WWII: In Their Own Words

- Season 1

(2015)

Jim McGrady, 97, of Fremont tells his experience in the World War II Air Force, having near-death experiences and meeting famous people. He trained hundreds of aerial gunners and earned his Silver Wings as an armament specialist and nose gunner on a Liberator B-24 bomber crew. He saved lives on two separate training flights, and met a famous athlete and a famous actress.

James Reardon, 90, of Fremont shares his experience on a U.S. Navy troop transport ship serving in the Pacific Ocean during World War II. He served as a Navy storekeeper aboard the USS Mellette, a 450-foot-long troop attack transport ship. He witnessed the aftermath in Nagasaki, where the U.S. dropped a second atomic bomb and hastened the end of the war, and he watched from his ship as the Japanese formally surrendered in Tokyo Bay.

Charles Holcomb, 92, of Helena spent 11-and-a-half months as a POW in German prison camp during WWII, after his B-24 bomber that was shot down. As a prisoner of WWII, he was taken in the forced "Death March Across Germany" which many did not make it through. He barely survived starvation and frostbite through the harsh conditions of winter in Germany. He slept in the snow, enduring dysentery and illness, at times so sick he couldn't walk, losing 50 pounds and weighing just over 100, barely alive at the end.

Walter Auxter, 95, of Clyde tells his experience in the U.S. Army during World War II, driving ammunition to troops at night and rations during the day, serving as an infantryman in the Army's 324th Infantry Regiment, 44th Division.

Harold H. Brown, 91, of Catawba Island shares his experience in the Tuskegee Airmen, a group of African-American military pilots fighting in World War II. After his plane was shot down, he nearly escaped death when taken as a prisoner of war and threatened by a group of angry villagers.