The Texas General Land Office has released the latest installment of its Voices of Veterans oral history series, featuring Corporal Wayne Terwilliger, who served in the U.S. Marine Corps during World War II.
According to a General Land Office news release, the Veterans Land Board program, chaired by Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham, records the stories of Texas veterans and preserves them in the Office of Veterans Records at the agency.
Terwilliger, who grew up in Charlotte, Michigan, recalled first hearing about the attack on Pearl Harbor as a teenager at the movies with his family. He enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1942 and was sent to San Diego for boot camp before attending radio school, where he learned he would be part of an assault wave — among the first combat troops sent to seize a beachhead.
In the interview, Terwilliger described his first operation at Saipan and later service at Tinian and Iwo Jima. “It was all exciting, you know, really exciting until they started shooting at us,” he recalled of the landing at Saipan. Of Iwo Jima, he remembered watching naval and air bombardment before his unit went ashore under heavy fire.
The General Land Office said the Voices of Veterans program has archived more than 500 stories, which are available to researchers, historians and the public. Texas veterans interested in recording their own accounts can contact the agency by email.