INTERVIEW LOG Name of person(s) interviewed Ray Newtson
Other people present: Jonathan Shaw
Researcher: Grant Christman
Date of interview: May 29th 2016
Location of interview: Rays home in Helix, Oregon
Special conditions (noise, interruptions, etc.): None
Description of contents: His time spent in service of the military during World War II
Length of interview: 38 minutes
TOPIC SUMMARY
Time Contents
0:20 Enlistment in Walla Walla.
1:40 Basic training in Mississippi which includes all the basic field training and marching and testing.
3:20 Sent to school for clerk typist in Denver Colorado.
6:44 Traveling with his buddies in 3 day passes.
8:20 Giant steaks for eating.
9:00 Traveling around for fun. That was pretty much all of their entertainment.
9:30 Not a stressful job.
12:25 His officers were nice people as far as he knew, but he didn’t have much contact with them. If they didn’t like their commanding officer, they just got a new one because they had most of the control.
16:30 He liked meeting new people.
17:45 He discharged because they wouldn’t let him go west; they wanted him to keep going eastward.
20:00 He says we had to go to Europe to save Britain or theyd be gone. He says that we were lucky that Japan didn’t take over the country when they had the chance.
24:00 He talked about his friend from Alabama and the stories he had about slaves.
25:30 They started to close the airbases and he used to know all of the air bases in the country.
26:50 He talked about a time he went deep sea fishing and swimming and the water had a bunch of barracudas and he caught a huge sailfish. I left that in because he wanted it known that he mostly was just there having fun.
29:20 He wanted to do things to help but he entered the service too late.
Mr. Ray Newtson Interviewed by Grant Christman, 2016
Mr. Ray Newtson served as a clerk typist during World War II.
The primary objective given to him was to take care of records for men exiting the army. He witnessed the end of the war both in Europe and in the Pacific from the United States.
Ray Enlisted in Walla Walla fresh out of high school, expecting to be shipped off to war, to fight for his country. The military had different plans for him.
After basic training, they sent him to school in Colorado to become a clerk typist. He was stationed in Texas, filling out records for soldiers that were leaving the service and going home.
He traveled around quite a bit with friends that he met from around the country. Two of these friends, one from Alabama and one from Illinois, traveled with him to Florida to be stationed there, and shortly after, the air force base in Texas closed down.
In Florida, Ray had to decide whether he wanted to be sent to Germany or discharge, and he chose to discharge after nearly 2 years in the service.
He did not attend any more school after discharging, but instead returned home to work on the farm. He had a lot of fun traveling with his friends and his job wasn’t especially stressful. If they had a sergeant that they didn’t like, they just got a new one. He played his part in the war, and he actually had a lot of fun doing it.