Buck Donaldson was involved in school. He would make the honor roll. He would participate in the plays. They moved to the Louisiana Camp. His father was a doctor. They had houses for the white people and houses for the black people. They were friends with everyone. They would milk cows. Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941] happened after the Depression [Annotator's Note: Great Depression; a global economic depression that lasted through the 1930s] was over. When the Depression ended, they moved back to Castor, Louisiana. He played basketball, played the piano, and took a speech class. When he graduated high school, they did not have a valedictorian because there were five of them competing for the role. His two brothers were in the Army. Donaldson taught himself how to type and studied French. He went to Texas to study radio and Morse code [Annotator’s Note: Morse code is a method used in telecommunication to encode text characters as standardized sequences of two different signal durations, called dots and dashes, or dits and dahs]. He saw in the newspaper that the Navy needed people to work the radars.

Buck Donaldson was born in August 1925 in Grant Parish, Louisiana. He was the fifth child. His father was a doctor and they always had people coming and going. He would play the piano and sing. They kept the house clean for visitors every day. When he went to school, he had difficulty writing in cursive. The Depression [Annotator's Note: Great Depression; a global economic depression that lasted through the 1930s] made his brothers come home because there was insufficient money to keep them in school. They moved and he went to a two-room schoolhouse. The sixth grade always competed with the seventh grade. Donaldson always won in math and spelling. They would talk about the Germans. When the planes and soldiers came to Louisiana, the railroads were important.

Buck Donaldson joined the Navy. He went to San Diego [Annotator’s Note: San Diego, California] for boot camp by train. He was put in charge of making sure the recruits behaved on their way to boot camp. During boot camp, he learned everything a sailor needed to know. Donaldson was sent to radio school. He was glad he already had experience. He started teaching the others because he knew how to do everything already. He could handle 45 words a minute in Morse code [Annotator’s Note: Morse code is a method used in telecommunication to encode text characters as standardized sequences of two different signal durations, called dots and dashes, or dits and dahs]. He would play basketball with some of the other sailors. A chaplain would give them Bible study on Sundays. They were able to go to town and watch big bands and movies. They kept the top 30 men out of radio school to become signalmen. They had six months to learn all the flags. If they heard about a submarine, Donaldson would go to the chart room and chart the danger.

Buck Donaldson had to be able to tell the difference between Morse code sounds [Annotator’s Note: Morse code is a method used in telecommunication to encode text characters as standardized sequences of two different signal durations, called dots and dashes, or dits and dahs]. The chaplain ended up being the same chaplain he had as a child. Most of them were housed midship. He was a third class radioman. He took the 12 to 4 watch.

Buck Donaldson could handle the movie machine. They took the troops from San Francisco [Annotator’s Note: San Francisco, California] to Honolulu [Annotator’s Note: Honolulu, Hawaii] as troop transport. He went to a book store and bought books to help him prepare to go to medical school at the end of the war. They covered the whole Pacific. He saw many different people. They went to the Palau Islands. The Japanese would pick people off. They were in charge of the troop transport. They took two shiploads of Japanese prisoners. One time they had 300 of them on the ship. They had a job to do and had to do it to the best of their ability. In the south Atlantic they encountered a storm. Men could hardly stand up. When they came to shore, Donaldson frequented an Italian restaurant. He was attached to a merchant ship that sailed up the Columbia River. He asked to go into a Baptist Church.

Buck Donaldson went to Portland to get ready to go to Manila, the Philippines. Before they got there, the Japanese surrendered. They anchored in the middle of Manila Bay. Donaldson took care of the radio. They had the best radio log in the Pacific. An officer agreed to take him to Clark Field [Annotator’s Note: on Luzon, the Philippines] to see his brother. They were waiting for news to go back to America. All the buildings had been damaged. They had not seen each other since the war started. They would meet in the morning after breakfast and clean the camp. Next, he was put on a different ship. They went through the Panama Canal [Annotator's Note: Manmade canal connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans in between North and South America]. During the war, they traveled nine knots an hour, 24 hours a day. By the end of the war, Donaldson was the only radio technician left. He could sleep in the radio shack.

Buck Donaldson remembers only one other sailor was in church on his first day in Norfolk [Annotator’s Note: Norfolk, Virginia]. He had a month of leave [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time]. He was leading the Sunday night singing at church. He learned to drive while he was in Virginia. He would drive for the captain. He was going to be discharged on 23 August. He had enough time to go home and prepare for LSU [Annotator’s Note: Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana] and then take a train back to Nantucket [Annotator’s Note: Nantucket, Massachusetts]. A family let him stay with them on the island. He took a bicycle around the island. He was discharged in Newport [Annotator’s Note: Newport, Rhode Island].

Buck Donaldson was headed to LSU [Annotator’s Note: Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana]. He had a glorious time in the Navy. The Navy was a great education. He learned a lot from his older brothers who were in the Army. Being in the service would be an opportunity to see the world. His wife is a doctor. He is thrilled to walk around with his Navy cap on and people come up and thank him for his service or pay for his meals. [Annotator’s Note: Donaldson talks about his children.]