TRANSCRIPT:
This transcript was edited for length and clarity.
Joe Tasca: George, it’s the 80th anniversary of D-Day. What is your memory of D-Day? You weren’t there yourself. Where were you when you heard about the invasion, and what was the reaction among you and your fellow service members?
George Silva: Well, we did have this duty with the Navy gun crews manning merchant vessels, which brought the cargo over. Before the war, they did a lot, and we’re still doing it, even when the war first began, where we still were not in the war, but we were sending over lend lease. So these ships had no gunners on there, or guns, period. So we were with a crew of about 12 to 15 men, with an officer, the gun crews manning the various sized guns at the time. We were using surface guns. This was our duty, and at the time of that D Day, I was delivering cargo of any kind, including airplanes for the pilots.
Tasca: George, what prompted you to enlist in the Navy in the first place in 1943?
Silva: Wanted to go ahead and fight for my country. I was only 17, a little on the young side overall, height, weight. And you had to have a signature from your family. And eventually I did. I wasn’t quite 18. I was still 17. And my mother signed. In fact, when I first tried to get in the Coast Guard, I was a little too short, still not physically fit for them. But the Navy, down the hall I went, and they took me.
Tasca: Now you served in the Navy from 1943 until the end of the war. Besides D Day, George, is there a particular memory that sticks out for you from the war that you could share?
Silva: Most of it there was then going to the Pacific on a cruiser with the third fleet and fighting off of the Pacific and the different islands like Japan itself, Okinawa, and the bomb was dropped while we were out to sea and they hit Nagasaki and Hiroshima and we got to stay with the signing of the end of the war at that time aboard the Missouri. And all of the dignitaries at that time were all these generals and admirals we all know. And they were all aboard when the signing was taking place and we got to witness that. So when this was all completed, some of the fleet went back home. But a lot of us stayed.
Many of [the Japanese] did not surrender. They stayed up in the mountains. We were able to get liberty in Tokyo. We got to see where the bomb was dropped in Hiroshima. So this was what we did, stayed as an occupation group. So we were there until sometime in very late ‘45.
Tasca: George, you recently appeared at Narragansett High School to speak to some students about the war. Why do you feel it’s important to tell your story to teenagers?
Silva: Well, they’re getting it first hand, right from the horse’s mouth. The groups we had were the junior class, a great experience for them. It was surprising that they weren’t, you know, thinking that that’s really how it was. I guess they get too much of the movies’ kind of a version. And so, during my lecture with them, each one of them, I kind of drifted off to kind of asking them questions. So when I did, I had questions that they were not aware of that I had answers to. What ship was used during the signing? Nobody knew. And I asked them, who was the president at that time? They didn’t know that. Even when the war started, some of them were not aware. It’s surprising.
Tasca: At the start of the war, George, the country was just coming off the Great Depression. There was a lot of economic instability and inequality at that time. World War II is seen as a conflict that kind of united young people at a time of great uncertainty. What was life like for you and your peers before the war?
Silva: Well, it’s kind of a situation that, I had a kind of a lonely life. We struggled. There was a lot of things we didn’t have as we see today, especially. We have the sort of habits; we see a penny in the ground, we still pick it up. I was amazed one day, I saw this young lady about only a few days ago. with her cane and all, I saw her bend down and I thought she was gonna fall or something. I went over to help and [she said], ‘Oh no, all I’m doing is picking up a penny.’ So I said, ‘Oh, you’re from the old school.’ The restrictions of rations was so hard. And butter and milk was not easy to get. You had to have food stamps. It was rough. But, we managed.
Tasca: How did your experience of the war, George, mold you into the person you are today? How did it change you?
Silva: Well, I think it made me a better man, a better citizen. I am proud that I served and I would do it again. And we saw a lot of difference that, right now, when I think of growing up, I didn’t think that I would be able to today have a few dollars to go out and enjoy myself and take care and not have bills in your hand. Today these people, they’re not in that situation, they’re all doing well. And they should look at that kind of outlook, thinking how good our country is. It keeps them going and they have a freedom, the Bill of Rights, independence. I wish that they would study more on the back history of how we came to be. You see today what’s going on and you’re seeing the struggling with the other wars. It should enlighten them to see innocent people getting killed that don’t have nothing to do with the war. And we’re seeing it with Russia and Ukraine. We can’t let these people step on us. We gotta get out there and show them still that we are a strong country.
Tasca: George Silva, World War II veteran. Thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it, George.
Silva: And thank you. I appreciate that. I hope that what I have said might help somebody.
