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Bill Adair

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War in the Pacific was looming, so the Army sent advisors, including Bill Adair, to the Philippines to help train their troops. When he got there, he found primitive conditions, very little equipment and uneducated farm boys for recruits. (6:16)

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Advisor Bill Adair was in the Philippines on a mission to train their army recruits. He was also mess officer and, shortly after the Japanese began their invasion, he left camp in a truck to get food. Suddenly he heard the riveting sound of a mortar shell on its way. (6:13)

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Bill Adair was suffering from the effects of a concussion when the battle for the Philippines came to an end for him. Along with thousands of others, he was forced to surrender and was facing the prospect of joining what would become known as the Bataan Death March. Then fate intervened in the form of an ambulance without a driver. Part 1 of 2. (5:08)

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Bill Adair may have been the luckiest man in the Bataan Death march. With a commandeered ambulance full of casualties, he threaded his way through the ordeal thanks to luck and guile. At the end, though, there was a camp waiting for him just like all the rest. Part 2 of 2. (6:32)

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It was a struggle to survive a Japanese prison camp, but after liberation, Bill Adair faced a different kind of dilemma. Would he survive his first meal? He did and then he used his wits to secure passage on a plane instead of the much slower trip home on a ship. (3:52)

Bill Bates

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The Army and the Navy offered him commissions in support units but there was a war on and Bill Bates was not going to let the adventure pass him by. It was the Marines for him. (2:58)

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New Marine officer Bill Bates was first assigned to the Marine detachment aboard a troop ship, then aboard the carrier Lexington. He sailed both oceans in the last year of the war, ferried missionaries and guarded German prisoners. He went ashore in Japan for occupation duty. (8:03)

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There were plenty of crashes aboard the USS Lexington says Bill Bates, who commanded the Marine detachment aboard ship. He describes the hazardous landings that were routine for Navy pilots and tells how the crew managed to shoot down a kamikaze before he could finish his work. (2:15)

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At the end of the Big War, Bill Bates served as commander at two Marine barracks including Lakehurst, New Jersey, where airships were stationed and where a famous zeppelin had crashed. Then it was back to Quantico for amphibious warfare school, where he learned the complex and difficult aspects of landing troops on an unfriendly beach. (4:26)

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The Marine Corps was fortunate. When the Korean War broke out their numbers were greatly reduced, but back at Camp Lejeune, Bill Bates had been training reserves and they were ready to fight. He details the armament of a Marine heavy weapons company and praises his mortar platoon commander, Eugene Paradis, who devised a targeting method that was adopted by the entire Corps. (6:49)