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https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/files/original/a1d4e3f39f461b1213bad942a8690064.pdf
6d8f9ea432898e6277b79e697881088b
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Text
Name:
Branch:
Years Served:
Conflicts:
Date of Interview:
Melvin Mullis, 3rd class Petty Officer
U.S. Navy
1944-1946
World War II
October 14, 2012
Matthew Price: My name is Matthew Price and I’m interviewing Melvin Mullis on
October 14, 2012. We are at Melvin’s house. What branch of the military did you serve
in?
Mullis: I was in the Navy
Price: What years did you serve?
Mullis: I served from 1944 through 1946
Price: What was your rank?
Mullis: I was a third class petty officer in the Navy
Price: What where you doing before you got drafted?
Mullis: I was in high school and I was drafted out of the senior class of high school and
reported for duty
Price: Where you expecting to be drafted?
Mullis: Well yea, everyone, every eligible person, a young man was subject to be drafted
and I was one of them. So I answered the call and was put into the Navy and then I took
my boot training at Bainbridge, Maryland. And after that I was assigned to a ship and we
went aboard a ship in New Orleans, Louisiana and we went down to the Panama cannel
and through the Pacific.
Price: What ship were you on?
Mullis: I was on the USS Yaupon and we went through the Panama Canal and went up to
San Diego to take on supplies and fuel and went to Pearl Harbor and from there we went
into the Pacific. The furtherest I got was Okinawa
Price: Where you only in WW2?
Mullis: Yes, the War ended a few weeks before we got to Okinawa and so I was not in
any combat but we were headed to it. But Mr. Truman stopped the war for us and we
didn’t have to get into combat.
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�Price: So no major combat or battles for you?
Mullis: No, no battles
Price: What was your main job on the boat
Mullis: Damage control
Price: What did you do with that?
Mullis: In the event we were hit we would try to keep the ship from sinking, if there was
any way at all, long enough at least for the men to get off. So I would be one of the last
ones of the ship because I would be trying to get everybody else off the boat
Price: Trying to keep the ship up as long as possible?
Mullis: Yea and if it was not sinking then we would have to do repairs to what we could
to keep it moving
Price: Did your ship ever get any damage?
Mullis: No
Price: Never had the opportunity to?
Mullis: No, we were lucky we didn’t get there in time to go into combat
Price: What was your most memorable moment while you were in the Navy?
Mullis: I don’t know if I have just one particular memory. We were just being at sea, at
one time I was out for 67 days without stepping my foot on land
Price: That’s a long time
Mullis: And it was quite a while but anyway I think the best moment was when we
returned to the states. We got back on Christmas Eve.
Price: That’s when you got back, was on Christmas Eve? That’s a good Christmas
Mullis: We returned from the Pacific on and we were coming into Portland, Oregon and
started up the Columbia River and it got foggy and we had to anchor in the river. And the
next day we ate Christmas dinner on the way up to Portland, Oregon.
Price: Yea that’s a good Christmas gift to come back home
Mullis: Yea that was a memorable moment
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�Price: That was after the 67 days out at sea?
Mullis: Yes that ended the 67 days when we did that. It was an experience that I would
have never gotten had I not been drafted. But anyway I was fortune more so then a lot of
them that never returned and that happened to the thousands of young men. We all went
with the intent on doing what is necessary. And that what the name of the game was, to
put a stop to the enemy and do what ever it took we were going to do it.
Price: You were ready to do your part
Mullis: We sure was
Price: How did you stay in touch with your family while you were away and gone so
long?
Mullis: While we were at sea like that there was no contact with the family
Price: Couldn’t send off letters or nothing like that?
Mullis: No, no way of sending it letters
Price: Yea mail doesn’t run in the center of the ocean
Mullis: Cell phones were not invented at that time so we just had to wait until we got
back to port and so our families didn’t know where we were or what we were doing or if
we were.
Price: Just left wondering
Mullis: That happened for many men no just me. But that happened to a lot of people,
but it was an experience. I was 18 years old when I went in and when I was discharged I
had already turned 20 so I was in there roughly two years. During that time I had to grow
up, I had to grow up in hurry. I was assigned to things on the ship that I can look back
now and say I cant believe that an 18 year old young boy as assigned to something like
that. But somebody had to do it, everybody was assigned to something but at one time I
had 6 men under me and if I had made one mistake it would have killed every one of
them. And I thought at 18 years old with that kind of responsibility you cant stay young
forever, you have to grow up and do what you have to do.. But there will never be
another war like WW2.
Price: I hope not
Mullis: All the stuff they have now to work with, it would be a lot different. They have
all this unmanned drones that they send over and no body we be at risk. But During
WW2 everybody just did what they had to
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�Price: How was the conditions on the boat, like your room and food?
Mullis: We had good food, the work on the ship was fine and everybody did there part
and we would cruise right along and do what we had to
Price: What your most interested place you stopped at while you were in the military
Mullis: I enjoyed going through the Panama Cannel
Price: Yea I bet that was pretty cool
Mullis: But that was a beautiful place that we passed through the locks and went on out
to the Pacific side. That’s some beautiful country through there. It was something I
would never have gotten to do had I not been in the military and so there were some good
points that went along with the bad
Price: Did you have a girlfriend when you went into the military
Mullis: No I was not dating anyone regular so I didn’t worry about that. I hadn’t met my
wife yet, that came afterwards.
Price: What did you do to entertain yourselves on the boat while you had to work?
Mullis: Well most time we was having to work, and stand watch and all that kind of stuff
and out there at sea we were on 4 hours off 4 hours. That was the norm on the ship
Price: All day long?
Mullis: Yea all day on 4 off 4
Price: So you had to get your sleep in those 4 hours off?
Mullis: Yea and part of the time when we were off during the day we had to work.
Doing cleaning and repairs and that kind of stuff. Then you got back on another 4 then
hopefully you had time to sleep on that next 4 off at night. That gets kind of old after a
while. On 4 off 4. But you can accustomed to it and go with it. That’s about all you can
do at that point
Price: Yea you can t get out and leave
Mullis: No you can’t walk off and say im going home, that wouldn’t work
Price: Do you recall the day your service ended?
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�Mullis: Oh yea I got my discharge at Little Creek Virginia and was ready to come home.
It was kind of let down when you got home. You done with all that you had been doing
for two years and then all the sudden you were out with nothing to do. So after being
drafted out of high school I went back and finished my senior year in high school
Price: So you weren’t even graduated when you were drafted?
Mullis: No I was just 3 months into my senior year when I got drafted so when I got my
discharge two years later I went back to finish high school. Because if I was going to go
any further I was going to have to have it, the 12th grade education
Price: Was the weird going back to high school after being out for 2 years?
Mullis: No I enjoyed it
Price: A lot better than being on a boat
Mullis: Well yea I was 2 years older than the other boys there and I had a pretty good
time
Price: I bet, counting your blessing being back home
Mullis: Oh yea very true.
Price: What did you do after you finished school?
Mullis: I got me and job and went to work
Price: What kind of work were you doing?
Mullis: I was working in a cabinet shop, worked there a while then went on to
construction building buildings of various kinds.
Price: Were you able to use many of your experiences from the military for work
Mullis: Not really, only to just do you job and do it well
Price: Do you still keep up with anybody you were in the war with?
Mullis: Yes, well I did. Two or three men and they all died now. One man he and I were
in Miami at the same time in the same barracks and he was from Elkin, NC and I got so
tired of being there at Miami that one day I told him I'm going to navel headquarters and
volunteering for sea duty and he said your not and I said watch me. So I went in and told
them what I wanted, they gave me a card that said be a pier 8 tomorrow morning at
9:00am for muster and I went back out and he said what you get and I showed him. He
said wait right here and went in and came back out with the same thing. We were
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�together the rest of the time on the ship and he died about 5 years ago from cancer. We
would visit each other and call back and forth on the phone and keep up close until, I
hated to lose him but after spending 2 years with him he was like a brother to me. So it
changed my life but I hope for the better
Price: If there is anything else you would like to share then
Mullis: Nothing important, just one of those services we had to do and we did it.
Price: Are you in any veteran’s organization or anything like that?
Mullis: No, the only thing now is that I'm old enough for V.A. I get my medication from
them. I’m 86 now so that puts me on up there. I plan on being around for a while
Price: I know you have always been around since I’ve been here( He is my neighbor)
Price: If that’s all you have to say then
Mullis: That pretty well covers it, nothing dramatic but I just went and served
Price: Yea went and did what you had to do
Mullis: And I don’t regret having to go
Price: Yea that’s good. Got some good experiences about of it
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https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/files/original/93ee69776efa2582c2bc77a93e718d56.mp3
42a9587a5dc9ebb15e1d7906c7dc9d82
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Appalachian State University American Military History Course Veterans Oral History Project
Description
An account of the resource
Each semester, the students of the American Military History Course at Appalachian State University conduct interviews with military veterans and record their military experiences in order to create an archive of oral history interviews that are publicly accessible to researchers. The oral histories are permanently available in the Appalachian State University Special Collections. The project is supervised by Dr. Judkin Browning, Associate Professor of History at Appalachian State University and all interviews are transcribed by the student interviewers.
Copyright Notice:
Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project’s audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used (e.g. Veterans Oral History Project, University Archives and Records, Special Collections, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC).
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
File size
26.2 KB
14.4 MB
Format, digital
MP3
Military Branch
military branch (U.S. Army, etc)
U.S. Navy
Officer Rank
Officer rank (major, private, etc)
3rd Class Petty Officer
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Price; Matthew
Mullis; Melvin
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview.
Price, Matthew
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed.
Mullis, Melvin
Interview Date
10/14/2012
Number of pages
6
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
0:15:44
Date digitized
2/6/2015
Checksum
alphanumeric code
362b90f27f2c5fb32154bb4388711f09
42a9587a5dc9ebb15e1d7906c7dc9d82
Scanned by
Leah McManus
Equipment
Adobe Acrobat XI Pro
Resolution
300
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project's audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal; non-commercial; and educational use; provided that proper citation is used.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
UA.5018. American Military History Course Records
Recording rate
A/V rate (48,000kzh x 16 bit)
48000kzh x 16 bit
Format, original
Electronic File
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
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5018_Mullis_Melvin_20121014_transcript_M
5018_Mullis_Melvin_20121014_audio_A
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Melvin Mullis [October 14, 2012
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Oral History
Language
A language of the resource
English
English
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Price, Matthew
Mullis, Melvin
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a title="UA.5018. American Military History Course Records" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/167" target="_blank">UA.5018. American Military History Course Records</a>
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project's audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used.
Description
An account of the resource
Melvin Mullis served as a 3rd class petty officer in the Navy during WWII. He served aboard the USS Yaupon where he worked on damage control for the ship. He did not see any combat and returned to the States on Christmas Eve after two months aboard the ship. He said he couldn't communicate with his family at all because "mail doesn't run in the center of the ocean."
Subject
The topic of the resource
Mullis, Melvin
Veterans
World War, 1939-1945
Personal narratives, American
United States
Interviews
1944-46
3rd class petty officer
Bainbridge
damage control
draft
Navy
USS Yaupon
WWII