Request 1725

in Project 27

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Administrative Data

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Items (8)

PID	Identifier	Title	Date	Description
38708	OH0053.0.0	Joe W. Stryker Oral History Interview	3-Jun-78	Joe Warren Stryker elaborates on his experiences at the Naval Academy, including his midshipman cruises to Europe, the Caribbean, and Australia. He mentions seeing Hyman Rickover while at submarine school and meeting with Count Felix von Luckner at Mackinac Island, Michigan, during the Depression. After submarine school (graduated in 1930), Stryker was attached to Submarine Squadron 4 in Hawaii (1935-1939), and he describes his activities there as communications officer. He then goes on to discuss his command of the USS Raven(1940-1941), which began his work in the area of amphibious warfare. During World War II, he served as navigator in the USS North Carolina. He describes navigating in poor weather conditions with little radar. He then relates his experiences after the war concerning his years attending and teaching at the Naval War College and later when he was in command of the USS Fremont (1948-1949) involved in amphibious transport warfare. Concerning his tenure as Chief of Staff, Amphibious Group II in the Atlantic, he details the development of the amphibious operational training element for small craft just prior to the Korean War. Continuing his amphibious operations work he relates his experiences with the Amphibious Warfare Office of the Chief of Naval Operations in the early 1950s. Prior to his retirement, Stryker was involved with overseas education for the armed forces. During his discussion of this work he describes how he was instrumental in the development of the General Educational Development test through the office of Armed Forces Information and Education, which was to be given as a high school equivalency test. He also discusses a problem he encountered while working in this office concerning frivolous accusations of communistic teachings.    One other topic Stryker touches on concerning his Naval career is the problem of alcoholism and the prevalence of stills kept by officers at Pearl Harbor during Prohibition. After his retirement in 1955, Stryker was a trade associate for brick and tile manufacturers, which experiences he describes briefly, and then he went into real estate.    The interview ends with a detailed discussion of his newsletter, Chick Feed which he put out for the widows of his Class of 1925 classmates. 2 audiocassettes, 2 hours
38709	OH0056.0.0	Hamilton W. Howe Oral History Interview	21-Jun-78	In his interview, Howe describes events during his World War II service dealing with anti-submarine warfare off the coast of North Carolina and in convoy duty in the Atlantic Ocean. Howe details his sinking the German submarine U-85 of the 7th U-Boat Flotilla while performing North Carolina coastal patrol duties in the Roper on April 13 and 14, 1942. He also discusses the difficulty of determining whether a submarine has been sunk and with discriminating submarines from the many civilian vessels when searching for submarines during the early days of World War II. As an example of this difficulty, Howe relates the incident of an armed guard crew of a U.S. merchantman scoring a hit on the USS Dickerson, mistaking it for an enemy submarine.    Between December 12, 1942, and April 28, 1943, while in command of the Earle, which was acting as an escort for a convoy of troop and supply ships in the Atlantic Ocean out from Casablanca, Howe talks about his encounter with two unidentified submarines, one Italian and one German. He also discusses the effective, late-model radar on the Earle that twice detected enemy submarines when no other ship was able to do so. Howe relates his difficulty convincing the commanding officer of the convoy that the Earle had actually detected something.    Included in the interview are two other interesting encounters. In the first, Howe recounts his memory of meeting Lieutenant Richard Barthelmess who, in civilian life, was a silent film star. The second is the saving of the survivors of the torpedoed MS City of New York off the Virginia capes while Howe was in command of the Roper. In this incident he talks further about a baby being born on one of the lifeboats and later being named after the Roper.    The interview also contains a list of forty-eight recommendations for a prospective commanding officer of a destroyer. They are aimed at helping the commander avoid pitfalls which might damage either the officer's image or the smooth running of the ship. Many of the recommendations deal with when and where to relax the rules and when to fully enforce them. In a similar vein is included a sample letter for a young man about to enter the Naval Academy, advising him among other things not to be discouraged and to stay out of trouble. 2 audiocassettes
	OH0056.0.0	Hamilton W. Howe Oral History Interview	21-Jun-78	Hamilton W. Howe Oral History Interview Transcript Transcript needs TEI
38710	OH0057.0.0	Charles Bennett Darden Oral History Interview	17-Sep-73	Darden served as a tobacco specialist for the U.S. government in Iraq (1952–1956). He discusses his work among the Kurdish people in the northern border area, internal conflicts within Iraq, agricultural developments in the area, and his admiration of the people with whom he worked. 1 audiocassette
38711	OH0059.0.0	James W. Davis Oral History Interview	7-Mar-80	Rear Admiral Davis describes his background in eastern North Carolina, education at the U.S. Naval Academy, and pre-World War II duty aboard battleships and submarines. Details are provided for his experiences as a submarine commander in the South Pacific during World War II. Among the post war topics discussed are high level decisions with regard to Cuba and Guantanamo while assigned to the Joint Chiefs of Staff and service in Vietnam. 1 audiocassette, 1.5 hours
	OH0059.0.0	James W. Davis Oral History Interview	7-Mar-80	James W. Davis Oral History Interview Transcript. 30 typed pages - Transcript needs TEI
38712	OH0061.0.0	John C. Waddell Oral History Interview	15-Sep-80	John C. Waddell worked for Universal Leaf Tobacco Company when he was sent to Shanghai, China, to operate a redrying factory in 1930. Waddell comments on living conditions in the International Settlement, including social activities and the fear of being kidnapped. He also discusses competition between tobacco companies, Chinese tobacco quality, and wages paid Chinese tobacco workers.    Waddell discusses the death and destruction in Nanking (1937) and Shanghai (1932, 1937) during the Sino-Japanese War, the effect of the war on tobacco production, and the 1937 evacuation of American women and children, including his wife, to Manila on the President Jefferson.    Good descriptions of Chinese life are also given concerning transportation methods, villages, a funeral in Shanghai, effects of binding on women's feet, and the execution of a robber. 1 audiocassette, 1.25 hours
	OH0061.0.0	John C. Waddell Oral History Interview	15-Sep-80	John C. Waddell Oral History Interview Transcript. 19 typed pages - Transcript TEI

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