Gillesse, William (Interview transcript and video), 2017

Smither, James (Interviewer)

Bill Gillesse was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 1926. He remembered hearing about the attack on Pearl Harbor over the car radio during a family road trip to the state capital. Gillesse was drafted in December of 1944 and sent to Fort Sheridan, Illinois, and then Camp Joseph T. Robinson, Arkansas, for Basic Training. After training for war in Europe, he was redirected to Camp Howze, Texas, for mental conditioning and adjustment training necessary to fight the Japanese in the Pacific. Gillesse was then assigned to A Company of the 158th Regimental Combat Team. When the Japanese surrendered and the war was over, Gillesse remained in the Philippines before joining the occupational forces in Japan in April of 1946 with the 1279th Engineer Battalion back in Yokohama. In November of 1946, Gillesse was shipped back to the United States and was discharged at Fort Lewis, Washington, before traveling back to Grand Rapids where he went to work for Consumers Energy Company.

World War II

2017-03-21

Grand Valley State University Libraries, Special Collections & University Archives, 1 Campus Drive, Allendale, MI, 49401.

Veterans History Project (U.S.)

RHC-27_GillesseW2112V

video/mp4

application/pdf

Moving Image

Text

eng