James Moshovitis was born in March 1925 in Washington, D.C., the only son of three children born to Greek immigrants. His parents ran a small food concession in a railway station in Rosalind, Virginia. Moshovitis said Washington is the greatest of cities, filled with museums, a zoo, and visited by many important and interesting people. His father worked hard and always made a living, and the Moshovitis family barely noticed the Great Depression. He remembered that Sunday in 1941 when he was listing to a Red Skins game on the radio, and the program was interrupted with a call for all government officials to report to their offices. It came out later in the day that Pearl Harbor was attacked. Next day, students at his school reported to the auditorium and were told the United States was at war. Moshovitis remembers singing, "Remember Pearl Harbor when we go to beat the foe." He found the news both exciting and frightening, and wondered what the Japanese would attack next. He graduated high school in 1943, with plans to go to college, but he was drafted by the Army. Moshovitis was working as a stock boy in a shoe store, and bought a pair of brown shoes. When he went to the recruiting office, he learned he would be going into the Navy, and had to exchange his new brown shoes for a pair of black Florsheims. He had never been away from home, and was excited about going into the Navy. Moshovitis said all his male friends went into the armed forces, and it made better citizens of them. He went to upstate New York, where it was cold, for boot camp.

James Moshovitis was sent to radio school in Altoona, Pennsylvania. He didn't like taking Morse code, and he fought the training, but he had to stick with it. At Pier 92 in New York City he picked up a ship, the destroyer escort USS Seiverling [Annotator's Note: USS William F. Seiverling (DD-441)]. Moshovitis said they cruised the Atlantic, finding submarines, but never hitting any. Every day he woke to a whistle, and went to work in the radio shack. The ship would go to sea for a few days, then return to base in Havana, Cuba; Moshovitis had never before seen such decadence. After about a year, the Seiverling was sent to the Pacific, traveling through the Panama Canal, ending up in San Pedro, California. Moshovitis said he was drawing 18 dollars a month, so he took a side job in a tuna cannery to earn spending money. He was reassigned to the USS Cecil (APA-96), a troop transport. In Hilo, Hawaii they picked up a Marine division, and practiced landings with Higgins boats [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft Vehicle, Personnel or LCVP]. During these practice runs, Moshovitis' job was to tell them when to go in and come back out. Timing was crucial.

James Moshovitis' ship [Annotator's Note: USS Cecil (APA-96)] arrived off the shores of Iwo Jima when the Allies were bombing the island. He commented that they were wasting bombs because the Japanese were dug in so deep. The night before the landing, the crew was served a steak dinner and reviewed a map denoting their planned progress, but the brass had miscalculated. Instead of sand beaches, there were coral reefs. The Higgins boats got torn up and the Marines could not dig foxholes in the coral. There was no way to set emplacements for the cannons. The Japanese were shooting down on them from the hills, and the casualty rate was high. Moshovitis said that's when flame throwers came into use. Nobody took prisoners. The soldiers returning to the ship were shaken. After the job was done, they got ready for Okinawa. The landings of the Army's 1st Cavalry Division there went a little better, but the soldiers got beat up nonetheless, and there was more Kamikaze activity. By then, Moshovitis said, he was hardly afraid of anything, and besides, the Japanese planes were aiming for the aircraft carriers, and were flying past the little transport ships. The Cecil stayed in Okinawan waters for about a month, acting as the flagship of a 12 ship squadron, as well as a hospital and prison ship. Moshovitis said that many of the survivors, the Americans and the Japanese prisoners, were psychologically damaged. Moshovitis' only scar, on his forehead, came from falling down a ladder while going back to his bunk. He said he was glad he was not among the soldiers who had to land on those islands.

After cruising around the Marshall Islands, James Moshovitis' crew was repairing the Higgins boats [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft Vehicle, Personnel or LCVP] for the next operation, in the Philippines. They put troops ashore on Manila to clean out the Japanese there. Moshovitis said the only way to do it was to kill them. The Japanese were horrible to the American prisoners, and Moshovitis said he had no love for them then, and doesn't now. The Cecil [Annotator's Note: USS Cecil (APA-96)] was taking on more Japanese prisoners, and they were treated well, but they couldn't be trusted. When they were once again at sea, Moshovitis said they heard through the daily newspaper about the atomic bomb. He was glad it happened, and thought there should have been more of them, sooner. The Cecil passed alongside the battleship North Carolina [Annotator's Note: USS North Carolina (BB-55)] when the treaty was being signed, and was the first ship to dock in Japan at Yokohama. Moshovitis was issued a pistol, the only time he carried a gun, and sent ashore. It was the only time he was frightened during the whole war, but the streets were rather desolate, and Moshovitis doesn't remember seeing any of the locals. He thought he would be going home then, but he had to take an LCM [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft, Mechanized] from California back through the Panama Canal and up the east coast to Charleston, South Carolina, and finally he came home, the long way.

James Moshovitis didn't want a career in the Navy, and used the G.I. Bill to accomplish a two year degree in business, He then went to work for his father in the restaurant business administration. Eventually he invested in real estate, and made it his life's work. Moshovitis' most memorable experience of the war was seeing the flag flying on Mount Suribachi, Iwo Jima, and thinking he would be going home soon. But that didn't happen for over a year. Although he didn't volunteer for the armed forces, Moshovitis knows it was the best thing that ever happened to him. It taught him discipline, made him level headed and matured him. He is glad he gave something back to the country. He feels the Americans of today should look back at what happened in World War 2, and not let it happen again. Moshovitis considers it important to have institutions like The National WWII Museum, so people won't forget. Speaking as a Greek-American, he knows World War 2 ensured its citizens freedom and choices. He asserts that freedom has to be protected; just the way it was done by the Army, the Navy, the Marines and the Coast Guard in World War 2.