"I told a buddy sitting beside me, 'My God, they're killing them all.'" (Video Interview,
Part 2, 25:16)
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Hoyt B. Condra |
Hoyt Condra, 2003 | World War II, 1939-1946; Korean War, 1950-1955
Navy
USS Tarbell (DD 142); USS Charleston (PG 51); USS John W. Weeks (DD 701); USS Indiana (BB 58)
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
Petty Officer Second Class
Marion County, TN
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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.
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