Hall (b. 1925) recalls his childhood in rural Utah and listening to the news about Pearl Harbor when he was in his first year of high school. He enlisted in the Merchant Marines because they had the shortest training period and he wanted to get into the war quickly. He received engine room training in California and ended up on a ship transporting troops from Seattle to the Aleutian Islands. He later went from San Francisco to New Guinea on a liberty ship. He spent the remainder of the war in the Pacific.