Jim Callender

“It was a time where a lot of people were joining the service because of the war,” Jim Callender explained as he spoke about the beginning of his career in the Marine Corp. Jim's father fought as a member of the Marines in WWI so it only seemed natural that would be the branch of choice for Jim. So, in 1942 at he age of eighteen he signed on with his friend Andy and was shipped out with a large group of others from Pittsburgh to Paris Island, South Carolina.

For Jim, boot camp wasn’t a hard adjustment. “Growing up with a US Marine father I had to pay attention and listen, so it wasn’t much different at boot camp. And back then we had to walk everywhere so marching didn’t mean much either.” His father also told him what he could expect and had him ‘pretty well straightened out’ before he went into the service. The last words his father had for him before leaving were, “Keep your nose clean.” Jim said that he did just that.

Once his training was complete he went to the Brooklyn Navy Yard where he worked guard duty. It wasn’t until one year later that he began his Pacific tour and was shipped out to New Caledonia as part of a replacement battalion. This was a French possession island near New Zealand. From there he was transferred to Guadalcanal where he decided to get involved in motor transport. “I drove a dump or cargo truck hauling anything that had to be hauled.”

From there he went to Tinian and then Okinawa leaving some time after the Atom bomb was dropped. While he was there he found himself in the midst of the biggest typhoon in the century. “There were 150 mile an hour winds.” They were living in tents at the time and they had to tie them down to the trucks to keep them from blowing away. “The rain came through the tents like a screen door.” Although this would have been pretty frightening to experience Jim said it was just another thing that they had to go through. From Okinawa he was shipped to China where he continued to drive truck. He was discharged from Chicago in 1946.

Jim has a lot of memories of his military career but as he said “Some things are just as well forgotten.” His favorite memories are of the humorous times that he spent among friends during the difficult years of war. While he was in Guadalcanal someone rolled him out of the sack onto the floor while he was sleeping. Jim was thrilled to find that it was his friend Andy who he hadn’t seen since enlisting. They served together for a short period of time before Andy was shipped out again. They didn’t meet up again until after the war.

Jim and one other individual are the only ones still alive from the group that initially set out all those years ago. Jim ended his military career with the rank of Corporal. Among the ribbons and medals he received were the Good Conduct Medal, Combat Action ribbon and two “Battle Stars”.

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