Lucas, Arthur (Interview outline, video, and papers), 2007
Oral history
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
United States--History, Military
Michigan--History, Military
Veterans
Video recordings
United States. Navy
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
Art Lucas was born in a small farm town in Michigan in 1922. There he acquired farming skills that would help him to avoid being drafted into the war at the very beginning. Lucas became eligible for the draft and decided to enlist in the Navy serving on an LST as a signalman and then as a quartermaster between 1944 and 1946. He has photographs taken in Japan after Nagasaki had been bombed. After serving, he continued farming and in Michigan was voted supervisor of his township for 25 consecutive years. Personal narrative, "My Two Years Before the Mast" is appended to the interview outline.
Lucas, Arthur
Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives
In Copyright
Loucks, Avery (Interview outline and video), 2010
Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American
Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American
Avery Loucks served in the US Navy between 1962 and 1966, and remained in the Reserves until 1993. He served with an aerial reconnaissance unit based in the Caribbean while on active duty, and was called up during Desert Storm in 1991.
Loucks, Avery
Loftis, Robert (Interview outline and video), 2004
Robert Loftis was born July 28, 1922 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He spent the majority of his childhood at his grandparents' farm in Marne, Michigan. Robert enlisted into the Navy in 1942 and was sent to Great Lakes, Illinois for boot camp where he spent nearly five weeks in training. After boot camp, he was sent to board the USS Phelps in Treasure Island near San Francisco, California. From California, he left for six months to fight the Japanese in the Aleutian Islands in the North Pacific Ocean. Robert spent the majority of his time in the Pacific Ocean and was designated as a Signalman 3rd class that used Morse code to communicate with other ships. He was discharged in September of 1945.
Loftis, Robert
Lofgren, Jack Allen (Interview outline and video), 2004
United States. Army
Jack Lofgren is a World War II veteran who served in the Quartermasters Corps of the U.S. Army from November 1942 to 1945. In this account, Lofgren discusses his pre-enlistment, enlistment and basic training in the U.S. and his service time abroad. What is most interesting is the brief details he gives in regards to the fighting in Italy, S. France, and his acquaintanceship with Audie Murphy. Lofgren concludes by sharing what impact his time in the service had on him.
Lofgren, Jack Allen
Lobbezoo, Albert (Interview outline and video), 2007
Albert Lobbezoo grew up on a small farm in Michigan and was drafted in the Army in April of 1941. Albert worked as a switchboard operator for the 32nd Infantry Division headquarters in New Guinea, the Dutch East Indies and the Philippines between 1942 and 1945.
Lobbezoo, Albert
Byron Area Historic Museum (Byron Center, Mich.)
Lloyd, James (Interview outline and video), 2007
Jim Lloyds experience in the military began when an ample amount of recruits entering simultaneously and according to Jim the military had no idea what to do with the new recruits. From Chicago to Texas, the military was shipping him from base to base with no orders of why he was there. Upon his arrival they would always ask him why he was there and Jim would have no skills to assist each base he arrived at. He was used for positions as a teacher of gun torrents and advanced electronics which he was unprepared for but made the best of each situation. He was able to adapt well into military life regardless of their lack of efficient placement of his person. He was transferred around often enough that he never made it into active duty during the war. As the war ended he returned to life back in the states, where he returned to his wife and his family. His experience shaped his ability to adapt to changing circumstances but created no life long friendships from the military.
Lloyd, James
Livo, Robert (Interview outline and video), 2011
Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American
Other veterans & civilians--Personal narratives, American
Robert Livo, born in Detroit Michigan, serve in the U.S. Naval reserves from 1953-approximately 1954 to 1955. During his service, Robert went thought most of his training at Great Lakes Naval Base in Illinois. The men were put to work often cleaning and repairing ships that had come into port. Robert worked in the electronics department. He was also sent on a small cruise assigned to refill line layers in the South Atlantic. During this cruise Robert was given 18 days in Brazil.
Livo, Robert
Litty, Fred (Interview outline and video), 2014
Fred Litty is a Korean War veteran that also was a civilian living in Germany during World War II. He was born a U.S. citizen in Yonkers, New York in 1930, but at the age of five his family moved back to Germany and lived in a Berlin suburb. He describes his experiences before and during the war, discussing the Hitler Youth program, his father's military service on the Eastern Front, surviving bombing raids, multiple moves, and finally the atrocities committed by the Red Army in 1945. As a US citizen, he was allowed to move to the American sector of West Berlin, and he and his family returned to New York. In October 1951 he was drafted into the U.S. Army and was deployed to fight in the Korean War. He was assigned to a mortar platoon of the 27th Infantry Regiment of the 25th Infantry Division. He served on the front line for six weeks until he was reassigned to a position in the rear in record keeping, and returned home and was discharged in 1953.
Litty, Fred
Link, Bernie (Interview outline and video), 2005
United States. Marine Corps
Bernie Link was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1925. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, his older brother enlisted in the Marine Corps and following his graduation in 1943, Link attempted to follow. Apart gaining an enlistment in the Marines, Link went through basic training in San Diego and advanced training at Camp Pendleton, California. Following his training, the Marines assigned Link to the 5th Marine Division. He took part in the assault on the Japanese held island of Iwo Jima and received a facial wound at the base of Mount Suribachi on the island.
Link, Bernie
Michigan Military Preservation Society (Grand Rapids, Mich.)
Lindquist, Jay (Interview outline and video), 2014
United States. Air Force
Jay Lindquist was born in 1934 in Chicago, Illinois, and graduated from high school there in 1952. He attended the Naval Academy and served on several ships before transferring to the Air Force in 1957. He trained as a fighter pilot served as a flight instructor, and then trained to work with rocket systems before volunteering for duty in Vietnam. He served there between 1965 and 1966 training Vietnamese pilots and flying observation aircraft out of Da Nang with the 110th Vietnamese Liaison Squadron, and won the Distinguished Flying Cross on one of his missions.. He returned home in 1966 and worked at the Air Defense Weapons Center in Florida until he resigned from the Air Force to pursue a business degree at the University of Michigan during which time he served with the Michigan Air National Guard until he resigned from there as a lieutenant colonel and took a job at Western Michigan University as a marketing professor.
Lindquist, Jay
Lindner, Paul (Interview outline, video, and papers), 2007
Paul Lindner was born in Indiana in the early 1920s and joined the US Navy on July 3, 1941. Paul went through basic training in Chicago and was then sent to Rhode Island to train as a mechanic working on torpedo boats. Paul later traveled through the Pacific to Panama, Australia, New Guinea, Milne Island, Boona, and Kiriwina Island. Paul was also sent to Europe where he patrolled off the coast off Plymouth, England, and Cherbourg, France. He was eventually transferred to the Pacific shortly before the war ended, and never served there. Photographs and an account of military service are appended to interview outline.
Lindner, Paul
Lindemann, Gerd (Interview outline and video), 2011
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, German
Germany--Heer--Panzerarmeekorps Afrika
Gerd Lindemann was born in Rodach Germany, trained as a tank officer and commanded a tank company in the Afrika Korps in 1942 and 1943. He fought at El Alamein and Kasserine, and was captured in May, 1943. He was sent to the United States as a POW, went home after the war, and eventually returned to the United States.
Lindemann, Gerd
Boring, Frank (Interviewer), Michigan Military Preservation Society (Grand Rapids, Mich.)
Lillie, Joy (Interview transcript and video), 2011
United States. Army. Women's Army Corps
Joy Lillie, born in Coopersville Michigan, served in the 51st Field Hospital in the Army Nurse Corps from 1942 to 1945 during the Second World War. During her service she spent 9 months in Oran, Algeria, and went to Normandy shortly after D-Day and worked in France, Belgium and Germany.
Lillie, Joy
Lilley, James (Interview outline and video), 2009
United States. Army Air Forces
James Lilley was born in Ferndale, Michigan in 1922. He graduated from high school in 1940 and then spent two years in an apprenticeship with his father at Pontiac Motors. James enlisted in the Army Air Forces and went through basic training in St. Petersburg in the summer of 1942. James later went through flight school in California and trained to be a fighter pilot. After training James was stationed in Saipan where he escorted B-29s on their missions over the Pacific. James helped secure Iwo Jima and shortly after was injured on his last mission. He was discharged in 1946 and began his career in engineering.
Lilley, James
Spring Lake District Library (Spring Lake, Mich
Lewis, Robert W. (Interview outline and video), 2008
Robert Lewis was drafted into the Army at age 26 and served in the Korean War. Upon being drafted, he joined the Army engineers and worked building bridges in Korea near the front lines. He also worked building foxholes and firing positions for the Marines.
Lewis, Robert W.
Caledonia High School (Caledonia, Mich.)
Levin, Estelle (Interview transcript and video), 2008
Other veterans & civilians--Personal narratives
Women
Estelle Levin grew up in the Chicago area during the Great Depression and attended college during World War II. She provides detailed descriptions of life during the Depression and on the Home Front during the war years, as well as on her working career and the development of social services for women in the decades after the war.
Levin, Estelle
Leslie, Quincy (Interview outline and video), 2008
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives
Quincy Leslie is a WW II veteran from Cheboygan, Michigan who served in the U.S. Army after being drafted in 1942. He served in a radar unit on the New Jersey shore, and then as a supply officer in Hawaii until his discharge in 1946. After the war, he became actively involved in working with veterans in Michigan.
Leslie, Quincy
Lenger, Sidney (Interview outline and supplemental video, 2 of 2), 2011
Sid Lenger was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1918. After graduation from high school, Lenger went into business with his father, who ran several stores in the Grand Rapids. After several years, Lenger received his draft notice and following training in Chicago and Virginia, Lenger sailed on an LST down the Mississippi River, through the Gulf and Mexico and the Panama Canal and into the Pacific Ocean. Lenger's LST transported Marines as part of the massive invasion of Okinawa. Following the battle, the LST transported the supplies needed for P-38 fighter escorts and supplies to Japan before Lenger left the service. Included with the interview is a video Lenger made himself, combining official Navy training films and video he filmed himself while aboard the LST.
Lenger, Sidney
Lenger, Sidney (Interview outline and video, 1 of 2), 2011
Sid Linger was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1918. After graduation from high school, Lenger went into business with his father, who ran several stores in the Grand Rapids. He was drafted into the Navy in 1944, and was assigned as a quartermaster on a new LST that was being built at Seneca, Illinois. He sailed on the LST down the Mississippi River, through the Gulf and Mexico and the Panama Canal and into the Pacific Ocean. Lenger's LST transported Marines as part of the massive invasion of Okinawa, where they witnessed many kamikaze attacks. Following the battle, the LST transported the supplies needed for P-38 fighter escorts and supplies to Japan before Lenger left the service. Included with the interview is a video Lenger made himself, combining official Navy training films and video he filmed himself while aboard the LST (see 2 of 2).
Lenger, Sidner
Lenger, Dewey (Interview outline and video), 2011
United States. Army Air Corps
Dewey Lenger was part of the United States Army Air Force during World War II. He took a cadets exam that allowed him to bypass the general draft and eventually become a pilot. He was set to Europe and assigned to fly transport planes, which he had not trained in, and learned to tow gliders and drop paratroops as well as regular cargo missions. He flew first from a British base, and later from a French one. He ferried fuel to Patton's army, dropped supplies for American troops during the Battle of the Bulge, and carried Canadian paratroopers during Operation Varsity.
Lenger, Dewey
Leistra, Ronald M. (Interview outline and video), 2005
Ronald Leistra served in the US Navy during the Korean War. He enlisted in the Navy because he knew he had a very good chance of being drafted. During his time in the service, Ronald served at Barbers Point in Hawaii, and at Whidbey Island in Washington. His units handled maps and made sure they were secure.
Leistra, Ronald M.
Leibecke, Robert (Interview transcript and video), 2011
Bob Leibecke was born into a military family and attended VMI, graduating in 1969. Commissioned in the Army, he attended Infantry Basic School at Ft. Benning, went to Jump School, put in a few months with a transportation unit at the Hunter Liggett Military Reservation for some leadership experience, and then went to Ranger School, and then to Jungle Training in Panama before going to Vietnam. In May, 1970, he was given command of the 1st Platoon in C Company, 2/506, in the 101st Airborne Division. His company participated in the campaign around Firebase Ripcord. They suffered badly in an attack on their position on Hill 902 on July 2, and later helped to rescue another company, D/1/506, on July 23. In August, he was reassigned to be his brigade's liaison officer to the division headquarters, and also served as a liaison with the ARVN 1st Division during their invasion of Laos in early 1971.
Leibecke, Robert
LeFurge, Harold W. (Interview outline and video), 2004
Harold LeFurge served in the US Navy in both WWII and the Korean War. On an LST ship during WWII, he sailed to the Marshall Islands, the Carolinas', the Northern Mariana Islands, and to Okinawa. The main battles were over by the time LeFurge got there, but his ship carried supplies to the islands, and transported Japanese military families living on the islands back to Japan. Late in the Korean War, his ship transported American relief troops, army and marines, to Korea from Pearl Harbor and other Pacific islands
LeFurge, Harold W.
Lee, Lyn (Interview outline and video), 2008
African-American soldiers
Lyn Lee served in the US Navy from 1972 to 1974. He was a crewman on the USS Navasota (A0-106), a large tanker. His ship served in the South China Sea, and supported ships cruising off the coast of Vietnam in the later stages of the war there.
Lee, Lyn