 My name is Vernon Downs, and I'm a Navy veteran. I was on the verge of being drafted, so I had to enlist to get the Navy. My parents had to sign for me reluctantly, so that's how I wound up in the Navy. I was fresh off the farm. I had never traveled, and I did learn there was a life beyond the farm and beyond the small town. I got exposed to various things, such as radio, radar, and a deck gang, chipping paint, and things of that nature. April the 1st was the invasion of Okinawa, and we fired our rockets at the beach, the seawall, to break the seawall down for the Army and Marines to go in. After the invasion of Okinawa, we were put on radar picket duty up toward Japan, and there were several planes going over, Japanese planes, and I was on the bow, 40mm, and we were firing off the starboard side. I had no idea there was another plane Japanese close by until all of a sudden, you know, everything just erupted. We were in the water about five hours. At night we could hear people screaming in the water some distance from us, and some of our life jackets were burned or destroyed, so they formed a big circle and we locked arms. You wanted to see somebody coming to pick you up so bad. When I got back to Okinawa, I was put on a hospital ship and then I was transported from Okinawa to Saipan, and I was in the hospital on Saipan for about a month.