the battlefield to rescue wounded comrades.

Now a retired school principal, Tuck said his wartime service gave him a deeper appreciation for life.

"It can be very short," he said. "I value it more."

At 12,000 Feet, A Fiery Moment Of Truth

In May 1944, on his 23rd combat mission over Germany, engineer Stephen Voit was faced with a stark choice.

His B-17 had been shot up by Luftwaffe fighters. Two engines were on fire and the crew began parachuting out of the crippled bomber. As Voit stood in the flaming plane, preparing to jump, he had second thoughts.

"I've got to say, I was really scared," said Voit, a 90-year-old Rancho Bernardo resident. "You know, I'm Jewish. The possibility of being in a German camp was really frightening."

He paused. "On the other hand, the plane was on fire. It was an easy decision."

Voit was interviewed Tuesday aboard the carrier Midway as part of U-T San Diego's series, "The Legacy of WWII."

Bailing out of the plane from 12,000 feet, he landed at more-than-ideal speeds, breaking his ankle. Captured, he spent the rest of the war as a POW.

How did the Germans treat him?

"I was beat up in two camps -- slapped and pushed around, nobody tried to kill me," he said.

But at Stalag Luft IV, a large POW camp, the Germans tried to segregate Jewish prisoners from all others. The camp's senior American officers, though, refused to go along with this plan.

"Boy," Voit said, "was I thankful!"

Liberated by U.S. forces led by Gen. George Patton, Voit came home to New York state. A retired lawyer, he is married and the father of two sons.

"I have no complaints," he said.

Witness to D-Day

Robert L. Watson knows exactly what time he hit Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944: 7:27 a.m.

“That’s when my watch stopped,” he said.

Watson, now an 87-year-old San Marcos resident, was part of the U.S. Navy’s Sixth Beach Battalion. As a beach master, his job was to take control of a quarter-mile-wide swath of Omaha Beach.

First, though, he had to get there.

Watson was in a landing craft that was hit before it reached the shore. The impact tore his left leg and stopped his watch. Watson sank below the waves, but a flotation device brought him bobbing back to the surface.

He grabbed a rope on the side of another vessel and was towed to shore.

“There’s only one word to describe the beach,” he said. “It was absolute, total chaos.”

Memories — And Nightmares

For a lot of World War II veterans, it's not so much what they remember. It's what they are unable to forget.

Mac Winslow was an Army infantry radio operator in the war and spent 102 straight days in combat in Europe.

On his first night after coming ashore at Utah Beach in Normandy, 60 days after D-Day, a man not 10 feet away from him was killed by a sniper.

He was almost killed in a mountaintop shelling in France, fought in the Battle of the Bulge, received a Bronze Star for sneaking behind enemy lines to set up wire communication for a battalion that was encircled by the Germans.

"Not a day goes by that I don't think about that happened over there," he said.

He shared his story today aboard the Midway Museum as part of the U-T's Legacy of WWII project. The oral histories of more than 30 veterans were filmed this week and will be available soon at

Winslow, 92, lives in Clairemont. For almost 30 years, he ran the Winslow floor covering business in La Jolla.

Sharing their stories

Also participating in the U-T oral history project aboard the USS Midway Museum (see their

videos and more at

Sheldon Bernstein, 89, Carlsbad, Army, first lieutenant; Jim Brayshay, 88, El Cajon, Marine Corps, first lieutenant; Walter Mazzone, 94, San Diego, Navy, captain; Jim Merriken, 88, Rancho Santa Fe, Marines, master sergeant; John Williamson, 90, San Diego, Army, private first class.