[Annotator's Note: This clip begins with Lawrence Winnier in conversation with the interviewer.] Lawrence Winnier was born in February 1922 in New Orleans, Louisiana. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Winnier if he recalls the Great Depression, a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1939 in the United States.] His family ate red beans and rice every day and moved every time they could not pay the rent. They never thought they were poor. Everybody else was poor. His father raised a family of four on ten dollars a week. Winnier decided he had enough of school and went to work at a service station fixing flat tires. That lasted two days and he decided to join the Army. This was previous to Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941] in September 1941. The Army would not take him so he joined the Navy in November 1941. He wanted to be in aviation. He joined the Navy and had training in Norfolk, Virginia. He was assigned to the USS Guadalupe [Annotator's Note: USS Guadalupe (AO-32)] which was an oil tanker that had been borrowed from the Standard Oil Company. They went to the Pacific carrying high-octane aviation fuel. Their job was to fill tanks in the aircraft carriers. They would unload and then return to the United States to get more. They were not equipped for the job. He was a mess attendant, which was a waiter for the officers. They had to do everything by hand because they had no winches on board. The waves between the ships are rough. After the first trip, they had winches and guns put on the ship in Norfolk. He had leave [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] in Houston [Annotator's Note: Houston, Texas]. His mother called to tell him the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor and thought he should go back to his ship. He told her it was in the Gulf of Mexico, and he would be called if needed. Winnier had read everything in the paper. When he got back to Pearl Harbor, he saw what the Japanese had done. They [Annotator's Note: the Japanese] made a mistake not landing in Pearl Harbor. If they had, they would have had nothing to stop them in the Pacific.

Lawrence Winnier and his ship [Annotator's Note: the USS Guadalupe (AO-32)] made several trips [Annotator's Note: as a refueling tanker in the Pacific]. He was transferred to the USS Argonne [Annotator's Note: USS Argonne (AS-10)] which was a supply ship. He had been taking tests like everybody else. The second day aboard, the captain came to him and told him he had the highest I.Q. aboard ship. He served the Warrant Officers' mess. A Warrant Officer is a Chief Petty Officer who has been in any field and is a specialist. He cannot be made an officer but is a step above the highest enlisted rank. He gets his own bunk with people like Winnier to serve him. There were 16 Warrant Officers aboard the ship who were all Southerners [Annotator's Note: from the states in the southern United States]. He had not trouble with them at all. He was smarter than them. They had him write their letters for him. One wrote every day and he told him he could not do that. Winnier was also the argument settler. He was transferred off the ship later and had seven officers tell him goodbye. Winnier wrote his own letters to his mom and future wife.

Aboard his first ship [Annotator's Note: the USS Guadalupe (AO-32)], Lawrence Winnier was an officer's attendant. He served them breakfast, lunch, and dinner. He also had to make their beds and clean their compartments. Much like a maid does in a hotel today. Winnier is a perfectionist, even if the job was below him. They did not even inspect the compartments he took care of. He made two trips into the South Pacific and then was transferred to the USS Argonne [Annotator's Note: USS Argonne (AS-10)]. The Argonne was a supply and repair ship. They repaired damaged ships enough for them to get back to the States to be fully repaired. He was still a mess attendant. His duty [Annotator's Note: in any combat] was passing up ammunition and closing the hatches behind him. He never had any problems. The Guadalupe was sunk by a submarine after he was off of it. He had wanted to be on a fighting ship but did not make it on one. That is when he said he would not die in the war. He had gone to Hawaii first. The Royal Hawaiian Hotel [Annotator's Note: in Oahu, Hawaii] stuck out like a sore thumb. He returned several years later, and you could not even see it due to everything being so built up around it. They island-hopped to Guam [Annotator's Note: Guam, Mariana Islands] and Samoa [Annotator's Note: Independent State of Samoa, Oceania].

The Japanese were treated wrongly and were put into concentration camps [Annotator's Note: forced relocation and incarceration of Japanese Americans in concentration camps in the United States from 19 February 1942 to 20 March 1946]. Lawrence Winnier does not care what you call it. We did not put any German Americans in camps. He did not understand it, because he can tell a Japanese person from another person, but not a German [Annotator's Note: by their appearance]. He never understood how they put Americans in camps. Before the war, the Japanese sold Americans tin toys. After the war, they sold televisions and computers. Basically, they won the war. His duties were the same on the Argonne [Annotator's Note: USS Argonne (AS-10); his previous ship was the USS Guadalupe (AO-32) ]. The only thing different was when they called him back for Korea [Annotator's Note: Korean War, 25 June 1950 to 27 July 1953]. He was assigned to a ship being recommissioned. He went aboard and a Chief Petty Officer wanted to swap compartments. He refused and was transferred the next day to North Island [Annotator's Note: North Island Naval Air Station in San Diego, California]. He was happy to not go to Korea. He told them he was a professional photographer and wanted to do that. The officer did not know anything about Negros [Annotator's Note: a term for a person of Black African ancestry] and gave him the job. He did well but got a letter saying he had to go back to being a steward unless he took a photographic test. He guessed his way through the whole thing and had to go back. The only people who were stewards were Filipinos and Negroes. They thought he was white. They were all having coffee one day in the photo lab and in the second in command told the commanding officer that they had a nigger [Annotator's Note: a derogatory term for Black people] aboard. They were talking about another man. The commander said to just give him work that would discourage him. He then decided he did not want to be a photographer. Winnier did a year in ‘Nam [Annotator's Note: Vietnam War, or Second Indochina War, 1 November 1955 to 30 April 1975] and wanted him to do another. Back after World War 2, he did not know he was in the reserve and would be called back for Korea. [Annotator's Note: Winnier stops to consult some notes.]

After Lawrence Winnier left the Argonne [Annotator's Note: USS Argonne (AS-10)], he was sent to Schumacher, California. He was discharged on 9 November 1946. He was called back for Korea [Annotator's Note: Korean War, 25 June 1950 to 27 July 1953] on 20 September 1951. He left that ship and went to El Centro Naval Air Station [Annotator's Note: Naval Air Facility El Centro in Imperial County, California] as a steward again. During World War 2, he did not really keep up with the news of the war. He was glad he was in the Navy, as he does not think he would have been able to shoot anyone. The Germans upset him because of what they were doing to the Jews. The Japanese were goaded into the war. So many restrictions were put on them, that it forced their hand. Roosevelt [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States] wanted to get into the war by all the means. When the Japanese attacked it gave him the excuse, although he wanted to get in the war in Europe. The German treatment of the Jews happened before the Japanese attacked [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941] and was a reason Winnier wanted to join the service. They were making an empire in Europe and it was wrong and needed to be stopped. He did not get over there and is glad he did not. The Navy is a different way of fighting. You eat and sleep well. One ship is fighting another ship and it is not personal. His younger brother was in the Merchant Marines. His ship was sunk in the Gulf of Mexico by a German submarine. Winnier had joined the service at 19 years old [Annotator's Note: in 1941].

Lawrence Winnier's boot camp [Annotator's Note: in the US Navy] was being taught how to set a table and make beds. They did close-order drill. In his fourth grade, his teacher taught them how. He later went back to see that teacher. She used to use a ruler to whip the students. You did not tell your parents about that because you would then get another whipping by them. This was at Corpus Christi Catholic School [Annotator's Note: in Mobile, Alabama]. Winnier went to boot camp in Norfolk, Virginia. He had gotten off his ship [Annotator's Note: the USS Guadalupe (AO-32)] for leave [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] in Houston [Annotator's Note: Houston, Texas]. When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941], he was at his girlfriend's. His mother called him, told him about the attack, and told him he had to go back to his ship. He married that girlfriend. They were married 63 years when she died. His ships [Annotator's Note: the USS Guadalupe (AO-32), and the USS Argonne (AS-10)] were engaged in a couple of battles, but he was below decks and did not know what was happening. He knew that because he had to close the hatches, if anything happened, they were gone. Nobody was going to come back and open the hatches to let them out. The Argonne was not that bad. He was concerned when he was on the tanker [Annotator's Note: the USS Guadalupe (AO-32)] because it carried high-octane gas. One torpedo hit, and it would have been gone.

Lawrence Winnier cannot really blame the people because it [Annotator's Note: racial discrimination in the service] was expected at the time. There were some exceptions, but they were mostly from Northerners [Annotator's Note: people from the northern states in the United States] and not Southerners [Annotator's Note: people from the southern states in the United States]. He and another guy left on a train together and when they got to Texas, Winnier said he had to go into a separate car [Annotator's Note: because he is Black]. The man told him to stay put. They went into San Antonio [Annotator's Note: San Antonio, Texas] to a bar and forgot what time was. The train had pulled out. Their luggage was put off and they caught up with it in Houston [Annotator's Note: Houston, Texas]. He had a horrible feeling about Texas. During Katrina [Annotator's Note: Hurricane Katrina, 23 to 31 August 2005], he lived in Texas, and they could not have been better to him. The people were friendly and helpful. After his wife died, he went back [Annotator's Note: to his hometown in Louisiana]. He spent the night in Metairie [Annotator's Note: Metairie, Louisiana] and went to a Waffle House to eat. He got to his car and noticed the trash all over. In Texas, it was clean and had no potholes [Annotator's Note: as a comparison to Louisiana].

Lawrence Winnier ate well on his ships [Annotator's Note: the USS Guadalupe (AO-32) and the USS Argonne (AS-10)] because he ate whatever the officers had. The Filipinos were the cooks. When he went in, he weighed 128 pounds. Two months aboard ship and he weighed 145 pounds. They had movies on ship but most of the time he would read. Most of his education has come through reading. He likes to read in the bathroom. He read a whole book like called, "The Robe" [Annotator's Note: a 1942 historical novel by Lloyd C. Douglas]. [Annotator's Note: Winnier gives the interviewer his notes.] The only movie he remembers on the ship was with Lena Horne [Annotator's Note: Lena Mary Calhoun Horne; American dancer, actress, singer, and civil rights activist]. The ship was not air-conditioned and many men slept on the deck due to the heat below decks. Two sailors were nearby him and were talking about Lena Horne. They argued if she was a colored [Annotator's Note: an ethnic descriptor historically used for Black people in the United States] woman. One said that she could not have her skin color and be a colored person. The other one referenced Winnier as an example of the same thing. They [Annotator's Note: Blacks and Whites] had to have separate compartments onboard, but life otherwise was not segregated. Winnier ate right after serving the officers. He did not have a dining room.

Lawrence Winnier did not stay in touch with anyone after the war. He has one grandson, three granddaughters, and two great-granddaughters. Some of them live in Texas. He has no lasting effects from the war. He does not have a most memorable experience of the war. He was not really involved in the war. The war did change his life. When he was young, he had a terrible inferiority complex. The white folks had everything. He found out in the service, that "white does not mean you are bright." On board the Guadalupe [Annotator's Note: USS Guadalupe (AO-32)] in Norfolk, Virginia, he was asked to operate a winch. He had never seen a winch before. He went over to it and figured it out. He wasted a career in the Navy because he could have done a lot more than he did [Annotator's Note: Winnier's duties were serving officers their food, making their beds, and cleaning their compartments.] After he returned from Korea [Annotator's Note: Korean War, 25 June 1950 to 27 July 1953], he started working for the Post Office [Annotator's Note: United States Postal Department] as a clerk but was put in maintenance due to race. He put in for a job and took a shot of alcohol before taking the test. He passed but was not put in the job. He was put into maintenance. His resume said he was a baker in the Navy, so they thought he would fail. They did not know he read. He became great at the job. The Post Office is going broke because it is not efficient. Winnier's service was a phase in his life. He did not like it or dislike it. He made the best of it. He doubts if Americans even think about the war. We are always in a war. We cannot protect the rest of the world. The Museum [Annotator's Note: The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana] is part of history. His grandchildren do not know anything about World War 2. History was his worst subject, but it is important to teach what was gone through. He tells his grandchildren what it was like. It is something you have to do.