"And he said to us, ‘If anything comes up out of the water walking up the beach, don’t ask questions; fire first and ask questions later." (Video Interview, 20:25)

Jose Robert Zaragoza

Zaragoza aiming a .45 pistol, Ultihi Atoll, Caroline Islands [1945] War: World War, 1939-1945 Branch: Coast Guard Unit: Unit 335, Pacific Fleet III (PACFLEET) Service Location: Ulithi, and Yap (Caroline Islands); Guam (Mariana Islands); Pacific Theater Rank: Radarman Third Class Place of Birth: CA

During the Depression, Los Angeles teen Jose Zaragoza, the son of Mexican immigrants, joined the Civilian Conservation Corps, learning the kind of discipline that would serve him well when he enlisted in the Coast Guard shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor. He was assigned to a walking beach patrol along northern California’s shore, first on his own, then with dogs he helped train. A stint in radar school and further training in a new tracking system called LORAN got him placed on Ulithi, a tiny atoll just east of the Philippines. He manned a tracking station on that hot and lonely outpost until well after the war ended.