"I told a buddy sitting beside me, 'My God, they're killing them all.'" (Video Interview, Part 2, 25:16)

Hoyt B. Condra

Hoyt Condra, 2003 War: World War, 1939-1945; Korean War, 1950-1953 Branch: Navy Unit: USS Tarbell (DD 142); USS Charleston (PG 51); USS John W. Weeks (DD 701); USS Indiana (BB 58) Service Location: Norfolk, Virginia (boot camp); Atlantic; North Africa; Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; Bermuda; Pacific; Saipan (Northern Mariana Islands); Philippines; Iwo Jima; Okinawa Island (Ryukyu Islands); Japan; also: South Carolina Rank: Petty Officer Second Class Place of Birth: TN

Hoyt Condra was 16 when he joined the Navy in September 1941, getting a buddy to sign for him as his father. He began by serving on an escort protecting convoys of merchant ships across the Atlantic. As a gunner, he had a front-row seat for several of the Pacific island invasions, including Iwo Jima, when he watched in horror as the Marines suffered their worst single day of casualties. Japanese planes attacked his ship with strafing and torpedoes, and he was involved in the rescue operation when a sister ship was hit by the deadliest kamikaze attack of the war.