Oral History: Duncan Guest 13-Aug-14, 20140813.

Format:

Book

Language:

English

Genre:

Internet videos.

Nonfiction films.

Physical Description:

online resource (video file 1:37:24) : Sound, Colour

Place of Publication:

13-Aug-14,

Summary:

Duncan Guest was born in Elk City, Ohio in October 1924 and grew up in Oceanside, CA. The dust storms in the central US forced the farming family out of the Mid West to the West Coast where Guest's father continued to farm and raise cattle. On 7 December 1941 Guest, his twin brother Donald, and their older brother John were out fishing when they heard the news of the attack on Pearl Harbor on the radio. Shortly after the news broke, Guest's father got a job at a defense plant at Camp Pendleton and the Guest boys took over working the family farm. In 1942 Duncan's older brother John joined the USAAF. The following year, on 8 August 1943, Guest and his twin brother Donald were drafted. Not long before the Guest twins turned 18 their mother had gone to the local draft board requesting that the boys be kept together when they were drafted. When they received their notices they were sent to the navy. In an even bigger stroke of luck, the boys ended up taking their boot training at the Naval Training Center in San Diego, only 60 or so miles from their home. After completing their boot training the Guest twins were sent to the naval base at Pleasanton, CA then from there to a mechanic school in Monterey. In Monterey they joined CASU 19 and learned to service and repair SBD Dauntless dive bombers and TBF/TMB Avenger torpedo bombers. When their mechanical training was finished they were sent to Port Hueneme, CA from where, on 12 December 1943, they shipped out with CASU 19 for the Russell Islands. The voyage overseas took 28 days after which they went ashore at Point Munda, New Georgia. Once the airfield at Munda was secured enough for them to begin servicing aircraft they moved there. The first thing Guest saw when they arrived at the airfield on Munda was a pair of two and a half ton truck, both stacked to the top with the corpses of Japanese soldiers who had been killed by Marines or died of starvation or disease.

Notes:

Description based on online resource (viewed on 12 June, 2019).

Archive Reference: OH.3296.