City of Alexandria Office of Historic Alexandria Alexandria Legacies Oral History Program

Project Name: Veterans Oral History Project

Title: Interview with John Leroy Alford, Master Chief Serviceman, USN (retired)

Date of Interview: March 13, 2018

Location of Interview: The Hermitage Senior Living, Alexandria, Virginia

Interviewer: John Reibling

Transcriber: John Reibling

Abstract: John Leroy Alford was born October 27, 1925 in Rotan, Texas. The interview covers his upbringing in Texas and California, his 20-year career in the Navy, including his ship’s downing of the last kamikaze plane in World War II, his devotion to duty, and his subsequent career as a Federal civilian worker and as a Federal contractor working in support of the Camp David Peace Accords. He also discusses what he would say to young people today, his thoughts on which generation is the greatest, and the importance of voting.

John Alford at Airshow Interview with John Leroy Alford, March 13, 2018 Page 2 of 39

Table of Contents/Index

Minute Page Topic 00:00 3 Introduction 01:10 3 Family and Early Years 05:08 4 Most Influential Persons in Early Life 07:40 5 Meets His Future Wife 11:45 7 Extra Hoops to Get in the Navy 19:44 9 First Assignment after Boot Camp 21:48 9 Rear Seat Radioman at Naval Station Alameda 26:20 11 Attach on the USS Wasp 31:27 13 USS Wasp Transports Troops after the War 34:53 14 Lebanon Crisis 37:46 14 Shipboard Life 39:17 15 Downside of Deployments 41:24 15 Korea 45:19 17 Pride in Supporting Ships and Ship’s Crews 53:53 19 Duty as Navy Exchange Officer 1:00:06 21 Reunions after Military Retirement 1:02:39 21 Second Career with the Federal Supply Service 1:09:18 24 Third Career as a Contractor 1:25:14 28 Moving to Alexandria 1:29:04 29 Honor Flights 1:34:47 31 Flying 1:39:36 32 Advice to Petty Officers and Other Young People 1:47:12 34 Closing Thoughts 1:51:39 35 His Parents were the Greatest Generation 1:56:05 37 The Importance of Voting

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Introduction [00:00] John Today is March 13th, 2018. My name is John Reibling, a volunteer with the Reibling: Office of Historic Alexandria’s Oral History Project. It is my privilege to interview Mr. John L. Alford, here at the senior retirement home at the Hermitage in Alexandria, Virginia. Mr. Alford has volunteered to be interviewed regarding his extraordinary service to his country. Good morning, ah should I say Master Chief Alford? John You can yeah. Alford: JR: Master Chief Alford. John Master Chief, yeah. That’s fine. Alford: JR: As opposed to Mister. Okay. Good morning Master Chief. [laughs] John Good morning. Alford: JR: Oh, that’s right - it’s afternoon. John Yeah, it’s afternoon. Alford: JR: Okay. Family and Early Years [1:10] JR: For the recording please state your full name and birthdate. John John Leroy Alford. I was born October 27, 1925 in Rotan, Texas. Alford: JR: Rotan, Texas. Okay. And your mother and father’s names? John My mother was Clara Bernice Price [born November 5, 1902, died December 3, Alford: 1996.] My father was Richard Leroy Alford [born October 15, 1900, died in February, 1974.] JR: And the names of your siblings? John My older brother is Robert Eugene Alford [born December 31, 1923 in Rotan, Alford: TX, died December 29, 1984 in California.] My younger brother is Richard Lynn Alford [born June 9, 1928 in Wichita Falls, TX; died in Texas April 17, 2007.] And my younger sister is [Mini] Bernice Alford. She changed her name later to Patricia Lynne. [Note from transcriber JR: found birth record at www.familysearch.org for Mini Bernice Alford, born November 9, 1934 in Tulare, CA.] JR: Okay. Your wife’s name? John No I’m I’m sorry John. Let me back up a little bit. My sister’s name was Minnie Interview with John Leroy Alford, March 13, 2018 Page 4 of 39

Alford: Bernice [Alford] but she changed her name to Patricia Lynne later. JR: Okay. And your wife’s name? John Helen Irene Laluk [born December 5, 1928 in Jersey City, NJ; died January 24, Alford: 2006 in Jersey City, NJ.] JR: And the names of your children? John Richard Bruce Alford [born September 27, 1959 in St. Albans, NY] and Patricia Alford: Lynne Alford. Patricia’s now married to Werner—she’s Pat Werner now. JR: Okay. Now we’re going to get into the interesting stuff. You spent most of your childhood in California. What was it like growing up there? John It’s really hard to remember everything but there’s a lot of things. My dad was Alford: a—had several different jobs at different places. You have to remember this was during the Depression and things were really rough. We moved to California in November 1929 and I don’t know if it was the result of the stock market crash a little bit earlier or it’s just happenstance, but 1929 was pretty rough and my dad was—he got a job first as a foreman for the Tagus Ranch. They were a peach orchard producer, the orchard produced peaches. And then he had other jobs but it was—we lived out in the country and we went to school in a two-roomed schoolhouse for a long time. My younger brother was in the second grade I think. I was in the fifth grade. My older brother was in the seventh grade, or eighth grade. So a two-room schoolhouse and I learned a lot listening to the others, the older students in the other grades. But had a very small schoolhouse. Two teachers and we would walk to school, about a mile. It was an interesting experience really growing up. Then we moved to different places, my dad had different jobs. Then later on when I was probably in the sixth grade I think to seventh grade we moved to a small community, a farming community in the north central San Joaquin Valley, a small town named Chowchilla. The population was about two thousand. That’s where we were living when the, when World War II started. I was a junior in high school when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Can I tell you a little bit more about that? JR: Sure. John Ah like I said, I was a junior in high school. My dad had been in the Navy Alford: during World War I. He lied about his age to join when he was still seventeen. But after the War, after World War I, he got out, he raised a family and all that. But after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor he went back in the Navy. They called him a “retread” and he was, within a few months, he was sent to a ship in San Francisco, in Norfolk. But he did World War I and World War II. And after our school year that year we moved to Los Angeles. I did my senior year in Los Angeles High School. Most Influential Persons in Early Life [05:08] JR: All righty, who were the most influential persons in your early life? And how did they influence you? Interview with John Leroy Alford, March 13, 2018 Page 5 of 39

John Well it had to be my parents for sure. My dad specifically. I learned, I guess, Alford: honesty and integrity. My dad was—he was an honorable man. I remember him telling me, I don’t remember which election, maybe it was the 1932 election when Pres[ident] Franklin Roosevelt was first elected. I think it was he—I remember him telling me briefly, his foreman, his boss, was mad at him because my dad would not reveal who he was voting for. And the—I think they wanted to make sure that everybody was going to vote the [way the] owner of the farm, whatever it was, would like them to vote. But he refused to tell them and I think he got laid off because of that because he absolutely refused to tell them who he was going to vote for—was none of their business. JR: Hmm. John I think that was probably the first time I thought about integrity. At that time I Alford: didn’t know what integrity was but I realized later on that that was it. JR: Yeah. John And of course my mother was always stressing honesty but probably one of the Alford: most, there’re two influential adults outside my family outside of my family. One was Bruce McConnell who was the scoutmaster in Chowchilla. He was also a World War I veteran. And my high school teacher, Mary Sagal. She taught me—I took Algebra One and Two, geometry, h, Chemistry, Biology. I think those were the subjects that I learned from her. And she was a great teacher. I don’t know if that’s, I don’t know if you could classify that as having an influence on me but I remember—she was a good teacher and I learned a lot. I think I did. JR: Well the fact that you remember it so well suggests that she made quite an impression. John Yes she did. Alford: Meets His Future Wife [07:40] JR: She was a powerful positive influence. How did you meet and fall in love with your wife? John Oh boy. [laughs] My ship was in Bayonne, New Jersey, was across the way Alford: from Manhattan, New York. My buddy and I decided to go to New York, Saturday night, I think we went to a movie in New York Saturday. We went to a hotel, we stayed in the hotel Saturday night, got up Sunday morning had breakfast and went to Central Park to look around and there were two girls sitting on a bench in Central Park—. JR: And you guys were in uniform. John We were in uniform, yes, and it it’s funny because as we approached my, she Alford: later on became my wife, but the two girls were there and she told me much later on as we were approaching she told her girlfriend, “I’ll take the tall one.” [laughs] Interview with John Leroy Alford, March 13, 2018 Page 6 of 39

JR: [laughs] John That was me so—but so we stopped we talked, we walked around. I don’t Alford: remember if we went to a movie or anything. We just talked. I do remember going to Rockefeller Center. We walked, whatever for whatever reason, we walked to Rockefeller Center. And then we had a few dates after that and I went home, I got discharged not too long after that. And then we kept in contact by mail. After I reenlisted in March of 1947 through circumstances the Navy sent me to Bainbridge, Maryland [location of the United States Naval Academy Prep School] and I was going to Jersey City on weekends occasionally to see her. And then it just it just happened. JR: Good thing you reenlisted huh? [Laughs] John Yeah. [laughs] Well the others, there’s a lot of them. You know I’m a firm Alford: believer that the, God has a plan for each of us. I don’t know what it was, but whatever decisions I made I’m sure that He influenced me, my decisions my choices. It just so happened that that’s the way it worked out. JR: And that was a great choice. John Oh yeah absolutely, absolutely. We were married fifty-seven years when she Alford: died and we had two kids. They with, if I can I can tell you a little bit now, talking about my marriage. Somebody had asked me not too long ago about it and I said well it was not a great, not great fantastic, but it was a good marriage. I said I tell it like it’s traveling on a road, Sometimes you’re on a freeway where you go zippity-zip and there’s no fee. Sometimes you’re on a turnpike, you have to pay to ride the turnpike. Sometimes you’re on a little bumpy road. You hit a few potholes now and then, but overall it was a good marriage. It was a good trip. I don’t know if that makes sense to you—. JR: Well said. John But that’s ah, every, I’m sure every marriage has their little pitfalls once in a Alford: while. We had our problems. I can tell you this, one of the people that was a civilian, was not military-oriented, had asked my wife one time how it was to be separated. And we had long separations. I had two or three really long separations, and my wife said, “Yeah the separations were bad, really rough, but the homecomings were great.” JR: Beautiful. Now I want to get into your military career. And there’s a lot to talk about but there’s a great video that’s already been done with your oral history given in, I believe it was in 2010, for the Library of Congress’ Veterans Historical, History Project I should say, and so my questions that I’m going to be asking you are based on that interview for your Navy career questions - [See video at https://memory.loc.gov/diglib/vhp/story/loc.natlib.afc2001001.76504/] John Okay. Alford: JR: But if you think of something else that I’m not going to cover please chime in Interview with John Leroy Alford, March 13, 2018 Page 7 of 39

with that. John All right. Could I interrupt you for just a second? Alford: JR: Okay. John The video was made after 2006, after my wife died. Alford: JR: Oh, it was. John So I’m not sure exactly maybe, I did two video interviews. One with the Tin Can Alford: Sailors and one with the Oregon Historical Society. JR: Okay. John And both of them would have been after 2006. Alford: Extra Hoops to Get in the Navy [11:45] JR: Okay. So, ah okay. Now ah I think this is an incredible story—and talk about integrity—this says a lot about you might have inherited from your mother and father. You were initially turned down when you tried to enlist after Pearl Harbor because the doctor said you had a vision problem. I think this is a great story. Please tell me what extra hoops you went through to get in. John Okay I’ll give you a little background then. I was in my senior year in high Alford: school in Los Angeles and half way through the senior year I had enough credits to graduate and I had visions of becoming a naval aviator so, I don’t remember all the details exactly but I did apply for Naval Aviation Cadet Program. Ah, of course I had good grades and I was accepted for the, the application was accepted, I was called into the Navy Recruiting Office in downtown Los Angeles to go through a physical. And, of course the first thing they did was the physical examination, was first the visual part. So I took off my glasses and I read the vision chart, and, I can explain this a little more clearer. I—the chart had letters, ten columns and ten rows of letters all the same size and they were like I guess twenty feet away, and I had never seen then before never seen it since then, a chart like that. So the corpsman asked me to read the letters. I read the first line, second line, left right, left eye, right eye, so forth and I think he must have thought that I had the chart memorized because I was wearing glasses but I took the glasses off for the test. They called a doctor over. The doctor came over and he gave me the same routine but he modified it. He—try to remember like, he’d say, okay read the fourth column from the right top to bottom, read the third column from the left bottom to top, read the fourth row from the bottom right to left, and back and forth with the right eye and the left eye. And he took my glasses and he held them up to the light and said, “Why are you wearing glasses.” And I said, “Astigmatism.” So he said okay. So, my vision was perfect. So he opened up this book, I don’t remember the name of this book, Ishihara [Ishihara Color Vision Test] or something like that, it was all colored dots on a on a chart, about a five inch diameter circular chart with lots of colored dots, and Interview with John Leroy Alford, March 13, 2018 Page 8 of 39

these, open it up and read numbers, the color dots would give you numbers and I started reading the numbers: fifty-seven, thirty-nine, forty-three, fifty-six, whatever. He slammed the book closed and he said, “You can’t even get in the Navy, you’re color blind. Well, that was devastating. I didn’t know I was color blind. But I had heard, I don’t know where I heard it but I had heard that there was an optometrist in town that could cure color blindness. So I started going to him. Long story short I went thirty-three treatments with him, a dollar apiece, dollar for each treatment, he gave me a cut rate half price. And after thirty-three treatments I could read the numbers. I could read both numbers. I just had to remember which was the correct number. So I—. JR: You memorized the numbers? John I memorized the good numbers, yeah. And then so, I was going, the whole thing, Alford: the whole process started with the recruiting, the substation, [the] recruiting substation in Beverly Hills so I’d take the bus to the, he was a First Class Yeoman there at the at the substation. I remember his name, Cassidy. It’s funny how I remember, but any how I remember his name was Cassidy. And he was the one that set me up first for the Naval Aviation Cadet Program and when I went back later on and told him I was rejected ‘cause I was color blind and after I got the color blindness cured I went back to him again and told him I wanted to go back in the Navy. I really wanted to get into the Navy. And he told me, he says, okay go ahead and we go through the process but don’t tell them you rejected when you get down to downtown Los Angeles, don’t tell them that you had been rejected before. So, any how I did went, I, back up a little bit, I had a hard time getting my mother to sign the papers. You know I was only seventeen. And I had to have her permission. And her thought was, and she told me, that the war would be over before I’d be drafted. And I told her I wanted to go in anyhow. But she finally signed the papers, then went down. I was enlisted July 14th, 1943 on a minority enlistment. When I was at the recruiting office and they told me because I was signing in as a as a minor I had a choice of my, of signing up for what they called a “kiddie cruise,” a minority enlistment which meant that I would be discharged one day before my twenty-first birthday, or I could go into the Reserves which would mean I’d stay in the Navy until, at that time they were saying it was till the end of the war plus six months. I said I don’t want the Reserves, I want regular Navy. So I enlisted in the regular Navy on a minority enlistment. JR: That just says all, reams about what kind of person you are that you went [laughs] through all of that to get in the Navy. Most people would have just gone home. John Well yeah I guess so but, I really wanted to get in the Navy. And you know I Alford: don’t, I don’t remember when I started thinking about the Navy. It may have been back in 1936. The, that was the Centennial Days, Texas cela[brated] independence. They had a, like a picnic or jamboree, I don’t know what you’d call it, in Long Beach. We drove to Long Beach to attend this Texas Centennial celebration. People from all over the country were there, all over the State of California, were in Long Beach for this big program. And we went out to the Interview with John Leroy Alford, March 13, 2018 Page 9 of 39

battleship USS Texas on a long boat, whatever the boat the boat was, the Liberty boat. Went out, and I remember the Texas had fourteen-inch guns. Had fourteen- inch diameter shells. And I think I was impressed by that and I was also impressed by the huge metal pots that they used in the galley to cook their food. Those are two things that stuck in my mind. But then I, and I knew that my dad had been in the Navy. So, I wanted really wanted to go in the Navy. First Assignment after Boot Camp [19:44] JR: Un-huh. Okay. And your first assignment after boot camp was with, it was an important job, one probably wouldn’t have thought of, but it was quite an important job with the Fleet Records Office in San Francisco. Can you talk about that job? John I would like to, yes. Except for us who worked in the Fleet Records Office very Alford: few people even knew it existed. Now we had a card file on every person, man and woman, in the Navy and the Marine Corps probably from around the Mississippi. all the way out to west coast and all the stations out in the Pacific. And we, that card file contained all the names from Admiral Nimitz on down to the newest recruit. And any time a person was transferred from one duty station to another we got a copy of the transfer orders and we would update the card file. So we always had a up-to-date file on everybody: where they were, their last duty station and because it was so important, take the example if a ship were sunk, the survivors would end up in a receiving station or a hospital ship or someplace and there was no way to get their mail to them. You know the mail would go out from the Fleet Post Office in San Francisco, handled all the mail for all the ships and all the overseas locations. Everything went through the Fleet Post Office San Francisco. In the Atlantic it was Fleet Post Office New York. But all the mail went through the Fleet Post Office in San Francisco. If mail was, say personal mail was directed to a ship that had been sunk, what’d they do with that mail? They had to hold it so they gave it to us and we would sort it out alphabetically and as the survivors started showing up with the change of duty station or reporting to a hospital or wherever we’d get a copy we could forward that mail to that to that sailor or the marine. So that that’s why it was important. As you probably know mail was an important morale factor on the ships and the stations. So it was important to get that mail to these guys. Rear Seat Radioman at Naval Air Station Alameda [21:48] JR: Right. And your next assignment was at Naval Air Station Alameda. John Yeah. Alford: JR: Alameda Naval Air Station. And that’s where you fell in love with flying. John Yeah Alford: JR: You were the rear seat radioman for training flights in OSU2 Kingfishers and other small planes, but mostly Kingfishers, right? Interview with John Leroy Alford, March 13, 2018 Page 10 of 39

John Mostly Kingfishers yeah. [Information Alford: http://www.navalaviationmuseum.org/attractions/aircraft- exhibits/item/?item=os2u_kingfisher] JR: Right and these were the planes attached to destroyers and battleships—. John No, battleships and cruisers. Alford: JR: Cruisers okay. John They were these scout planes with the, yeah our mission was to train and support Alford: the aviation units that were embarked on battleships and cruisers, so we had officers coming in and going through constantly. They would come in for a month, two months and do their training, whatever they had to do, and then go to their ship. JR: And one time [laughs] your pilot go a bit off course and your tried to help him. Can you tell that story? John I, there’s a lot of interesting stories but this one was, it stuck in my mind for a Alford: long time. We were on a navigation leg, as I recall it was like a triangle off the, started at the Golden Gate Bridge and as I recall we’d fly maybe a hundred miles northwest and then we’d turn and do a hundred miles south and on the third leg we’d do a hundred miles northeast. So we’d go out, down, and out and as we were coming in on the last leg I tuned the radio to a San Francisco radio station and I, and the radio in the Kingfisher had a loop antenna which was maybe twelve, fourteen inch diameter. It was like a direction finder and I tuned into the radio station and tuned the direction finder and I told the pilot that he was a little bit south of the radio station. I gave him the bearings for the radio station but he ignored it, he ignored my suggestion. But I think when we got close enough to the shore where he could visually see the shoreline he realized that he [was] too far south and he turned, turned north and we got through the Golden Gate eventually. Either that or, either he didn’t know what he was doing or else he just wanted to see the coast of Monterrey. JR: [laughs] John [laughs] Cause we were close to, I think we were pretty close to Monterrey Alford: which is south of San Francisco. JR: I like the other version better. [laughter] John Yeah. But, but it’s funny because we would, normally when we would land, Alford: we’d land in the Bay and then taxi into the lagoon, the lagoon where they would pull us up on the ramp. And normally what I would do is after we got inside the lagoon, I would get out of the cockpit and stand on the wing right next to the pilot cockpit. And I’d just stand there while we were taxiing up to the beach crew which would take the plane in, attach the removable wheels and then get pulled up onto the ramp. But this time I didn’t bother getting out of the plane. I just sat in the rear cockpit and when they pulled us up the pilot didn’t say a Interview with John Leroy Alford, March 13, 2018 Page 11 of 39

word. JR: [laughs] John Never said a word. But there were many, many interesting experiences there. I Alford: could probably talk for an hour about Alameda. JR: It really made an impression on you. John Yeah, yeah. It was so much so that I can tell you that, I don’t remember when it Alford: was, sometime during my fourteen months there the executive officer called me into his office and long story short he wanted to recommend me for OCS, the V- 12 Program but, ninety day wonders, some people called it Ninety Dan Blunder Course but I said I’m having too much fun flying so I didn’t I didn’t accept it. I said no. I want to stay here and fly. But I really enjoyed flying. Attack on the USS Wasp [26:20] JR: So moving on, in 1945 you were on the USS Wasp off the coast of Japan when it shot down one of the last kamikaze planes in the war. What was that like? John Well our Captain told us it was the last one. Alford: JR: Oh. John Now, I don’t know if you know but probably some commanding officers like to Alford: stretch the truth a little bit, but I tend to believe that it was the last one. My battle station was as an ammunition passer on the quad forty gun mount, forty millimeters, we had four guns on the mount. [The forty mm was an anti-aircraft weapon used during World War II] We were a little bit forward of the landing signal officer. There were two single five inch guns between us and just forward of the landing signal officer. We were a little bit forward of the two single five inch, and as I said I was an ammunition passer. And the war was supposedly was over on August the 13th or 14th, something like that, I’m not sure of the exact dates. I heard something yesterday on TV, they talked about the 15th but let’s say it was August the 14th and we had our combat air patrol up. Combat Air Patrol, the CAP they called it, was probably six or eight, maybe ten fighters. They were like an umbrella over our task unit in case there was an enemy flight. And I had joked about it a lot of times because the story was that the war was over but Admiral Halsey sent out a dispatch to everybody, the Third Fleet, he was Commander of Third Fleet, that the war was over but if an enemy plane comes over shoot him down in a friendly manner. JR: [laughs] John I thought that was a joke but I was listening to an audio book yesterday in fact. I Alford: heard that part and sure enough that’s what the audio book author was telling us that same thing the same story, shoot them down in friendly manner. So anyhow these two Japs [Japanese planes] were up there, now I don’t know. I have a hard time accepting the fact that that our pilots knew that the war was over, I don’t know if they did. But if they if they did know the war was over, why they shot Interview with John Leroy Alford, March 13, 2018 Page 12 of 39

one of them down, one of our pilots shot one of the planes down, but the other guy started to dive at us. They were at seven thousand feet. This is report that I tell you from I had read in our book, cruise book. But he started at seven thousand feet and another pilot engaged him and hit him in the wing a couple of times, but as he was coming down he got close enough—he was within range of our guns so the, our pilot broke off and the kamikaze kept coming down at us. I’m pretty sure we were making a left turn, turning to the left. And I’m also pretty sure the pilot was dead before he hit the water because he didn’t adjust his dive at us. Ah, as we were turning left, he hit the water about fifty feet off our starboard bow which to me indicates that he was dead or else he would have adjusted his dive. He would, or else he, maybe the plane controls were shot away he couldn’t have, he didn’t have control. But I like to think that he was already dead before he before he hit the water. But he hit the water about fifty feet off our starboard bow. JR: Wow. [quietly] John I didn’t see him because I was passing ammunition to the loaders. I didn’t see Alford: him. I didn’t see him come down. I tell people that was the extent of my actual combat experience with, however long it took for him to dive from seven thousand feet, a couple of seconds, five, six seconds, whatever it was. Very, very short time. And, I have no regrets about that beings my only experience with combat. That’s not a problem. JR: Good thing the Wasp turned. John Yeah I think so. And then later on the Captain told us that that was the last Alford: kamikaze. And strangely enough our gunnery officer told us it was our gun sector that shot him down. Now you have to understand on the carrier they had six, twelve, at least twelve five-inch guns. I don’t know if they were all firing, but I know that the two that were in our gun sector were, the two singles five inch and our quad forty, that was our sector. And the gunnery officer told us that our sector was the one that shot him down. I don’t know that that’s true. I don’t I don’t talk much about it ‘cause it sounds a little bit too far-fetched because there’s too many other guns that could have been firing. JR: Uh-huh. John Why he did it, I don’t know. Alford: JR: It’s a good story. John Yeah it makes a good story but it’s a, I don’t like to fabricate the incidents. I can Alford: tell ya, there, there are a lot of incidents, events that happened, and they are just as clear today as they were seventy-five, seventy years ago. Some of the details are fuzzy. But I tell people I could fabricate the details and really make it a good story—. JR: [laughs] John But I don’t, I’ll tell you what I remember and that’s it. Interview with John Leroy Alford, March 13, 2018 Page 13 of 39

Alford: JR: You are a man of integrity for sure. John I try to be. Alford: Wasp Transports Troops after the War [31:27] JR: When the war was over the Wasp ferried Italian prisoners of war, and ah then ferried returning American troops across the Atlantic. What stands out in your memory about those trips? John A couple of things. Let me back up a little bit. We, after the war was over, we Alford: went through the Panama Canal and our first stateside port that we hit was Boston. The Wasp had been built in Quincy, Massachusetts which was just down the coast a little from Boston. We pulled into Boston and they had the fire boats, the tugboats, the fire boats out there and everything shooting red, white and blue sprays of water and everything. And I laugh about it ‘cause it was my twentieth birthday and I knew they were not celebrating my birthday. [laughs] JR: [laughs] John But anyhow, we were in Boston for a while, then we went to New York and they Alford: took all the planes off naturally ‘cause they didn’t have a need for the air group aboard. But they welded bunks on the hangar deck. Now there’s maybe twenty feet, fifteen or twenty feet from the hangar deck up to the beams that support the flight deck. They welded bunks, over 4,000 bunks they welded on the hangar deck and we picked up these Italian prisoners. I don’t remember how many there were. I had it written down someplace, but the Navy, seventy or eighty, something like that. And we took them back to Naples. And the thing that I remember specifically was going into Naples Harbor and seeing some of the debris if you want to call it that, pieces of the ships, the Italian ships that had been sunk in the Harbor. Seeing their masts sticking up and some of their wreckage was still [there.] They still not had cleaned up the Harbor. But we were loading, we loaded, offloaded the Italian prisoners and started loaded [American] troops. And we, were gonna’, supposed to be there for two nights. They had what called port and starboard liberty, half the crew could go for, go ashore for liberty one night and the other half would go ashore the next night. Well, we were only there one night and one of the fellas that was our, he ran our soda fountain. He was Italian descent. He went to visit his grandmother which, nearby, near Naples. I don’t know where it was but it was close enough that he could get his grandmother’s house. He came back and he was almost crying because he said he did not dare tell his mother how bad off her mother was in Naples. He just, there’s such devastation that the whole pop, the whole Italian population, I guess it was in bad shape. I remember little kids, maybe four or five years old rummaging through our garbage cans to pull up little pieces of food that they could eat. JR: Hmm. Interview with John Leroy Alford, March 13, 2018 Page 14 of 39

John That stuck in mind. Alford: Lebanon Crisis [34:53] JR: In 1958 your ship, the USS Abbot, was diverted to Lebanon for support during the Lebanon Crisis. You went ashore as part of the Shore Patrol. What was that like, what do you remember about that? John Specifically, let me give you a little background first. Ah, during Korea, I was Alford: on a ship, the Chief Petty Officer would stand Junior Officer of the Deck Watch onboard and we, we wore a forty-five pistol, unloaded. That was our badge of authority, really so people would know that we were on watch. In Beirut, there was such a, I don’t what you’d say, tenuous time I guess. It was touchy because normally, ah, two-thirds of the ship would be able to go ashore on liberty and one-third would to stay aboard. In Beirut we were restricted to only one-sixth of the crew could go ashore for liberty. Five-sixth of the ship’s crew had to stay aboard. We were gun fire support for the Army that was on the beach. But I went on shore patrol with a loaded forty-five, riding in a Jeep with an Army Sergeant who was also armed with a forty-five and I think a Lebanese policeman who had a rifle, I’m not sure about that. But I do remember riding around in the Jeep riding past sand-bagged machine gun emplacements where our troops were. And that was not a warm and fuzzy feeling. But were there, I don’t remember exactly why we were there, but I think the, there were demonstrations against the, I think it was the American University. There were students and as I recall that was our mission, was to protect those students that were in the American University. I’m not sure if that’s correct. Historians could probably look at it, google could probably tell you more. But I know that we were [a] gun fire support ship. We were anchored in the in the Harbor for twenty-three days. JR: Hmm. Shipboard Life [37:46] JR: Okay. Now a general question. You did tours of duty on six ships in your career. John Right. Alford: JR: What appealed to you most about deployments and shipboard life? John I guess the closeness, the camaraderie if you want to call it that, especially on Alford: the destroyer. On the Wasp it was, on the Wasp we had I think 3400 men in the crew plus the air group. So we didn’t get to know a lot of people. Ah I was a barber on the Wasp, so I got to see lots and lots of people, but I never really got to know them. On the other ships, especially on the Abbot, the destroyer, we were a team. Everybody, in every organization you got groups of people that are antagonistic towards each other, like on some ships the radarmen will not talk to the gunners-mates, or the signalmen won’t talk to radarmen. People like that, you have your different groups, different work groups. They have their little squabbles. On the Abbot I don’t remember that. Ah maybe because I was in the Interview with John Leroy Alford, March 13, 2018 Page 15 of 39

Chief’s Quarters, I was up forward, I didn’t get exposed that much to the crew. Ah, but I did see enough of them, but I don’t remember any petty squabbles between groups of people. I guess that’s a whole thing that impressed me about the Abbot. We were a team. We had a great commanding officer, a great exec, and we, it was a good ship, such that I go to some reunions and I will go to the Abbot reunion whenever I can. I haven’t missed and since ah after, since my wife died. Ah my wife and I had gone to two Abbot reunions, no, one. We went to Wasp reunion and then one Abbot reunion. And then after she died I started going every, they have it every two years. JR: Un-huh. John So we have, we have become a family. There’s probably thirty or forty of us that Alford: go to every reunion now. And we are a family. Downside of Deployments [39:17] JR: Right. I was going to ask you about that later on. I may come back to it. Ah what was the biggest downside of deployments? John Ah one of the things, might seem a little frivolous, was not having fresh milk. Alford: That was one of the things that bothered me. We had powdered milk, powdered eggs, powdered potatoes. A lot of that on the long deployments. But being away from family especially after I was married and had kids, ah that was a sad part, but ah I guess being away from civilization. I guess, it’s tough to really pinpoint anything specific other than being away from family and the food. We were in Japan and, I was on two different ships during the Korean War and we were in Yokosuka Harbor most of the time. On the first ship we were not in Korea at all but we’d go ashore on liberty and I never ate in a Japanese restaurant. If I was going to eat I went to the Club. Either the EM [Enlisted Men’s] Club or later on the Chief’s Club. I never ate in a Japanese restaurant. In Korea I was on the communication flag ship and we were all over the place. But I never left the ship in Korea. I left the ship in Japan but I never left the ship in Korea. Never went ashore in Korea. JR: Un-huh. John I don’t know if that answers your question but—. Alford: Korea [41:24] JR: It does. It does cover Korea too cause I meant to ask you about Korea as well. Ah anything else about Korea that impressed you? John I’ll tell you one incident that we had. Ah there’s several incidents but one that I Alford: just thought of now. Ah I was a, as the Chief Ship Serviceman I was in charge of the laundry, barber shop, tailor shop, ah shoe repair, clothing and small stores. But there was a laundryman, I don’t know what we called him, but he was a like a hillbilly from Kentucky or someplace, a real down-to-earth hillbilly. And I would see him occasionally early in the morning if I had an early watch like a four to eight watch in the morning I’d see him in the in the galley early in the Interview with John Leroy Alford, March 13, 2018 Page 16 of 39

morning talking to the cooks, whatever. But it was it was strange, but he was he was a dummy, let’s put it that way. He was a he was a dummy, a hick from Kentucky. And then one day the radioman brought a dispatch down to our office. Long story short or a little bit shorter, the dispatch stipulated that he was to be transferred home for humanitarian shore duty and I remember specifically the underlying words were, “There is information on file in this office as to warrant this action.” Now that struck me off, so I called him in. I said, is there anything wrong at home? I said something, he said no everything’s fine, everything good, no problem. So I showed him and I said you’re ordered, you’re going home for four months humanitarian shore duty. He said okay. So he packed his bags and he’s gone. Was talking to the Chief Master at Arms, telling him how fast this all happened and he laughed. He says you don’t know. I said, I don’t know what? He says he was ONI, Naval Intelligence. He was working on dope rings in Korea and he had single, not singlehandedly, but he had been primarily responsible for busting up a dope ring in in Italy earlier. But that, he was such a dummy that he was over at Naval Intelligence. JR: [laughs] John But they wanted to get him off of that ship, they for whatever reason, they had to Alford: get him off that ship and get him home. JR: Yeah. Hmm. So—. John That that stands out. I hadn’t thought about that for a long time. Alford: JR: Just sitting here wondering, did that do anything to retool your impression of people from Kentucky? [laughs] John [laughs] No, no. Alford: JR: [laughs] John No. No. Alford: JR: I won’t tell you that I’m from Kentucky. [laughs] John No, it’s just that ah, I guess the, people put, we put people in categories, we put Alford: them in pigeon holes. JR: Yeah. John And I guess a lot of us think that the Ozarks and the, are like the Himalayas, Alford: they’re like foreign people. I don’t know, but no that that’s a bad impression, but I know what point you’re making. Yeah. JR: [laughs] Okay. Ah let’s see. So we talked about the downside of deployments, missing family must have been a big one. John Yeah. Alford: Interview with John Leroy Alford, March 13, 2018 Page 17 of 39

Pride in Supporting Ships and Ship’s Crews [45:19] JR: Ah. I can’t help but notice that most of your jobs in the Navy were all about service and support. I mean after all you became a Master Chief Ship’s Serviceman. And they were support-oriented whether barbering early-on on the Wasp or providing other services to ships and to crew members when you were on the tender. You took special pride in these jobs it seems. What was it about them? John Oh, having been on the destroyer, I knew we had very little storage space for Alford: amenities. We didn’t have enough storage space to have everything that we needed. To give you an indication we were getting ready to make our first deployment on the Abbot, our cruise to the Mediterranean and I had very little storage space so I’d calculate things that I knew we needed like toothpaste, shaving cream, things like that. And I would order what I thought I would need for a while and then compute the cubic feet of the packages, the cartons that would be coming aboard. So I had an idea how much I could get in my storeroom. Ah, the last thing I brought aboard were cigarettes. And I didn’t have any room in the storeroom, so I’d put them in the barbershop. Locked them up in the barber shop and put the barber to work in the—. JR: [laughs] John Until we could get rid of some of the stores so they could move the cigarettes to Alford: the storeroom. JR: You put them in the head? [laughs] John Yeah, put the barber to work in the aft head. [laughs] But, you know, so, I knew Alford: I knew how, what it was like, what was life, life on a on a destroyer. So when I was on the destroyer tender, a destroyer would come alongside for service and repairs or whatever. I would try to make sure if they needed it I would have our laundry do their laundry for them or if their officers and chiefs needed their uniforms cleaned or dry-cleaned I’d try to do that for them. I made it a point to talk to the Supply Officer on the destroyer and tell him that we, our services were available for his crew whatever, if they needed something just yell. I thought it was important. JR: So you had a special devotion to destroyers. John Absolutely. Absolutely. Alford: JR: Okay. John We ah, I tell you we a little story. Ah, I can talk for a long time John but let me Alford: back up a little, give you a little background. I was on shore duty in Brunswick, Maine, Naval Air Station Brunswick, Maine. I reenlisted for the last time. I’d been there for three years and my tour of duty was up and I reenlisted and I was waiting for orders. And I told my wife I don’t know what kind of a ship I’m gonna get, but I said I won’t go to a destroyer because they don’t have Chief Interview with John Leroy Alford, March 13, 2018 Page 18 of 39

Ship’s Servicemen on tin cans. Hey guess what? [laughs] Orders to a destroyer in Newport. So I went aboard the Forrest Sherman for one night. Forrest Sherman was the Squadron Flagship for Destroyer Squadron Ten. I was one night aboard then they sent me to the Abbot which was the Flagship for Destroyer, not Squadron, what’s after, what’s the part of the Squadron? I I’m a blank for a minute but anyhow—. JR: Division? John Division. Yeah Destroyer Division. So Abbot was the Division Command. Had Alford: the Commodore. So was aboard the Abbot. So after I reported aboard in Newport. It was like in August or September. We got underway for NATO operation, NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization www.nato.int] exercise in the North Atlantic. We had the largest concentration of allied ships since World War II in the operation and we were in the North Atlantic and, I don’t know if you’re familiar with destroyers but they, the chiefs’ quarters are all the way forward. Ah the most forward compartment on the first deck, second deck, all the way forward, and in that North Atlantic storm we were bouncing along like crazy. We really hit some really bad weather and as soon as we crossed the Arctic Circle the water got calm which was eerie, eerie. When you know we were in the North Atlantic, we crossed the Arctic Circle and the water got calm. Strange, strange feeling. JR: Hmm. John I don’t know if that answers your question but—. Alford: JR: That made an impression on you. John Oh yeah. Alford: JR: Cause you’ve talked about that before. John Yeah. Well we were so bad that in the Chief’s Quarters, it was a small Alford: compartment, but they had a stanchion, about five inch diameter stanchion, right in the middle of the Chiefs’ Quarters. I guess it was like a support beam, whatever. But I remember in in the Chiefs’ Quarters I wrapped my arm around the stanchion and tried to drink a canned soda and eat a spam sandwich. It was really bouncing like crazy. JR: We should talk about your ability to withstand rough seas because it is noteworthy that you only got seasick once. John Yeah. That that surprised me too. The first night out of Alameda when I went Alford: aboard the Wasp, the first night out of San Francisco Bay, the first day. We went out during the daytime but I got sick. I was sick for a couple of hours, oh one or two hours, I don’t remember, but after I got over that I never got seasick again. We, the Wasp, went through a typhoon in the in the Pacific where we were, for a while we were dipping water with our—and it knocked ah about thirty feet of our flight deck, each corner of the flight deck was knocked down because we Interview with John Leroy Alford, March 13, 2018 Page 19 of 39

were dipping water. Ah they had seventy-five foot waves. I remember them putting it down in our cruise book. And then on the Sphinx which was the ah ARL [Auxiliary Repair, Light] 24, the converted LST [Landing Ship, Tank. Information about LSTs at www.britannica.com/technology/landing-ship-tank] during Korea. We got underway from Sasebo one night and we were going with the winds, with the typhoon wind for all night and part of part the next day. And that, we were bouncing around like crazy on that one too. It took us a day and half to get back to Sasebo after it was over. And then on the Wasp going to the, to get the, bring the troops home from ah from Europe. The second trip we made to Southampton to pick up troops after we—let me back up a little bit and go back to Naples. We picked up the fifty-five hundred troops in Naples. They also included, I don’t know eighteen or twenty women, some Red Cross workers, nurses, I don’t remember. Took them to Norfolk [Virginia], then we went to England to pick up troops. On our way over to England we hit a storm. It was bad enough that we got beat up a little bit on our forward part of the ship. We had to put into Plymouth Shipyard so they could repair the ship a little bit. We were there for eight or ten days. And then we went to Southampton, picked up the troops and brought them home from Southampton. Had a really rough storm then. And that was so bad that some of the old salts were getting sick. And you could imagine these troops, five thousand of them on the hangar deck on those bunks, most soldiers, I think every one of them was sick at one time or another and a lot of the old sea dogs were getting sick, but it didn’t bother me. I was having a ball. I thought it was fun. Duty as Navy Exchange Officer [53:53] JR: Wow. After your last ship assignment you became one of the first enlisted men to become a Navy Exchange Officer and at the same time, a master chief, an E- 9. John Yeah. Alford: JR: Tell me about that work and what you did. John Well I was on the Yellowstone and getting ready for shore duty. I had been Alford: promoted to Senior Chief which was E-8 when I went onboard the Yellowstone and I went to, I was a, my orders were to attend a six-week course of instruction for Navy Exchange Officers at the Navy Ships Store Office in Brooklyn. I found out later after I was there that this was the first course, the first class that included enlisted men in the Navy Exchange Officers Management Course. I think there are maybe a dozen of us Senior Chiefs, some Ship’s Servicemen, some Storekeepers that went through the course. And after the six weeks I knew that I was going to be the Navy Exchange Officer in Brooklyn at the Navy Ships Store Office. At the end of the six weeks course I assume command, excuse me, I assumed the duties of Navy Exchange Officer right there in the Navy Ships Store Office. I relieved a full lieutenant. The lieutenant was also our training officer but he was ah, in conjunction with being the Navy Exchange Officer. But I relieved him as Navy Exchange Officer and I was the first enlisted man to be a Interview with John Leroy Alford, March 13, 2018 Page 20 of 39

Navy Exchange Officer. Shortly after that I was, it was October, November I think I assumed the Navy Exchange Officer duties November 1960 and December 16th, 1960 I became Master Chief Petty Officer. At that time there were I think fourteen Master Chief Petty, Master Chief Ship’s Servicemen in the Navy. JR: A wonderful capstone to your career to—. John Yeah. Alford: JR: —take that position. John An interesting sidelight afterthought which I hadn’t thought about for a long Alford: time but I had, I was doing my tour of duty in in Brooklyn. I was finishing it up and I had two young kids and I was I was ready to retire, so I put in my papers for retirement, request for retirement. Ah probably around October, 1963 ‘cause I had two more months to do on my three-year requirement for Master Chief. But around October sometime around maybe the first of December the senior personnelman, Senior Chief Personnelman came and he said, you know I was in a Bureau-controlled billet, everything was controlled out of Washington for my job. He said if you want to change your mind, says I got a choice for your next duty station if you want to stick around. Said you could go to either Bangkok or Saigon and I said you gotta be kidding, I’m not taking my family out there. So I did go ahead and retired 16 December 1963. JR: Right. What are you most proud about your military service? John I think probably the fact that I was the first enlisted Navy Exchange Officer. Alford: That’s probably, I’m proud of a lot of things, but that’s probably the thing that stands out. I was well-respected. I can tell you this, I had few regrets. One of my major regrets I guess is that when I had the capability I did not push my subordinates enough to help them advance. I could have developed training programs for them, taught them, and I don’t know why I didn’t, but I really regret not pushing them a little bit. Ah that, I could have done it. I could have helped. JR: Hmm. You probably helped them more than you realized by your example. John I could have done more. Ah, give you an example. I was still a First Class Petty Alford: Officer when I went aboard the Sphinx. The Sphinx was being recommissioned for the Korean War. It was a small repair ship and I went aboard ship, I was First Class, had a small division, ah maybe eight or ten, half a dozen storekeepers, I don’t know how many we had. We had a Chief Storekeeper aboard, but the Supply Officer gave me the job of developing a training program for the other non, the other non-chiefs, the other white hats they call them. Had a couple of First Class, a couple of Second Class, and two or three Third Class Petty Officers, some Seamen. So I developed this training program for them. And, as part of the program to help them understand what they were doing I assigned tasks. We had training once a week in the Supply Office and I would, I had assigned task subjects for them to teach, each one of them, the rated men not the Interview with John Leroy Alford, March 13, 2018 Page 21 of 39

seamen. The rated men I gave them a job, a task, a subject to teach. I had a supply manual and for me to make sure that they taught it correctly, they were teaching the right thing I had to learn too. So I studied the Manual so that I knew that they were, what they teaching was correct. I had to correct a few of them a couple of times. I had to take over when they when they fumbled when they got stuck. But, in that regard, I’m sure that that was probably the major factor that helped me make Chief Petty Officer the first time I took the test. And I could have done that after I made Chief Petty Officer on the other ships. I could have developed training programs for them, and I didn’t. And I I’m to this day sorry about that. I should have. Reunions after Military Retirement [1:00:06] JR: Hmm. Speaks to your integrity, Master Chief, that you would feel that way. Ah let’s talk about after the military. You have participated in many Navy reunions since your retirement and you’ve already talked a bit about that but do you have anything else to say about those experiences? How you became a family? Particularly the folks that, from the Abbot? John Yeah. Ah I don’t know that there’s anything more that I could say. I enjoy going Alford: to the reunions. Ah, we became closer I guess ‘cause with the Abbot I met guys that I didn’t know aboard ship. Most of them were onboard the Abbot either before I was onboard or after. Most of them were, they were onboard before. Ah, I got to know them at the reunions. We talked, you know shoot the breeze, tell sea stories, talk about their lives after the Abbot. There’s only a couple of the guys at the reunion that stayed in the Navy. Most of the fellows at the Abbot reunions were only short-timers that did one enlistment, three or four, four years. Couple of years at the most on the ship but their Navy enlistment was only four years for the most part, some six years. Couple of other ships that they were on. But I think I only met one other man who stayed in the Navy and made a career of it. So it was, these were, basically these were civilians, guys that were civilians. JR: Un-huh. John that became Abbot sailors. Alford: JR: And I bet they all looked up to you, the Master Chief. John I guess so. I guess so. Alford: Second Career with the Federal Supply Service [1:02:39] JR: So, after you retired in [19]63 you began a second career as a civilian for the Federal Supply Service starting as a GS-5 and retiring from federal service as a GS-14 Procurement Officer in 1978, a pretty high position. [GS stands for General Schedule pay scale for Federal Government employees www.usajobs.gov/Help/faq/pay/series-and-grade] John Yeah. Interview with John Leroy Alford, March 13, 2018 Page 22 of 39

Alford: JR: What are you most proud of about your work there? John Hmm. That’s a toughy, toughy. I guess again the support. When I first went to Alford: work for GSA, General Services Administration, we were part of the, the national GSA were all over the country and we had regions. I don’t know how many regions, but New York was Region Two. I worked in the New York Office. We supported civilians and the military in New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico, I think. So, we supported their needs. They would send in requirements for whatever they needed to, for them to function, for them to do their jobs. And I remember when I first started working there I was in inventory management. We would send out, we had warehouses in New Jersey and the orders would come in. We would process the orders and they would ship the material out from one of the warehouses to the activity. And I was buying among other things paint, lacquer, plastic bags, fiberboard boxes, a few things like that and I was—they have small purchase orders, small contracts, and we’d buy from the contracts and ship to the facilities or ship to the warehouse. And as I progressed up the ladder, finished the training program and became a Branch Chief, one of the things that we had, I don’t remember how long I’d been working there, but I had been promoted a couple of times. We started, we were we were responsible for producing what they called the Federal Supply Schedule where activities, civilians and military, could buy products from the Federal Supply Schedule. We’d negotiate prices nation-wide for everybody. JR: Hmm. John And they, one of the things that we did was athletic and sports equipment, Alford: equipment and supplies. So we did that, Federal Supply Schedules for athletic maters, supplies, equipment, and what I had done, I hadn’t thought about it until just now. I set up a seminar, called manufacturers and suppliers in from all over the country, to a seminar. I remember one group of people came from San Diego as part of the seminar. Anyhow, I did a program to tell them what we were going to do in, as they were federal contractors, what they were expected, what I expected them to do. I’m getting off on a tangent a little bit, but I hadn’t thought about that for a long time too, but these people came in from all over the country. We had representatives from Spaulding, Wilson, and the major manufacturers. I set up this seminar to make sure everybody knew where we were, what we were doing. Yeah that was good. JR: Sounds, it sounds innovative. John [laughs] Well, back up a little bit, even before that, as a trainee my unit chief Alford: gave me a job to do, a project to prepare, a request for proposals for contracts for fiberboard boxes. And there’s all kinds of different shapes and sizes of fiberboard boxes, different kinds. And he gave me a couple of previous contracts to look at saying use these as guide. Okay, so I started going through it. I saw what I thought could make some changes to make it a better request for proposals, request for bids, before it was mailed out to the bidders. And I took it to him, I said I’d like to make some changes and I joke about this, but he says, Interview with John Leroy Alford, March 13, 2018 Page 23 of 39

“Don’t rock the boat.” He said it’s been doing this, been doing this for years, doing it. And I said, “I can swim.” [laughs] JR: [laughs] John So he let me make the changes. Anyhow I made the changes and sure enough Alford: some of the, a couple of the suppliers came in to tell my boss that it was the best proposal they had seen. JR: Ah. That’s high praise—. John [laughs] Alford: JR: —when the contractors say that you know it’s high praise. John So, I said okay, I’ve made my point. But I had a good working relationship with Alford: him after that. Everything went well. They, yeah, you brought some memories out I hadn’t—. JR: [laughs] John —thought about for a long time John. Yeah, I made my mark in in GSA Alford: [General Services Administration.] I really did. When I retired I was a Branch Chief, Paper Products Branch Chief. I transitioned from the Regional Office to the Central Office in New York. [The] Central Office in Washington, DC monitored everything, but for some reason they had the office supplies and paper products division, was in New York. I don’t know why, but it was. So anyhow I was, started off as the Chief of the Office Supplies and Paper Products, Office Supplies Branch and then I transitioned to the Paper Products Branch. And at the time I retired in 1978 our annual procurement responsibility was a little over a hundred and fifty million dollars. JR: Hmm. Lot of money back then. John We bought all the paper that the government used including the military, except Alford: the Government Printing Office in Washington. They bought their own paper. Now you remember these were the days before computers really were big. So we had computer printout papers, you know these—. JR: Un-huh. John —the big pages with the hole punches on the—. Alford: JR: I remember. John —margins of those rolls? We bought a lot of computer paper. Alford: Third Career as a Contractor [1:09:18] JR: Yeah. So after leaving Federal Supply Service you had a hiatus of about a year and a half and then had still another career working as a government contractor both overseas and in the States, retiring for good in [19]91. Ah and I understand Interview with John Leroy Alford, March 13, 2018 Page 24 of 39

the Camp David Peace Accords figure in to one of those jobs. Could you talk about that? John Sure. The, well the first civilian job after Federal Supply Service was with RCA Alford: Service Company. [This was a division of RCA which worked on government contracts] RCA Service Company was a subcontractor to a joint venture that was building one of two air bases in Israel. Part of the Camp David Peace Accords was that the Israelis would pull back from the parts of Egypt that they had occupied after the war and then the United States would build two new air bases for Israel to replace the ones that they were vacating in the, on the Sinai Desert or wherever they were in Egypt. So they pulled, the Israelis pulled back their troops and the government agree, our government under Jimmy Carter started building two air bases. RCA Service Company was subcontractor to a joint venture that was building one of those air bases. Now we were, our office was in New York in Manhattan. And I don’t remember, I never saw it, but somebody had told me that the air base that we were building, it was in the town of Ramon, R-A-M-O-N, which was near Beersheba ‘cause some of the people that were over there on site lived in Beersheba and they commuted to the site, however far it was I don’t know. I never found out. But somebody had told me that the air base that they built had two parallel runways five miles long. Now if you can imagine a runway five miles long and the objective was, the reason was if they were up in combat the fighters come, could come in, land, pull into a revetment, rearm, and refuel and go right back up again without having to go back to the end of the runway. So they were fast, in and out. I don’t know if they ever used that, I don’t know. I have no idea what their, really their combat capabilities had been or how they did it. I don’t know if they ever used the runways like that. I do know that they were probably doing flight operations but I have no idea what they did. JR: What was your job in the—? John Well I was I was buying the life support items that they, the most of the Alford: workforce were recruited from Portugal, a lot of Portuguese workmen. And one of my jobs was to supply them with their food supplies, their food stuffs. JR: Oh. John Of course, the Portuguese liked salted fish and some kind of a Portuguese Alford: sausage. I don’t remember the name while they called it. But in New York I found a place in Newark, New Jersey that was a Portuguese sausage supplier. So, interesting that you mentioned that, I hadn’t thought about this for a lone time either but what I did was I set up a system. I had help with the transportation officer. He was working for the company. Ah we’d, I would buy the, the order would come in for the sausage. I would order the sausage from the factory in Newark, New Jersey. They would pack it in dry ice, take it to JFK, the airport, and it would go on the El Al Airlines, ship it over to Tel Aviv, land in Tel Aviv, all packed in dry ice and then there would be a refrigerated van truck waiting for it and take it and take it to the site. Of course there was a lot of involved, other things involved, like customs. We worked it out so that the Interview with John Leroy Alford, March 13, 2018 Page 25 of 39

customs people in Israel knew it was coming. They knew what was, it was all pre-arranged. Everything was worked out beforehand to make sure it didn’t, the sausage didn’t sit in that dry ice for too long. It was just a few hours, in and out, and it was gone. That that worked out really well. JR: [laughs] John That was one of the things but other support items you know things that they Alford: needed. JR: Yeah. John Interesting sidelight while I’m thinking about it. Had a requirement to buy Alford: equipment for swimming pools. They wanted to build swimming pools on the site. They were building two swimming pools, one pool for the workers and one for the staff. And they were Olympic-size pools. Huge pools and I remember one of the pools in the ah, they had just started building it and hadn’t really been completed but they, at Christmastime in the deep end of the pool, they’d set up ah Nativity scene. JR: Wow. John Like Christmastime in in the pool. But one of the requisitions I had from the Alford: from Israel was they wanted whatever the quantity was, five thousand pounds of sand for the, they had sand filters and my supplier was in someplace in Saint Louis I think and I sent him the note they wanted it air-shipped, air-shipped five thousand pounds of specific sand for that filter. And he refused to send it. He said they’re sitting over there in a desert. JR: [laughs] John Says why am I going to send sand, air lift sand for their filter. I’ll send them the Alford: information on how they can get their sand, cause the sand had to be different you know, different grades, different sizes I’d guess you’d call it. As the water would filter through the sand it would start with the bigger size pebbles I guess and go through the smaller, I don’t know how it worked but there were different size sand pebbles that the water had to go through I think. I’m not sure, I’m not positive about that, but he said there were different requirements and he sent the requirements over so that they had, they had they dug up their own sand for the for the pools. JR: Okay. So that was your third career. John Before that I had I had gone to Saudi Arabia for two months. That that’s an Alford: interesting story too. JR: Uh-huh. John Ah. I had applied for a job in the, I went to Washington DC. I was living in New Alford: Jersey. Went to Washington DC for an interview and I interviewed with I think two or three different people. And I remember specifically one of them asked me: “Do you drink?” And I looked at him and I said, “I drink, but I’m not a drinker.” Because they don’t permit alcohol in Saudi Arabia. So that wasn’t a Interview with John Leroy Alford, March 13, 2018 Page 26 of 39

problem for me. But anyhow I declined their job offer. I said no, I don’t want it. So I went home, I went home first and then they sent me a letter offering me the job and I wrote back said no, I decline. I got a telephone call from Saudi Arabia. The Division Officer whoever he was and the manager got on the phone to call me. They had gotten a copy of my resume and they were anxious for me to get there. I said no, I’ve already declined the job. [They said] well don’t do anything rash. So, a few days later I got another offer from the Washington office, increasing the salary, increase, okay. So I go. So I came to Washington for processing, and Saudi Arabia, they don’t permit visitors. They didn’t permit tourists. They can, they have visitors and they also have visas for work permits. Well, this company had expended all their, they’d used up all of their work visas so they gave me a visitor’s visa for sixty days. JR: Okay. John So, I had a sixty-day visitor’s visa. They had three sites, Riyadh, Dhahran, and Alford: Jeddah. So, I was the site purchasing manager in Dhahran. I had a couple guys working guys working for me, couple of clerks. And I was also, we were, the company was subcontract to McDonnell Douglas. But McDonnell Douglas was there was there on the F-15 [fighter aircraft] Program. They had F-15s there. [Information on the F-15 www.military.com/equipment/f-15-eagle] So we were supporting McDonnell Douglas. And I was, like I said, the site purchasing manager and I found out, I don’t know when, maybe after I’d been there a month, maybe longer, first of all they wanted me to get a driver’s license. I said no, I’m not getting a driver’s license ‘cause I wasn’t gonna be there that long. It’s a different story but forget that part. Anyhow my sixty days was about up. So they were gonna send me to Kuwait to get another sixty-day visitor visa, but I had found out that I was not supposed to be working. As a visitor I could go there as a visitor or whatever visitors do, but they don’t work. And I found out that, I don’t know if this is true or not, but somebody had told me if the Saudis wanted to they could have put me in jail because I was not supposed to be working. Fortunately, we had Saudis that were our drivers and they were support people there in the in the compound where we worked. Nobody ever reported me. But they could have put me in jail. At the end of the sixty days they wanted me to go to Kuwait and I said oh no, I’m going home. I said, I told my supervisor in Riyadh I said, “You put me in jeopardy.” I said, “I’m going home.” [They said] “Well don’t go home yet.” He said, “If you stay we’ll give you family status, you bring your wife over here, get your own house, your own car.” I said, “You’re sending me home.” I said, “You put my life in jeopardy. I don’t want any part of this. I’m going home.” So I did. I went home. JR: Uh-huh. John Then I then I went to work for RCA. Alford: JR: Uh-huh. Back in New York. John In New York. Yeah. Alford: Interview with John Leroy Alford, March 13, 2018 Page 27 of 39

JR: Right. So how did you wind up in Alexandria? John First let me tell you about the last the last phase of the Camp David Peace Alford: Accords. After the—. JR: Okay. John The RCA contract wound down ‘cause we had done our part. They’d finished Alford: the air base. Ah so for whatever reason I went to work for a firm that was based in Birmingham, Alabama. And I went to Israel. I worked in Israel for three months. We were building the peace-keeping stations that were in the buffer zone between Israel and Egypt. That was the last phase of the Camp David Peace Accords. JR: Un-huh. John So I was I was in Israel for three months. Then I then I came back home. Alford: JR: What was that like? John Ahh, fantastic experience. Ah, I could tell you, since we were in Israel Saturday Alford: was our day off. We worked ten hours a day, six days a week. We had sixty hour weeks. Saturday was our day off and the company would do bus trips in various places. I got to go to different places, which was really an experience. I got to go to Jerusalem, Bethlehem. The last week that I was there my wife came over and stayed with me for a week. I rented a car one day and we tour, we became tourists for a for a day. And went to Bethlehem, saw where Jesus was born. Went to Jerusalem, saw where he was crucified. So we became, we were tourists for a day. Then I we both came home. I was not supposed to come home but I did. I won’t bother you with the details but I resigned. I left. I wanted to come home. JR: Un-huh. John So, it was getting at the, at the airport in Tel Aviv, we’re going through their Alford: process of checking in for the flight home and the girl looked at both of us and I had, I had arrival date different from my wife’s naturally. So she said, “You were here earlier.” Said, “Where were you?” I told her I was working in, for the company there and the company’s name. She got her supervisor. He came over and he asked me who I was working for. I told him. Said, “When did you come?” I said it’s on, whatever the passport said. It was stamped. I as there two months before, three months before my wife came. I’m trying to remember the details so that I don’t get mixed it but anyhow, it illustrates how secure El Al Airlines was. They were very peculiar about their travel, the travelers who was on their planes. Very particular to make sure that I was legitimate. JR: Uh-huh. John We landed in Frankfurt to refuel and we didn’t get off the plane, we just landed Alford: for fuel and I looked out the window and there’s Army half-trucks on either side of the plane. Interview with John Leroy Alford, March 13, 2018 Page 28 of 39

JR: Uh-huh. John Just, out of nowhere, out on the on the tarmac somewhere to refuel but there Alford: were there were armed guards guarding us. JR: Yeah. John And in Israel we, the Army Corps of Engineers had taken over a hotel, took over Alford: the whole hotel ‘cause there were lots of contractors there doing work for the Army Corps of Engineers was their monitor and everything. And we had guards, Israeli guards in the hotel guarding us. Any anyhow, but that [was] part of the security program. JR: Uh-huh. John They’re very secure people. But to illustrate how El Al operates. Alford: JR: Uh-huh. John But then I came back and that’s when I went to Saudi. Alford: JR: Uh-huh. John I came home from Saudi. Alford: Moving to Alexandria [1:25:14] JR: Okay. Now a different topic. How did you wind up in Alexandria? John Okay we were living in Jersey City, New Jersey. My daughter was in Portland, Alford: Oregon. Ah, long, not to belabor the point but my wife had a couple of strokes and after the last stroke she died [January 24, 2006] and I decided I was gonna go to Oregon, so I moved to Portland to be with my daughter and her husband. She was working for Xerox. She was a software engineer for Xerox. But she was laid off, she was in a group, they had from what I remember eight software engineers in her unit. The CEO of Xerox sent four of the jobs to India which meant that my daughter was laid off, so she had a job in Portland for a while but you have to understand we’re East Coast people. We didn’t belong in Oregon. JR: Uh-huh. John We were East Coast. My daughter was born in Maine. She was, went to, we Alford: moved to New Jersey when she was just five years old. She’s a New Jersey girl. My son-in-law was born in Manhattan. He was raised in Queens, so we’re East Coast people. So my daughter had put in resumes going with these headhunter companies. Ah, she was looking for a job on the East Coast. She got a job offer for the company in McLean [Virginia]. Okay. This was like September 2013. They wanted her immediately, but she knows she had to give her company where she was working at least two weeks’ notice. So she came in early October. Interview with John Leroy Alford, March 13, 2018 Page 29 of 39

So my daughter came her early October of 2013. I was on my way to Texas to spend the fall and the winter with my brother’s widow and her family in Corpus Christi, Texas. My son-in-law was responsible for cleaning up all the furniture and everything and shipping it. My daughter came here. She rented a two- bedroom apartment in Falls Church. And then my son-in-law came. The furniture came and I was in in Texas, so then I came. But anyhow that’s a that’s a long story but short version is my daughter accepted a job here so we moved. JR: Okay. John So here we are. Alford: Honor Flights [1:29:04] JR: All right. So, um I’ve got to ask you about outside work, outside-of-work activities, so one of the questions concerns your passion in recent years which has been to go to visit, go to Reagan National [Airport] to greet incoming Honor Flights. Tell me about that. John When I was in Portland 2012 I came to Washington, DC on the Honor Flight. Alford: [Honor Flight is a non-profit which brings veterans to Washington DC to visit relevant memorials. The focus is on World War II era vets, but includes veterans from other eras also. www.honorflight.org] I think there was about fifty of us from Portland and the eastern Oregon. We came to, we landed at Dulles. We did the thing with the World War II Memorial, went to Arlington National Cemetery, Changes of the Guard, and the other memorials. And then after we moved here I was so, really, I was so impressed with the reception that we got here in DC. Everywhere we went people saw our Honor, had Honor Flight caps and shirts. And we got such a reception. Before we left Portland they had an honor guard that that saw us off, early morning flight. We landed in Dulles and there was an honor guard, then a water spray. Ah they had fire trucks that sprayed the plane as we came in. And it was, it was really an emotional experience. Wherever we went people were thanking us for our service. We had breakfast in the Capitol with one of our Senators. We had a terrific man who organized it. I think he had done six or seven trips. Found out later that his son had followed through with, this fellow and his son last year, when I saw them once at Reagan, they had made thirteen trips. JR: Hmm. John Bringing veterans from the Oregon area to Washington, DC. But getting back to Alford: your question, after we moved here I found out that I could get to Reagan [Airport] by public transportation. And so I started going to Reagan to greet the flights. And I found a way to get into the loading area through Security. I had applied for the gate access pass. I just go and fill out the form. Anyhow I made my application for a gate access pass and get a gate access pass, go through security just like a passenger except I didn’t have any baggage and I would, I found that I would go right to the door, the door right at the, as they would get off the a jetway. I found that that was, for me that was the most important place Interview with John Leroy Alford, March 13, 2018 Page 30 of 39

for me to be. I was one of the first people they would see when they get off the plane. Ah but I enjoyed being there wearing my World War II cap and greeting these guys. They’d come in and they’d see my cap and they’d burst, get into a big grin, I’d shake their hands, ‘Welcome to DC, have a good time’ and so forth. And it was really an experience for me to see these guys come in. Most of them, I’d asked questions if I had time. You know they they’d get jammed up a little bit, they couldn’t move very fast. So other people would be greeting them and they would stop and talk so the line didn’t move very fast and I would talk to them. Most of them had never been to Washington, DC. Some of them had, I’d see a young girl, I see a young girl, say forty, fifty years old, to me is young. I says, “Is this your Dad?” “Yes that’s my Dad.” I said, “Have you ever been here before?” “No.” I said, “You’re going to have a ball.” And they’d get a big kick out of that. And the guys, the World War II veterans especially, they’d get a big kick out of seeing me there to great them. JR: I bet. John And then later on they started bringing in Korean and Vietnam veterans. Couple Alford: of years ago if I recall, I may get the numbers wrong and I’m not sure exactly but there was a flight from Miami that had seventy-seven World War II veterans escorted by seventy-seven Vietnam veterans. JR: Wow. John Now that that was, I didn’t see the flight but that was something you know it Alford: was one of the write-ups that I saw. There was another flight that came in that was all females. I didn’t see that flight either, but they’re still bringing in a few World War II guys. Most of the World War II veterans that are eligible that are physically capable have been here. There are very few that that haven’t come. They’re running out of World War II veterans to bring. But there they’re bringing Korea and Vietnam veterans in now. JR: So you still going? John I didn’t do much last year. The season is started now. It started earlier this Alford: month. The first flight I think came in a couple of days ago from Dayton, Ohio. But there’s a flight that’s coming in [unclear] I can’t remember the date but it’s coming in very soon within the next week or two. The flight is coming in from New York. It’s the Medal of Honor Flight. JR: Uh-huh. John They’re bringing Medal of Honor winners in, recipients, Medal of Honor Alford: recipients in. They do that every year. JR: That will be special. John So this this year I’m gonna try to get out more often. Since I’ve moved over here Alford: into the Hermitage public transportation is a little bit difficult for me, a little bit different. And I’m not as mobile as I used to be. JR: Yeah. Interview with John Leroy Alford, March 13, 2018 Page 31 of 39

John So it’s a little bit more difficult but I’m gonna try to get out there as often as I Alford: can. It’s my passion now. Flying [1:34:47] JR: Yeah. Sounds beautiful. Says reams about you and who you are. So I want to circle back and ask you about flying and if you’ve had a chance to do any flying since those days at Alameda? John Okay. Alford: JR: And what’s that been like. John Okay. When I, after my first discharge [December 1946 – see note from Alford: interviewee below] I went home and we were in Gardena, California which is a LA [Los Angles] suburb. It was about a mile to a small private [air] field. So I would walk to the field. I started taking private flying lessons. I soloed, had a few hours solo. Then I reenlisted and within a few months I was in Corpus Christi, Texas, and one of my classmates, I was going to school, wanted to change my rate, and one of my classmates was a pilot and he worked a deal with one of the local small air fields to be an instructor so that he could fly and he would be my instructor and he would share his cost with the owner. Anyhow, I was flying in in Corpus Christi for a while. Then after he, after that I had gotten married, I was living in Jersey City. I went out to Statin Island a couple of times and flew a private field there. And then, flying is expensive. Gasoline’s expensive, aviation gas is expensive. But when I started tour of shore duty in Brunswick, Naval Air Station in Brunswick, Maine, I organized a flying club. There were ten of us that that, we pooled our money and we bought a surplus Army observation craft which is a Taylorcraft, tandem, fore and aft, and so we started. I started a club and I would go flying once in a while. I won’t bother you with the details, but I crashed the plane. I dissolved the club, and I didn’t fly any since then. However, this past year or so I was in Corpus Christi, Texas. I had made a speech at the Commemorative Air Force [CAF] Squadron on the outskirts of Corpus Christi, Aransas Pass, Texas. And one of the members of the CAF is an active duty Navy Captain at the Navy Air Station in Corpus Christi and he has his own SNJ Texan, the Army called it an AT-6. [plane information www.boeing.com/history/products/t-6-texan-trainer.page] An SNJ Texan, he had his own plane out there at the airport. He took me up for a flight. Now he and two or three other people had to help me get into that rear cockpit because these seventy year-old, these ninety-year old knees don’t bend like they did seventy years ago. So I had, anyhow I got into the cockpit of the SNJ, the rear cockpit and we went for a flight and it was too short. I knew it was, I don’t know how long it was, but for me it was too short. But the Captain let me fly. So I was I was flying. I made some turns and went back to the field and after I got out I told him, I said I know I was a little sloppy on the rudder. He said, “You did fine.” And said, “You still got it.” [laughs] [Note from John Alford: I enlistment stipulated that my enlistment expired on 26 October 1946, one day before my twenty-first birthday. I had accumulated sixty-three days leave. Because they did Interview with John Leroy Alford, March 13, 2018 Page 32 of 39

not pay for unused leave, so I was separated, not discharged and released to Inactive Duty on 25 October 1946, with sixty days terminal leave. My discharge dated 24 December 1946 was mailed to me.] JR: [laughs] John So. And then the year after that, maybe that same year a few months later, the Alford: Blue Angels came to Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, they were [there] for their show. And part of the show was some planes from the Commemorative Air Force in Atlanta. They had two or three planes. I know one of the planes they had was an SBD Dauntless. [Plane information www.nationalww2museum.org/visit/museum-campus/us-freedom- pavilion/warbirds/douglas-sbd-dauntless] And I went over to the Dauntless and the fella was there from CAF and I told him, I said, “I used to fly in these guys.” He said, “When?” And I told him Alameda, whatever. So he opened up the compartment by the by the rear on the fuselage and there was a doorway there and he said, “Sign this.” There was a plaque, some kind of plaque. Wherever they had gone, if he found a World War II veteran he had them sign the sign the plaque. So I signed it. So he said, “So you want to get in the cockpit?” I said [laughs] sure. So he and his friend helped me into the rear cockpit. So I got into the rear cockpit and I sat there and I was I was flying again. JR: Uh-huh. [laughs] John Yeah. Sat in, I must have sat there for ten or fifteen minutes. But yeah I was Alford: there again, I was flying. Advice to Petty Officers and Other Young People [1:39:46] JR: So we’re about out of time but I’d like to know maybe the question I should ask you is, if you had a group of young people or let’s say young Petty Officers, and you were going to speak to them today, what would you advise them? John Oh. I guess I would try to tell them make every day count. Work hard, don’t Alford: slack off. Make it pay. Do your job. I think I relate that to a lot of these civilian jobs, civilian employees I see in various things, service jobs in particular, whether they’re cashiers or whatever. It’s just a job for them. They’re not interested in helping anybody, doing anything. So I guess I would impress upon them, make it pay. Take an interest in what you’re doing. I guess one of the things that I would try to impress upon them is respect your seniors. Hard work pays off. I guess, getting back to the Abbot, there were a few guys there that, they didn’t like the Navy, didn’t like the Abbot. They were anxious to get out. I’ll tell you a little story about that which could illustrate it. One night I was gonna, I did go on liberty a couple of times and one night we’re coming back in. As we were waiting to the Liberty boat, waiting to shove off this one, I don’t know if he was a Seaman or Fireman, who he was, but he’d had enough to drink that he was shooting his mouth off and he was really criticizing the Navy. The Navy was terrible, rotten, he used all kinds of foul words and everything. His enlistment was due to expire. He was getting ready to be discharged before, as soon after we’re due to get back. He couldn’t wait. He wanted to get out of the Interview with John Leroy Alford, March 13, 2018 Page 33 of 39

Navy. He hated the Navy and he hated this ship in particular. And I said, “You want to get even with the Navy?” He looked and “Yeah, how?” I said, “You really want to screw the Navy good?” “Yeah.” I said, “Ship over, reenlist.” Well that shut him up. Anyhow there, you either like it or you don’t like it. There’s very little in between. And I guess I would tell the young people make the most of it. Do the best that you can. I don’t know what else I could tell them. Try to learn, study. JR: What would you say, just to put, [laughs] not to put words in your mouth but you were talking at lunch [immediately prior to this interview] about being positive and—. John Yeah. Alford: JR: And you’ve always struck me and being a very positive person. Would you say anything about that to them? John Probably. Yeah now that you mention it, yeah. You can’t look at the bad parts. Alford: You have to, there was a song not too long ago, oh a long time ago I heard just recently again. Accentuate the positive. Eliminate the negative. Don’t mess with a Mister In-between. And I guess that’s what I’d try to do. I think especially after I retired from the Navy. I guess the thing is I have no control over a lot of things. I can’t control what happens. I can only control my own life. So I take what happens, look at the positive side, how it could get improved, how I can make it better. And I guess that’s what I would try to impress upon people. Think of the positive things. The negative, you’re not gonna change negatives. There are a lot of things that I have no control over. Lot of things that you have no control over. You have to you have to live with what you’ve got. Make the best of it. Look at the positive side, take advantage of it. I guess I can beat around that a little bit. JR: [laughs] John I guess that’s, I guess that’s the whole, the whole key. One of the things that I’ve Alford: learned here that, I’m ninety-two years old. Now, I had been exercising when I would, when I first moved to Oregon my son-in-law and I started going to an exercise class at the local senior center, community center three times a week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for an hour. We’d do a pretty not strenuous exercise, I’d call it light cardio experience. We’d do the exercising and after I came here to the Hermitage I kept that. I do exercise two or three, three or four times a week, a half an hour, not strenuous but enough to keep moving. And I remember years ago my mother told me, “If you rest, you rust.” So I’m not gonna rust. JR: [laughs] John Using an expression that my son-in-law uses, “I’d rather wear out than rust out.” Alford: JR: [laughs] Interview with John Leroy Alford, March 13, 2018 Page 34 of 39

John So that that’s, exercise is important. I don’t know if that covers everything. Alford: JR: I think—. John There’s a lot that I could talk about but John I can go on and on. Alford: JR: I believe that you could. [laughs] John Sometime a couple years ago I was approached by a Chief Yeoman, a woman in Alford: the Pentagon and she asked me if I would come to the Pentagon and speak to some of her people. She had a small group of people. And I said how much time have I got? She said how much time do you need? I said four hours. JR: Uh-huh. John And then, so the incredulous look on her face prompted me to tell her I had four Alford: enlistments so I could talk for an hour on each enlistment. As you can surmise I like to talk. I got a lot to say and a lot that I didn’t cover but if there’s a—. JR: We could do a second interview [laughs] John We could talk about my writing. I’m a writer aspiring to become an author. Been Alford: working on that for a long time. But that that keeps me occupied, trying to do the writing. I, when I first came to the, I give a plug for the Hermitage. When I when I first came here, we have a monthly calendar and my son-in-law looked at the calendar before we decided to come here and he said, “You know if you’re bored it’s your own fault.” There’s so much to do here all the time there’s something going on. Everybody can’t participate in everything, but there’s something for everybody if they wanted to take advantage of it. There’s always something going on. JR: Uh-huh. Well. Closing Thoughts [1:47:12] JR: Any closing thoughts? John Oh. One of the things that you had prompted me on before was about advice to Alford: younger people and I’m a firm believer in—it never happens, but long time ago I was a firm believer in universal military training of some sort. Young kids, most of them, when they graduate from high school, they have no idea what they want to do. They think they do, but some of them go off to college and they change their majors two or three times. Some of them go into other jobs. They’re wandering around trying to find their place in life. And I think each young person that graduates from high school should spend at least a year, maybe two years, in either the military service or some kind of community service doing something for other people, not for themselves. Volunteer work or do something but find out. When I was in Portland I was involved with a group of mostly Korean War veterans and during the school year a few of us would go out to the high schools and talk to the young people. And I would tell some of the young Interview with John Leroy Alford, March 13, 2018 Page 35 of 39

men and the women, the girls, young girls I said, “If college is not your thing, if you think you don’t want to go to college, look at a career in the service industry: carpenters, plumbers, electrician, auto repairs. I said auto-repairs, if your if your car goes on the blink you’re not gonna send it to Japan to get it fixed. Got to have somebody here to do it. I said those are jobs that pay well if you if you learn your craft well you can do well if you if you don’t want to go to college. So I don’t know if they listened but they seemed to pay attention. The young people unfortunately, they’re not teaching the kids in school about World War II for example. It’s sad in a lot of the school books World War II is only a couple of pages. JR: Uh-huh. John But there’s so much. World War II changed our lives. I—let me tell you a short Alford: story about beginning. After Pearl Harbor President Roosevelt made a speech on the Monday, [the] Japanese bombed on Sunday. On Monday morning President Roosevelt made a speech. We were in California and it was around nine o’clock in the morning for us, twelve o’clock noon here in Washington. But President Roosevelt made a speech and among other things he said things are gonna be different. It’s gonna be tough. And then after his speech our principal called us all into the auditorium and there’s, I don’t know how many students, maybe 200. I don’t know how many students really, it was a small, small school. But I remember him standing in front of us. It looked like he’d hadn’t slept all night. I thought about it afterwards. Chances are he was a World War I veteran. I’m not sure, but he could have been. He was old enough. But he looked like he had not slept. He looked like he might have been crying. And he stood in front of us, we were sitting in the in the chairs in the in the auditorium and he stood in front of us telling us that things are not gonna be the same. Your lives are gonna be changed forever. I don’t remember his exact words except he said, “Things are not gonna be the same.” And this I remember specifically. He stood there and with his finger he pointed at us young boys sitting there, “And some of you will not come home.” Now can you imagine that? JR: Uh-huh. John That that stuck with me. And sure enough some of them some of them didn’t Alford: come home. JR: Uh-huh. All right. John That I remember. Alford: JR: Uh-huh. John But the point I’m trying to make is World War II changed our lives, the whole Alford: country, everybody. Everybody was changed. JR: Uh-huh. His Parents Were the Greatest Generation [1:51:39] Interview with John Leroy Alford, March 13, 2018 Page 36 of 39

John They, and to be honest with you, I have a problem with the people like Tom Alford: Hanks or Tom Brokaw. They call us “the greatest generation.” I think it was our parents’ that was the greatest generation. Going through the Depression and to make things happen. I think of my parents and the things, the hardships, that they had to endure during their lifetime. JR: Uh-huh. John Dad was born in 1900 and my mother was born in 1902. And things were rough. Alford: You know that was a rough time. You think of the things that have happened since. JR: Yeah. John The Depression was rough for a lot of people. Alford: JR: Did you—? John I remember, you know part of this was the—thinking about the veterans of Alford: World War I, the veterans that were demanding their bonus. They were promised a bonus, that you may have read it in the history books or seen it someplace. JR: Uh-huh. John —in Washington, DC. General MacArthur had to get the troops out, to go into Alford: the camps, that were camped out in in Washington. The veterans that were demanding their bonus. JR: Uh-huh. John They finally got the bonus probably around 1935, I think my Dad got his in Alford: 1936. JR: Uh-huh. John So it was a rough time. That that’s why I think of that generation. Alford: JR: Right now I’m sitting here thinking about [your] parents becoming Peace Corps volunteers in their later years. John Yeah. Alford: JR: That’s just amazing to me. John Yeah, they were they were service-oriented, I guess you’d say. They [laughs] I Alford: don’t know how old they were, my Dad had to be at least sixty-five ‘cause he was, maybe older. My mother was two years younger than him. And I don’t remember exactly when it was, but they went into the Peace Corps, they went to what is now Belize. At that time it was British Honduras. But my Dad was a carpenter, so I know he built a community centered for them and probably a Interview with John Leroy Alford, March 13, 2018 Page 37 of 39

church and my mother helping the young mothers, the young women teaching them things like hygiene, personal hygiene and cooking, ways to cook with the limited equipment that they had. And the limited vegetables, food stuffs that they had, she was helping them. And incidentally my mother’s maiden name was Price and she had gone back to visit at one time, to where they were in Belize. I don’t remember where they were. But the, I guess you’d call him the Prime Minister of the Belize, the Governor of Belize, whatever his title was, anyhow his name was Price. So my mother made a speech there at their Parliament. I don’t know what she talked about, but she talked to their Parliament. For whatever reason I don’t know. [laughs] JR: Well they were obviously a strong influence on you and you became the person you are in large part because of them I would think. John Yeah I guess so. I guess they were, influenced by osmosis, I guess you’d call it. Alford: But talking about the Peace Corps, after they came back my mother became a Peace Corps recruiter and my dad was working with VISTA, Volunteers in Service to American. So he was in Northern California, helping them build schools, houses or whatever. JR: Wow, fantastic. Well it’s been great Master Chief. You obviously are, it may sound like a cliché, but you are an inspiration to me and just feel all the better for having gotten to interview you and get to know you these last few days. John Thank you, thank you. Alford: JR: You are a very positive, forward-looking person. John I try to be. I try to live my life without bringing discredit to my name or bringing Alford: credit to my family, my parents. I guess that’s a way to put it, to bring credit to my parents. JR: Yeah. The Importance of Voting [1:56:05] John I hadn’t thought of it that way but I guess that’s what I try to do. Subconsciously Alford: I guess. I try to be a good person. I don’t always succeed I try to be optimistic about everything. It’s hard sometimes. Uh, one of the things that you’d asked me about earlier I touched on it very briefly in our emails was I’m disappointed that so many people do not vote. They fail to exercise that privilege to express their opinion and vote. So many people, I shouldn’t say anything I guess, but [a person said] voting doesn’t do any good. It doesn’t change anything. And I bit my tongue, that’s why things are the way they are, so many people don’t vote. JR: Uh-huh. John They just say okay, and one of my friends in Jersey City, she said give me my Alford: Social Security, my Medicare and leave me alone. That’s all she’s interested in. Now that’s sad. JR: Uh-huh. Interview with John Leroy Alford, March 13, 2018 Page 38 of 39

John But there are so many, I think there’s so many people that have ideas they could, Alford: they should vote. JR: Uh-huh. John They have opinions and I’ve told others that, at different times, if you didn’t Alford: vote, you have no way, no reason, you have no right to complain. You can’t complain if you didn’t vote. JR: Uh-huh. John So I guess I would try to stress that. I don’t know what our percentage is, the Alford: people that, that’s part of the, I’m writing a political thriller, I’m writing about politics but I guess that that the percentage of people that vote is really shameful. Like sixty, less than sixty percent of the people that are eligible to vote do vote. JR: Uh-huh. John That’s a crime. Alford: JR: Yeah. So I’m anxious to hear about this thriller, to read it [laughs] when you finish it. John I’ve got about 300 pages of draft. I’m trying to clean it up a little bit and Alford: hopefully find some editor or agent or publisher or something. I’m working on it. JR: [laughs] John It started a long time ago. Alford: JR: I look forward to it. Master Chief, thank you very much. [Shakes his hand] John Thank you John. Alford: JR: This has been wonderful. Interview with John Leroy Alford, March 13, 2018 Page 39 of 39

John Alford at Alameda 1944

Log book Entry for September 1944

All images courtesy of John Alford