Hey everyone, welcome to The TeamHouse. I'm Jack Murphy here with today's guest, Arthur Lewis. Arthur is a veteran of World War II, served in the Pacific, and he is 100 years young as of this speaking. Uh, we're very excited to have him on the show. Arthur, welcome to The TeamHouse.
Glad to be here.
So Arthur, let's start at the beginning. Uh, tell us where you grew up and what life was like Where did I grow up?
Well, I was born in New York City. My mother rented a room in a bungalow in Brighton Beach. I never really remembered my mother. She passed away when I was about 3, 4 years old. Mrs. Lewis, who owned the bungalow with her husband, she was a chef. She used to cook in the mountains, Catskills, and when mother passed away, they didn't know what to do with the kid, and Mrs. Lewis raised me for a while until the lawyers got involved and They wanted to put him into a home, an orphanage, and Mrs. Lewis decided that she'd like to keep me there, but they had to take me away from her. And she used to come visit me, and I'd go to the gate with her as she was leaving and asking her, "When are we going home?" She didn't particularly care to stay there. But an adoption followed, and that's where I grew up. Went to high school in Brooklyn, New York. Went to Brooklyn Tech. Those of you who live in New York know it. Tremendous school. Had a great education. And at that time, I was getting older and graduated high school. Graduated in 1943.
Around June, I guess it was. By that time, Mrs. Lewis had passed away just before my 13th birthday. And family of the Lewis, that was the only name I knew. I didn't know my name was anything other than Arthur Lewis. And I grew up, the war went on, started in '41. Graduated in '43. Brooklyn Tech was across the street from the Brooklyn Navy Yard. And it was basically an engineering school. Got all different kinds of engineering. It was an incredible institution. It took up a full city block. And in order to get in the school, apparently, They gave a citywide exam, and before I matriculated from the 6th grade or the 8th grade, my math teacher said, "Arthur, you're going to be going to Brooklyn Tech on Monday." And I said, "What's Brooklyn Tech?" Didn't know what it was. And apparently I went out to take the exam. And there were a couple of kids from my school. The exam was citywide and apparently I passed whatever the tests were about and that's when I went to Brooklyn Tech. But I wandered on this to the Navy, I believe, living with relatives of the Lewis's and they were pretty good to me.
I was raised with 4 girls, various ages, and still, she was a son. And my, uh, the relatives I was living with, the Solomons, they were raising another daughter whose father couldn't take care of her. Her mother passed away and they took her into didn't adopt them, but they raised them. In any event, that's when I decided I wanted to join the Navy because Brighton Beach was near an airport and kids could see all the airplanes going by. That's what we wanted to do. We wanted to fly. And I knew that if I did my list, I would be drafted into the Army, and we didn't want to do that. We wanted to learn to fly. Navy Air was the principal thing that we saw and believed in. And so I did try to enlist. I needed to get the parental approval, and the family didn't want me to go. I told them that, well, I'm going to be 18 in 3 or 4 months. So they relented and signed and let me join the Navy. If you want me to keep talking.
Arthur, before we get into your time in the Navy, I do want to pause for a second here just to ask about your reflections of growing up in Brooklyn. We are here, our studio is in Brooklyn. You know, I would love to hear a little bit about what it was like growing up here in the 1920s into the— I'm sorry, 1930s into the 1940s.
I was born in 1925. I entered the Navy in 1943. From there I served in the Navy. It was quite an education again. We took some exams. Navy wanted to know what to do with you. I went for the physical. I was a healthy kid at the time. Nothing wrong with me. But when I was less than 20, 20, and consequently they had me take a walk around the block, gave me the day off, told me to come back again, eat a lot of carrots. Carrots were the reportedly Good for the eyes. It didn't work. And I entered boot camp in Chicago, Great Lakes Naval Training Station. Again, exams. We had a lot of math, science, and high school exams. No problem. Apparently I got accepted into a particular program. There was a Captain Eddie who was in charge of a particular branch of the service. And he had devised a test and you passed that test, they wanted you into this special program. We didn't know what it was. And the first thing they did after boot camp was to send me to Naval Training Station to Wright Junior College in Chicago, and we found out that they gave us a lot of training exams in electronics or radio, and we spent about a couple or three months there, and if you did reasonably well, they moved you on.
And then I transferred into, along with a couple of other kids, to Oklahoma Indian, and we were there for 6 months. Got more electricity, got a radio. We learned how to build a radio from scratch, and of course we didn't have the chips that we have today. We had resistive capacitors and vacuum tubes. We still have a few around, but they're rare. We built a radio. We learned about high fidelity radio and moved from there to Treasure Island. And eventually found out what this was all about. We were learning about radar. That was an interesting thing because at Treasure Island we were taught every piece of Navy communication equipment without responsibility. We learned how to read the schematic drawings, how to repair them. We handled everything from— we didn't handle airborne. That was down in Corpus Christi. But we had fire control radars. We had sonar. We even had the beginning of GPS, which was a different method in those days. It enabled you to onboard ship to not depend on the stars. Radio transmitters was long-range aid to navigation, LORAN. And we also studied the sonar and just about every piece of equipment. The only thing we never worked on was what we called FM radio.
It was relatively new at the time. I remember when I finally graduated, it was an interesting period of time when we were in San Francisco. We received a rating that was the same as a radio operator. And that presented a problem later on because we had been dealing with radar and that was extremely secret in those days. They didn't want to distinguish us from any other sailor or whatever. Didn't want anybody to know. That way, Newman understood radar to a greater extent than most people did. But the rating was the same as a radio operator, which was no problem. I got up to a second class. Well, we weren't called electronic technicians in those days. But when you're out in San Francisco in a bar, Well, if you were a sailor in San Francisco, there was no other place to go. I didn't drink. I didn't smoke. I was just barely 18 at that time, not quite 19. And I'm sitting in the bar drinking Coca-Cola. And the sailor next to me has got the same ratings and symbol And he's looking at me and he starts to give me Morse code. I'm looking at him like he was out of his mind.
He's looking at me like I must be some kind of a phony. I didn't earn those stripes. And so a little pushing and shoving, whatever, we soon got over that.
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Increased energy, better performance in the gym, uh, all of those things. Uh, I've, you know, quite frankly, in the past, uh, had a problem with testosterone, as a lot of military veterans do, as a lot of men who are going into their 40s do. And this is actually something that seems to be helping me get my levels back up even higher. So I'd highly recommend checking them out. It has 8 different substances in it. that help boost your testosterone count. If you guys will go and check them out, we'd really appreciate it. So would the sponsor. Um, for a limited time, our listeners get 50% off for life, plus free shipping and 3 free gifts at mengotomars.com. That's mengotomars.com for 50% off and 3 free gifts when you check out. After you purchase, they will ask you where you heard about them, please show support for the show and tell them that the TeamHouse sent you. Thank you, everyone. I realize, you know, understand you're, you're being trained as a sort of radar technician. But at this time in your training, you probably didn't know where you were being deployed to.
We didn't know where we were going to go. We were in what we call the receiving station out in San Francisco. And we had been given a 30-day leave before we were going to be assigned to a ship. At that time, the Navy was beginning to build the very first radar repair ships. They— the Samaritan, the Transcorp. And it carried spare parts for every piece of electronic equipment the Navy used. In the Pacific. I don't know how many they had, but I know they started with one, and I believe there was one that was already out there. And when I went back home, East, to the family that had raised me the last, from 13 to 18, I told them that I had planned to enlist at UCLA, not enlist, but apply for and go to school there, and that I was going to leave. And my uncle says to me, "What's the matter with New York? We have some pretty good schools over here, don't we?" But it was a crowded living room with 5 people. In a small, relatively small apartment, one bathroom for all the girls, and girls need a lot of time and space.
And I used to go to bed at night. I was the last one to go to bed because we had a little cot in the kitchen. And I was the first one to get up because everybody had to get up and go to work. I had to go to school. And it was a great upbringing, a little crowded. But when I was out here on the coast, I saw California for the first time. The living was good. I enjoyed it immensely. And I had been to school when I was at UCLA. And if you've ever seen the campus today, it's just a crowded mess. But there were only 4 buildings. There was Royce Hall and the library, typical great college campuses, 4 buildings, an old administration building and an old chemistry building. And I got a job with Fowler and Howard to dig the ditches for the sewer lines that they knew they were going to be building when the war was over. And that's what was going on there. And she told me, you know, I'm going to get assigned to— I came back late from that 30-day leave. I don't want to tell my wife, but I met a girl on the way and I got back a day late.
Now, nothing happened. Nobody gave me a giggle, a black mark. And so we wondered where we were going to be assigned. And then one day somebody said, hey, Art, your name is up on the shipping list. You've been assigned out. I didn't know what it was. They didn't know. I had to go to the board and find out. And that's when I found out I was being assigned to an LSM. LSM is the smallest ocean-going ship the Navy had. And 238 is right behind me on that screen that Courtney dug up and found. It's like an LST. Most people have seen them. Been around Europe landing on the beach. France was typical. It was very similar, although it wasn't enclosed on the upper deck. It did have bow doors that open up, ramp goes down, and we were able to get on and off. The reason I got assigned to that Kapelle LSM was it was the last of a group of 7 or 8 that had been built. I believe most of them were built on the West Coast. And from there they were out. The captain of this LSM-238 was the last one.
I was still in San Francisco. And the commanding officer was a Minneapolis graduate. This was back in '44, '45. '44. We hadn't reached '45 yet. And he knew that the LSM was entitled to regroup 8 ships were entitled to an electronic technician. And he knew there was an electronic technician and he didn't want to leave until he got one because he knew there were none amongst all the 7 ships. And he had insisted on one. I strongly suspect that being a day late, made me the first one to get assigned to an LST. That was kind of interesting. When I came on board, you salute the flag, you ask permission to come on board. You've got all your papers with you. And there's a young man who comes and picks them up. And before you know it, they've got Arthur Lewis here on board. And the first thing the radio operator says to me is, I'm glad you're here. We got this piece of machinery, he says, we don't know what to do with it. And that was an FM radio. It was a portable radio. It was a Marine Corps piece of equipment. And I'm proud to say I'd never seen it before.
Never saw any diagrams or anything about it. And he says, we can't get this thing working. So the first thing I asked for was schematic. And I see that we've got some tubes in there. And one of the first things you know when you begin to work on radios and communication equipment is check the tubes. You feel them, and if they're not warm, you probably got a bad one because they do generate heat. They have internal electrodes. And I asked them, "Where's the spare parts?" Had no idea. Didn't even know where the schematic was. It took them a day or so to find that. But I knew they had to have it if they had the equipment on board. The Navy was pretty efficient even in those days. We finally found a box of propane that we were able to start it up. It was crystal controlled and that became important later. We took the ship to Honolulu, or the ship took us, and that was interesting because I had never been to Pearl Harbor and I'd never seen Honolulu and sightseeing was interesting. We saw the bombed-out ships that were laying there. They were still there.
And we— one of the things I noticed as a kid, I pushed a trip abroad or anywhere, I never visited New York, until I got there was that there was pineapple juice all over the place and we loved it. They couldn't ship it back to the States. They were growing it and they had a lot of it. You could get a case of pineapple juice for nothing. And so we spent a lot of time drinking pineapple juice. Baba with whiskey. And we finally got assigned to Oahu and we knew that we were going to get some troops on board. And so the ship got loaded before we went to Oahu. And From there we found out that we were going to be doing some training. And the training was to get this landing craft, this 238 that's behind me with the bow doors open. The open well deck was stacked with all kinds of munitions and on top of the munitions that they had there They had planks and they rolled on board some communication jeeps, a couple or three, and up in the bow door they were placing an armored bulldozer and that became a problem later.
But while we were there, we had to practice getting a ship on the beach. We'd be out a couple hundred yards or more and head for the beach full speed. And while we're running into the beach at full speed, we're dropping an anchor off the fantail. And, you know, keeping your fingers crossed hoping that it's going to grab hold somewhere. Because you're beginning to unwind the cable so that when you do hit the beach— by then they knew what the beach over there would be like. You've all seen them in the previous movies on the European theater as well. So we get on that beach and we'd be essentially stranded. The idea was to then unload whatever you had there. Pullover, winding yourself off with a winch. We did that a couple of times. And while we were there, the commander of the group, he had his communications on— he had them on a similar FM radio. He had issued orders to all the other ships that were involved with us to get up on his frequency. We found out later that the reason for that was nobody on his ship knew how to change the frequency.
I was able to find the crystals that worked. That were the same frequency. So we were the only other ship to be able to get on his frequency. And we then had all of the ships on one of the beaches on Oahu. And I think maybe we were on Maui. But whatever it was, I had to go from ship to ship. To get the other ships on frequency, which we were able to do. Also, while we were in San Francisco, the word got out that we were able to put.50 caliber guns because we had no other defensive armament. And if they were to come back from the fleet that on these landings on the beaches. The Japanese were beginning to board the ship when it was unloading and they were being attacked. And of course, the Navy amphibious forces, sailors don't carry guns. But I got there as my duty station. Because everybody else on the crew had a battle station. Mine was the radio shack and that took me out on that day. And when we had the gun installed, that was mine. And we got to swinging it around because it's on a pedal which would let you run it along.
I think the captain one day noticed that as we swing that thing around, we can go right past the conning tower where he would be if our ship was underway or even on the beach. He quickly realized that. He didn't want to have any accidents and put his stuff on it so that even if he wanted to, he couldn't shoot the captain. Well, that was a consideration because if you remember what was going on in Vietnam and officers who got out of line were not particularly well liked. I don't want to get my captain in any trouble and say that we didn't like him, but we had a feeling because while we were traveling, he would have the There's a Black officer, it wasn't an officer, a Black sailor who does duty in the kitchens and segregation works in full swing in those days. And when we're traveling across the Pacific, this was later on. He would have a Coke on a silver tray and he would walk up through the crew's quarters all the way on up to the conning tower and they'd have a Coke. And of course we didn't have the Coke at that time.
Later we got some on board and had a lot of cigarettes. The country was good to the sailors. We ate well, not as well as submarine food, but we ate well as long as we had food. Later we ran out of food too, but that's a story for another day. We got the ship loaded. They put all the communication things. We got the bulldozer on board and we started heading out. We knew not where. And while we were on board, we had about 40— forget exactly how many Marines we had on board with a Marine Corps captain who was in charge of the group. And you sure you want me to continue with this? Yes. Yeah.
Please.
We were traveling with it and they would start the engine on the armored bulldozer and after a couple of days when they went to start it, they kept checking it every day and they couldn't get it started. There were some mechanics Amongst the Marines, almost any kid in the country knew how to work on an engine. And we had our own motor mech help them get it started. They finally got it started. And then a few days later, again, they couldn't get it started. And the ship is traveling about 6 knots. You could walk faster than that. But that was the rate at which we went. I tell people that ship would take us anywhere. It would take 30 days. If it was next door, it would take us 30 days. If it took us 30 miles, it would take 30 days. But we progressed. But it got to the point where our skipper was getting a little nervous about that. So he gets a hold of the Marine captain He tells them when we get to Saipan, we're going to get permission from the harbor master to pull up alongside the dock and we're taking that thing off here.
The Marine captain looks at him. He's got his hand on his sidearm. The only guy with a gun on board the ship. And when the Marine captain hears him tell him that he's going to take that off the ship, He says, Captain, one captain to another, except the Navy captain, well, he wasn't a 4-striker, he was a 2-striker, but he was rink captain. So he said, Captain, when we get to where we're going, I'm going to be that bulldozer. That bulldozer isn't getting off the ship until we get to where we're going. And they're nose to nose and eyes to eyes. And my skipper finally turns around and walks away. When we got to Saipan, we finally got it started and the agreement was that they wouldn't turn it off until we got to where we were going. We were looking at charts to see where the hell are we going because they hadn't told us. I guess that's Navy routine in any war. And we found an island close to Japan and it was Iyoshima. I don't know whether it was Iwo Jima or not, but it ended up to be Iwo Jima we were heading for.
So we had that going during that entire trip, pouring gasoline in. In one hand and warning on the other. We got to the island that we saw. Now we knew where to look. We saw the biggest fleet we had ever seen. There were a couple of battleships out there. They had been there for quite a while. The island had been bombed, it had been bombed from the air, from the big battle wagons, and you probably know those battleships with those 18, 20-inch guns. The shells are about the size of a of a little car. And you would have thought that there was nothing that could have survived it. But we were— we didn't have the kind of air attacks that later became the routine, but we did have some flying over. Every ship in that armada was firing at those planes that were attempting to come in while our own weren't around. And the order finally came out that all U.S. ships without radar control, fire control, stop shelling. Those things have to come down. Apparently we were doing a little damage on our own. In any event, the LCVPs, those are the smaller personnel carriers, they're full of soldiers, open deck.
They run up on the beach and they drop a ramp and soldiers get off. They're the first ones that landed. And we were still out. We were loaded. We had our machine. We had our armored bulldozer still there. And after they got ashore, we started to land on the beach. Now, we had— I had some other photos that my kids got. We didn't have our iPhones with us in those days. I guess we couldn't find them if you wanted to. But Navy apparently had a lot of pictures taken. And later, if you want, I'll see if I can't find some. And we hit the beach where they dropped the ramp. We got that bulldozer off, began unloading all the other supplies. I remember when we got everybody off, we were sitting on one end, the crew, and there was a lot of noise going on. And we were sitting on some jelly gasoline. And me and the guy sitting next to me said, let's get out of here. So we moved to the other end of the ship. And whatever we sat on, was just as bad as the Gilligan Island, but we finally pulled off and then we had some other duties.
Interestingly, as you know, Hiroshima was the largest number of Marine casualties. The Army was there also, but it was the Marines that bore the brunt of it. We got off. We were then carrying supplies back and forth. And at one point we were told to go ashore and pick up some prisoners that had been captured. And that battle It was take no prisoners. And the Marines apparently had 4 and we were to take some wounded back. So we went. You never hesitated to follow an order. I remember nobody questioned whether it was dangerous or not. You don't have time for that. You're told to go somewhere and do something, you do it. And we got these prisoners on board. The ramp was down. They were brought aboard by another Marines. The prisoners were on stretchers. They were carried on board. They were laid flat on the well deck. And the Marines didn't want to get on board with them. Because they had been in battle with them for the last week or more. And they refused to get on. And the word came back, "You tell those Marines they're going to get on board that ship.
We want those prisoners here." And so they did. They got on board and they stood on the upper deck. It's open. And they stared down at those prisoners. We pull off the beach and now we have to find out where we got to go. For whatever reason, we did not know where it was. And we were steaming around in that harbor for quite a while. And the weather was getting threatening. The prisoners were— they were pretty well cleaned up. That was a surprise. Apparently the medics who had gotten to them cleaned them up. Every one of the prisoners had either an arm or a leg off. And they were just laying there quietly. Apparently they had been given some cigarettes, but they each had one or two. Didn't know how many. We didn't bother counting. And we saw them One of them started, as I recall, to try to get and light the cigarette that he had. It was obvious he couldn't do it. He only had one arm. And you could see that he wanted it. And as I recall, one of our guys went down there and started to light the cigarette for him.
And once we did that, the others began to pull out a cigarette also. And then another sailor came down. And then a Marine came down. And pretty soon they were lighting a cigarette for them. To me, that was really a show of empathy and humanity. They were just soldiers doing their job, can't help themselves, afraid they were going to get tortured or whatever from what they had heard, just like our people had heard things like that. And then our cook comes out and he's got some soup And we started to feed them, and the Marines were there and also lent a hand in feeding them. And meanwhile, we're still trying to figure out where the hell are we going. And finally we did, we did that. We got them off.
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And while we're on the beach, I tell a story that I learned to drive on Iwo because while we were unloading all this stuff, some big Marine— I never seen a small one, and no matter how short they are, They're big, they're tall. And Simon Gill's kids are fucking weapons carry out of here. I look around, I'm the closest to it. I get up, I jump behind the wheel because even though I had never really owned a car, probably even didn't drive a car, when you're that age in a city like New York, We know how to drive. So I get my foot on the clutch and I'm holding that big clutch down. I'm shifting my gear, any gear. I didn't know or care. I get that truck to move. And if my wife hears me tell that story, she'll say, "He still drives like that." But I didn't get any injury. I did have a— I'm embarrassed to even talk about it. I had a cut and I feel it was a piece of shrapnel somewhere, but anyway, it got infected and is swelling up and it's getting painful. Now, our medic, he says that to the captain.
We got to hand him over to one of the doctors on one of the ships we're coming to. I can't do anything else for him. I'm just getting the paint on, disinfecting. And so the captain, as he would for a crew member, finds that there's a ship nearby, big transport that has doctors on it. And so we pull up alongside Now by this time we had run out of food. We were eating K-rations. Nobody's got time to take care of a lot of stuff like that when guys are dying on the island. And so the people on board those other ships, transports or whatever, they're alongside the rail, they're watching the show. They're pretty safe by this time because we had our own air force. That was one of the reasons they wanted Hiroshima because they had been bombing Japan. The B-29s were stationed in Saipan. And on the way back, some of them suffered some kind of damage to the airplane and we were losing some of them in the water before they could get back to Saipan. And we were picking up any of the survivors that we could on any of the ships that were there.
There were others who were probably more adept at doing that. And so we get alongside the ship, you better climb up the ropes. You've seen that in the cargo nets. And the kids were all watching and they see this sailor come in, he's got his hand bandaged, and they find out that we're looking for a doctor for me. 'cause I had one of the guys with me. And they take me to the doctor. And you get lost on the ship, don't know where, wouldn't know how to get around. That's why we always had somebody with us. And the doctor takes a look and wraps up the bandage and takes a cigarette, shoves it in my mouth. I didn't smoke. He didn't ask me. And gets his scalpel and cuts it open. Blood and stuff comes out. He wraps it in a bandage, puts my arm in a sling, and we're done. And they're going to take me back. And on the way back, one of the ship's crew says, would you like to eat while you're here? Because before we had left and we had pulled up alongside, some of our crew had yelled out to them, hey, you guys got any bread up there?
And the guy looked down, bread? We need bread. So they go get their cook. He comes out to the railing and says, you guys asking for bread? Yeah. Well, they get whatever they wanted, was transferred to them. And on the way, he's telling me, would you like to eat while you're here? I say, yeah. So they take me down to the cell line. And it's a big long line, as long as the ship. And they moved me up to the head of the line. Now ordinarily, you bump the chow line, you're going to get your ass kicked. But everybody was respectful. We get up to the head of the line and what do you think they're serving? Steak. And so moving along with the tray, somebody's holding the tray, and the guy puts a big slab of steak on there. Does he want another one? Well, yeah. So I get that. And then down the end of the line, there's ice cream. These guys were having a party. We have a nice meal. We go back down. Now I've got to climb back down the net. My arm is in a sling like I've been in a war or something.
Nobody thinks I have because we didn't have to go in on it. We unloaded and we're ready to go back. And I can't let everybody think that I'm alive. Take off the thing on me and I climbed back down and we don't make a big thing out of it. I've never made a claim on having been wounded in the war. Never got a Purple Heart. Never asked for one. It's a story I don't like to tell so much. Somebody else might hear about it and think I'm making it up or something. But we were good. Finally, I'm sure there's a few other stories to tell about it. But basically, we got damaged and we had to come back for repairs to Pearl Harbor. Oh, we felt so bad that we had to go to Pearl Harbor. But when we got to Pearl Harbor, we found out They didn't have any room for a ship like ours with all the other damage.
Author, how did your ship get damaged?
Well, by being banged alongside that beach and the other picture that I have, you will see 7 LSMs, as many as they can get on one picture. And that's where the damage comes. The swinging against, and when we go out to load up, we're banging against the other ships. And that was most of the damage. We never took a direct hit. Somebody somewhere else did. And that's when this— and some of the pictures that we show is the LSM-238 all by itself. And those were after the first couple of days of unloading supplies and equipment where we had to go around to the west side. Iwo Jima is an island that's 4 miles long, 2 miles wide at the widest point. That's where the airfield was put. Mount Suribachi is on the southern end, lies at an angle, but it's a small area, 4 miles at one end and it's only 4 miles, 2 miles wide at the widest, and Mount Suribachi at the other end. See, what they had done on Mount Suribachi was they had their mortars inside the caves —on the island. They had the beach gridded, A1, A2, B2, and they had each mortar on any spot that they wanted it.
They would set it at the angle and elevation that's required to hit any spot that they wanted to, and they'd run the mortar out to the end of the cave or the mound. Pull a lanyard, pull it back in. So they were pretty well protected. And we didn't have that problem. As a matter of fact, they let the first batch of Marines who arrived on the LCVPs get out and ashore before they began to bombard everything else up there. So I don't know the damage on any of the other ships. But I'm sure there was. But that's essentially how it was. We got to Pearl Harbor. We had to go on to the States. And when we got through the States, there was a little river up in Napa Valley. And we were— it was almost like going through the Baltic. If you've ever been through the Baltic, you see people on both sides and they wave at you. That's when I got to approve the ship. One of the things that we dreamt about is that, and I tell the story, I dreamed of the days when I could sit on the side with a gin and tonic and watch the waves go by.
And that's what we did when we went up the Napa River. People on both sides were waving and hello. It was a small shipyard where we left the ship and I never saw it again. But when I got through, I got a 30-day leave, I think, at that time. That's when I went home and told the family that I was going to go to UCLA. And we did. And I'm thinking, who knows? That's when I came back. And when I got back to the receiving station, I remember I had enough points for discharge. And that was the point system in those days. I go to the CO and I tell him I've got enough points for discharge. He takes a look, there was a lot of paper. You know, you're right. When you get to Japan, you tell the commanding officer that you have no points. So when I got to Japan, I did that. And 6 months later, we were down in the Philippines. We were sweeping mines on a minesweeper. That's where I got the picture of myself with the monkey. Everybody likes that. Did we have a monkey on board? Well, we had a monkey on board, but not until we had to leave.
We left the monkey on the island.
Arthur, this was— I mean, you go to Japan, presumably the war is over at this point, right?
Yeah, the war was over. I'm not sure, though, that the peace treaty had happened. This was February. Okay, that would have been in the middle of the— yeah, that would have been the middle of the year. So the, uh, the other, uh, island I came right after that, uh, it's casey's baloney. That's what happens when you hit 100. Oh, you're talking about Okinawa? Okinawa, yeah. That's where the air attacks were leveled. There's a lot of damage from that. That's why I said we were getting some of that, but not like Okinawa. Okinawa is even closer to Japan and it's a very large, large place, much bigger than Hiroshima.
So the Navy had you do basically an additional tour. This time you were minesweeping, trying to clean up after the war. Repeat that one. It sounds like the Navy had you do an additional tour anyway in Japan and the Philippines, basically cleaning up after the war.
Well, yeah, we had already occupied most of the Philippines. We were in Sulu Bay. We were mostly minesweeping. We did minesweeping also up in Japan. And I recall that we were sweeping mines there when we blew up a couple of ships. And the Navy finally said, well, look, the Japanese are the ones that put them there. They made the Japanese go ahead and sweep their own mines. Then we went down to the Philippines and we were sweeping mines over there. It was a different kind of ship, minesweeper. They're having that kind of a problem. They're having a kind of a problem now. And I was— and I ran trying to lock the door. It's a different mindset that they have these days, different mindset for them as well. But it's still a dangerous town.
And how did, uh, how did that tour go for you?
Well, when I got back and went to UCLA, I started in engineering. By that time, I was working at Hughes Aircraft because of the background in electronics. They needed people to help build some of the airborne radar. Hughes Aircraft at that time was run by Sy Raymond, Dean Woolrich. Those are names you recognize as being part of the— not TWA, but Thompson-Raymond Woolrich, TRW. They were running a huge aircraft research and development labs. They developed the first airborne rocket ships. When I met them, I was at Hughes for about 10 years while I was going to school. I switched from engineering to law. And I didn't bother telling them. It wouldn't have made any difference if I had, because they were pretty good about letting their kids go to school. And I got married. And I have 3 boys who are also practicing law now. I guess they all decided to follow law because if they had a dad to make a living at it, how hard could it be? So I've got 3 boys who are all in the office. I have a daughter-in-law that's married my oldest boy. They went to college. USC.
Ronald played football. He was a hell of a football player in high school. I recall he made the team when he was a freshman, and so they put him on the kickoff return team. And I remember going to the first game that he suited up for. They had him take the first ball I kicked over to them. He took it about 5 yards behind the goal line, ran it all the way to the other goal line. He continued that way. He was recruited by— well, SC came in later, UCLA. Coach Kush from Arizona State Arizona State. He came out to the house and he wanted to know what he could do to convince him to come to Arizona State. I remember him saying that Ronald wanted to go to USC because USC was number one. And all these kids that were in there good at anything want to go to the number one school. And he finally turns to his mother and he says, "What does he want to be?" And mother quickly says, "He wants to be a doctor." That reminds me a story about Zelinsky. Remember when Zelinsky's mother was interviewed and she says, and the press says to her, Mrs. Solinsky, you must be very proud of your son, now the head of the government.
And she says, yes, but my other son's a doctor. As a traditional Jewish mother. So Ronald, he didn't care to be a doctor as much as he cared to be a football player at USC. Interestingly, USC came after him and he got on the team, a scholarship, and his career ended when O.J. Simpson transferred into the same school. And Ronald was then used to practice. And I saw the beating that he was taking by being the opposing team's running back. And we finally took him off after 2 years. Kept him in school, but I took him off the team. I didn't want him getting beat up anymore. And he finally saw that that's all he was going to be doing with Simpson. But on the wind sprints, uh, O.J. was only one step ahead of him. So, uh, he was pretty good. The other boys that followed, they were pretty good in high school as well. And they all said that Ronald didn't make it, they're not going to make it, so they never tried to get any further than that. But the boys are all reasonably okay. And of course, you know, my granddaughter who's here, she's the one responsible for this at all.
She goes around telling everybody about how great her grandfather is. And she lies a lot. I tell you. Where else would you like to know? I've been practicing the law for over About 50 years. What area of law?
I beg your pardon? What area of law? What kind of suits did you take or cases?
Well, when I was with Hughes, as I said, I was there for 10 years. I began to— well, once I passed the bar and they knew I was going to law school, they transferred me over to Transmittal to what they call a spare parts department where they used to negotiate at Wright Field in Ohio for the Air Force, the spare parts, because we now knew all about their airborne radar. We were making the radar system for the F-86 night fighter out of North American. Airborne, and we knew all the— all of the parts that make up the system, and we were intimate with all of the components. I got transferred— well, more interesting than that, I remember meeting Siremo at North American one time because we had put together a system that was working very well. We'd send it over to North American and then North American would install it into their planes and they'd have to fly them, they'd have to work successfully on a couple of flights before the Air Force would pay for them. And we found out that the Air Force was complaining that they were spending a lot of time trying to get those radar systems working.
We couldn't understand it because we tested them carefully before we sent them out. So they decided that that would do this. They would take a North American plane that had been bought, that all the wiring was correct and they had put the radar system in and it had flown. So they were going to make a radar system that met all expectations. They took the cabling from that airplane, brought it to the factory to see if that could wiring on it was adequate. We found that it was. And we then built the system and sent it over to put in one of their newly manufactured planes. And I was assigned to follow that system all the way to North American, ride the truck in which it was taken over there, and report anything, any mishap or whatever. We did that, put it in that airplane, flew one time and sold. But I noticed the way the equipment had been handled. They come in little black boxes, the traditional little black boxes. And I see one get dropped, get picked up and installed. Things of that kind. So I wrote a report. And they were so surprised at so many of the little things that happened.
And another thing that happened is that when the plane flew, I found out that it wasn't the radar that was necessarily the problem with it, but there were other parts of the plane, other radio equipment and whatever. And so they were blaming it on the radar because that was the most complex complex piece of equipment there. They kept me there for about, oh, probably a year. That's one of the 10 that I spent there. And during that time, we had a lab there with field engineers. And one day as I'm walking past, I see that Sy Raymond, Dr. Raymond, was with them. They're all huddled around this screen on the radar system and there's some kind of a blip that they see. And as I walk by, I see what it is. And they're still there the next day and they're still looking at it. And I have seen that at the factory. And so as I walk by there, I says, why don't you try R33, a resistor in this circuit over here, whatever. And I walked away. They turned around and looked at me like I'm crazy. How do you walk by a complex radar system and point to one particular resistor in a particular circuit?
And finally somebody decided to take a look at it, and they did, and the system worked. And now they call this kid over and how the hell did you know that? I says, you know, we've been watching all of these, we've seen this here. Took us a couple of 3 days or more to find out what the hell it was. Once we found that out, we found that particular resistor in that particular circuit needed to be more than the usual 10% plus or minus. It has to be within 2 or 3%. Suddenly they made a change. But ever since then, they moved me over to Spare Parts where I had to fly out to— that was one of my first commercial air flights was for U.S. Aircraft to fly out to Wright Field in Ohio. And as I'm sitting around the table with the usual group, they're usually accountants and whatever else. They're buying magnetrons. Magnetron is the heart of the radar system. It's a machine, piece of equipment. And they're buying what I thought was an enormous amount. I says, you know, the magnetron is the least likely item to go bad on that system.
You don't need all of those. I mean, one spare part will cover a lot of territory. I began to go through all the state farms with them. I got a $20 a week raise when they found out they could save a lot of money by not buying that. They were a good company to work for. I met Dr. Remo some years later. I had been practicing law. And we were at a cocktail party in Beverly Hills. And I'm introduced to Mrs. Raymo. I said, oh, I know you from U.S. Aircraft. Really? She said, yes, I remember when we worked on the E-1 fire control system. Really? She said, Sy, come over here. Here's somebody who remembers you from U.S. Aircraft. Because now he had been running TRW, which was incredible. and even Liza said, oh, you remember the equipment? Yes, I said, I remember the intercept equation, R omega D minus F over T sine theta. He was quite surprised that I could remember the intercept equation. That was an interesting meeting. Trying to think of anything else.
Um, yeah, um, let's start to talk, uh, and wrap up a little bit with, you know, your 50 years in law. Um, what did you do in the field of law?
What did I do? Well, when I started to practice law, I had, um, I had opened up an office, uh, near Jose I figured I knew a lot of people there. Gets a lot of traffic. And I opened up an office. Didn't cost very much. In those days, you needed a law library. And you can get one from West Publishing. Cost you $50 a month to get a whole set of books. And $50 a month wasn't that much more than I could afford. The office was small, but whatever your problem was was my specialty. And so I did the usual accident case, bankruptcy case, personal injury, whatever came in. But Mrs. Lewis was getting tired of my being working days and going to school at night. "Whoa, working at night?" "Get a job. Get a 24-hour job. She's taking care of 3 kids and that's more than she can handle or wants to handle and not having a home." And so that's what I did. I went looking. In those days to get a job, you went through the newspapers. Saw an ad. Lawyer, wanted a new young lawyer. And their practice, when I went to get interviewed, turned out to be criminal law.
And I do remember that one of the first assignments they gave me was to go out to the courthouse and see the client, the name was John Doe, and just tell him that I am Mr. Smith. I don't want to give his name, but the lawyer said, tell him I'm Mr. John Smith. And tell the client that I'm engaged in trial elsewhere and can't make it here. That we want to just continue the case the 30 days or whatever date the judge wants. Didn't sound too complex. So I go to the courthouse, I call out the client's name, he comes by, and he said, who the hell are you? And I said, well, Mr. Smith wants me to just continue the case because he's engaged elsewhere and he can't make it. Okay. Not very happy about it, but since it's only a continuance, so I, what, case is called, I get up to the bench and, uh, your honor, uh, Mr. Smith, uh, counsel of record, I was unable to make this appearance. He's engaged at this time elsewhere, and I'm just looking to put it over 30 days, uh, over any time convenient to the court.
He looks at me and says, you remember the bar? Yeah. Yes, not yeah. Yes. And he says, you have a bar card? I said, yes. Show it to the clerk. I go over to the clerk and he looks at it and he says, your case has been assigned to Court Number 3. Mr. Smith has continued in this case 4 times. This is the time it goes to trial. I had no idea what the case was about, what we were going to have. Get assigned to the courtroom, case is called. He says, well, Your Honor, I was here to continue the matter because Mr. Smith can't make it. Oh, Smith, yeah, I know him. And your first appearance in court? Yes, Your Honor. Yes, one year. He says, all right, we'll continue it for you, but you'll let them know it's going to trial next month. And that was my first introduction to them. Since then, I graduated. They handled gambling cases, bookmaking, and I didn't know much about it. I didn't do much gambling. But as I began running writs, which is when someone gets arrested and you want to make bail, you either wait until a case gets called in a day or so, or you can find a judge and tell him and ask him if he will sign a writ which sets bail, and if you present that to the signed writ to the jailhouse, and they'll release them.
So I used to do that. And when I was doing it, I'd have one of the kids or whoever was giving Mama trouble come along with me. And all the kids have gone through my basic training with me. But I got to trying them, and Sergeant Seeger came to the fore. And that was my piece of cake with a law library. And so I started to carefully— I soon began to recognize a lot of things about what it takes to write a search warrant, what is required. In a search warrant. And I found out that there were very few people who took the time to study it. I also learned that the law was changing. And pretty soon, instead of running into a client who said, "Who the hell are you?" They'd come into the office and say, "I want that kid that's working here." And I defended a lot of cases and ultimately got to the Supreme Court. Oh, wow. Yeah, U.S. Supreme Court. Yeah, went through California, of course, and then to the U.S. Supreme Court. And I tell a story, I remember being concerned. We had a gambling case. California had a brand new law which in effect said that you got to remember, because back then we had a lot of smog, and the state finally outlawed backyard trash burning.
Everybody used to burn a lot of trash in the backyard in those days. And so they instituted a law that indicated that you can't burn your trash in the backyard. Search warrants, search and seizure. We also said that we can't search the trash, but the police were beginning to do that. They were going to search your trash after you put out for pickup. And you can't search it until it has been collected and commingled with a large conglomeration of trash elsewhere. And lost its identity. This case that came up right after that was one where the bookmaker in town— England, it's an honorable profession, but over here you can go to federal prison— as well as Mr. Wheeler. And in any event, they had gone into the trash room of this apartment building. They knew this fellow, John Doe again, he comes up in a lot of cases that we talk about. And they had searched through the trash because they knew him and the probability is that he will have to dump it in the trash. They found a bag that they could connect to the unit he lived in and found evidence of gambling, betting slips.
They then went and got a warrant and arrested him. And we took his case and we pointed out that they had without a warrant gone and searched his trash. And consequently arrested him, and the case got dismissed. And since I had been doing this for quite a while, I knew most of the judges, I knew most of the police who did the investigation, and I knew there were violations. They take certain things for granted. In any event, The appellate section calls me one day and says, Art, you have gambling case, search and seizure, no complex other issues involved. We want to take a case up to the Supreme Court. I said, well, I just finished one. Oh, okay, yeah, that's the one we want. Can we let you know that we're going to file an appeal? I'll send you a copy and let you know beforehand so you can tell your client that we're going up on appeal. I says, yeah, and I give them the name of the case and then call the client and tell them that they're going to file an appeal. What does that mean? What it means is that it's going to cost you a lot more money than this misdemeanor that we just got rid of.
He said, how much? I says, well, I can't be sure at the moment, but it's going to be at least $10,000, which was a substantial difference. And he said, I'm not paying $10,000 for a coat-making case. I said, I don't blame you. I don't want to go. Well, what do you got to do? Well, the first thing is I got to have the briefcase printed. And they go through some of the things that we have to do. I've got to go to Washington, D.C. I've got to fly there, I'm not walking. And Leah thinks I don't want to go. I said, well, I'll let them know. Now, my kids have been through law school in various stages, from having graduated and not having partway through winter, and hey, you got to take it, you got to go to the spring club. How many guys get to go in their lifetime to the spring club? I said, well, I don't got to go. The client doesn't want to pay, and I'm not going to be going there. And so they're telling me that, hey, we'll sweep the pool, we'll mow the lawn, we'll do all that stuff, we'll help you with the leaves.
And it's pretty hard to Well, also I was concerned because the federal rule is different. And I remember it goes way back to World War I. Now I'm familiar with World War II, but World War I, no. What had happened was there was a German spy. The FBI word of, and they went to arrest him. And they didn't have a warrant. Those days you didn't have search and seizure to the extent that we do today. And they went to his room, and I think they got a key or they didn't get a key, but in any event, they went in and he wasn't there. He had moved his stuff out and there was a trash bag or a trash bin and they went through it and they found a hollowed-out nickel. That was a toy in the old days where it was wood but it looked like the size of a nickel and there was a little drawer in it that you could open it up. In it they found some microfiche, small film. And they took it and arrested him. The case went to court. And there was an objection made to the search of the trash.
And the court said that that was okay. And that became the rule of law in the federal system. That it's okay to search the trash. But of course, Today, problem is that you have the right of privacy. And if there's any indication on the part of the defendant that he wanted to remain, then he can't do it. Katz was a case I said They saw a bookmaker go into a phone booth and he closed the door and they knew what he was doing because they knew what his activity was. And they listened and they heard a conversation and we arrested him as a result. And the court said that the closing of the door indicated a claim of privacy, that he wanted it to be private. In that World War I case, he had left the room. He abandoned the property. There was no attempt to keep it secret anymore. If he had, that might have been a different story. But he abandoned the room and they found it. So consequently, That's the federal rule. So when we had this case come up, my kids want me to go. You got to take the wives with them.
It will cost me more than the $10,000 the client didn't want to pay. So my middle son, Ken, he had just passed the bar. And it was days that he was allowed to He was allowed to appear before the Supreme Court and be admitted to the practice of law. Today you can go to the local district court. They were doing it in those days as well. But he wanted to go to the Supreme Court because they were still doing that. And so he came along with me. I get the papers for his admission to the bar. I go to the clerk's office and submit the papers to them. The clerk smiles. It's nice to see a lawyer moving the admission of his son. She says the judge will like that very much. I wait for her. She said, oh, Mr. Lewis, I'm sorry. We can we waive the admission, but your affidavit as to his good conduct is something that we can't accept. I said, well, why not? I know him very well. She said, well, we know that, and the judges know that too. That's why they expect any father to speak well of his son.
We're going to have to get somebody else to sign the affidavit as to his good conduct. There I am trying to get him admitted to the bar, and the first thing I have to do is commit perjury by getting somebody who doesn't know him to attest to his good conduct. And as I'm walking down the hallway trying to figure out what I can do here for my kid, I see the district attorney and the head of appellate walking down the hall. Now, that was— what was the name again, Courtney? The DA. Anyway, it was the DA who I knew well. And his son was mayor just recently, not too long ago. I stopped them. I said, I need a favor. Anyone of you guys willing to sign an affidavit that my kid is of good moral character? They smiled, of course, and they did. We took him in and we moved him to the mission. This was the morning they left him. And he has no session. He's sitting beside me. Now I'm getting concerned. I know it's the case that we're going to have a difficult time winning in light of the old case discussion.
And I'm concerned they're going to ask me some questions about rule against perpetuity. It's an old real estate problem or issue, and it's kind of complicated. Most of our students have trouble with that. And that's my biggest concern. But in any event, the prosecution gets up and they make their argument. And the same argument I've heard for years. And it could be caught from my better women. So I'm kind of relaxed about that. And so as I get up to speak, Justice Scalia starts. And before I could say anything other than Your Honor, and he said, tell me, counsel, if I were a neighbor of yours and you were to— you were to take the trash, not on the grass portion of your property, but off into the street off the curb, and I were to see something that interested me, And I were to take it and— what's the name? Bielobrza. Bielobrza. But we can— yeah. Well, I'll leave that. You know what? Yeah, leave that. And if you were to come by and if I were to come by and to take something from that trench I can't. Is it your position that you can have me arrested?
And I can't figure out why he's put this question to me. I said, well, Your Honor, I don't know if I can have you arrested because that would depend on what you took, the value of it, if your intent is to permanently deprive me of it. And he says, well, that was a very clever Suppose I took the garbage or the trash, put in a box, tie a ribbon around it, and put it underneath the park bench. And I said, well, Your Honor, as you know, particularly when it comes to the Supreme Court, for our business, not sure I said that, but putting it under a neighborhood park bench is an open field, and nobody has a reasonable expectation of privacy in an open field. I see him lean back, and this I can't repeat because I can't prove it, and I'm not sure that what I heard was correct, but he leans over, he's smiling at Justice Nixon, and something that, that was good lawyering, at least I I believe to this day that's what he said, but there's no evidence that he did. In any event, the rest of the bench, they take up my time.
They're asking questions, I'm responding to them. When it's over, we leave the courthouse, the press comes over. They were interested. And they said, Mr. Lewis, you were the trial lawyer in that case, weren't you? I said, well, yes, I was. And they said, well, you know, we watch the Supreme Court all the time. And when the justices take the lawyers away from their notes, a lot of them stumble. And Lewis responded to the entire bench. And so we figured you must have been the guy that handled the case originally. You knew all about it. I took that as the greatest compliment I could have had. And I still tell my kids that. The end result was a couple of weeks later, the ruling comes down. That certiorari should not have been granted. Which in effect means they shouldn't have taken the case. So we didn't win. And my kids say, Dad, you didn't lose. I understand that. So why do you say you didn't win? Because we didn't win. We didn't lose, but we didn't win. But as I was getting calls, most of my friends on the bar, you know, that this was an accomplishment for them also.
And I said to them, and I got this phone call, what kind of a case do you have? If it's drugs, you're not going to get the same result because it's a drug case. This is a gambling case. There's a difference in the outlook on that issue. And sure enough, another case came up and they found against the defendants. So it was a small win, if you will. But winning in a case does not depend on it. A complete win. If you can keep the defendant from getting the worst punishment available, then that can be a winner as well. And I had one that was pretty big. It was that Whitey Bulger case where I had a client who was going into it. Who I was convinced, I knew in my heart, he was not what they were charging him with. And without going into any detail, there were 10 defendants, and he had a reputation in Boston that left no one down. I recall when we were selecting the jury, that none of the jurors had ever heard his name before. They didn't know him or anything about him. My client was a casino host.
And while he had been a bookmaker years before, when he moved to Vegas and he got a job knowing, like he knows about the business, for one of the hotels. He was not doing that, but somebody who had been arrested by the Fed in Boston, when he was interviewed and he was asked if he knew about any people like that in Vegas, and he claimed that he did. And we find out that he named my client because he had known him and named him. We didn't win that case because I had some testimony to put on that the judge refused to allow in. And we were waiting to see whether he needed take this on appeal together for, uh, they were handed stiff sentences and probably deservedly so, but my client was in straight probation, and I considered that a win. Yeah, kept them out of jail, right? It should have been. They should not have been convicted, but things like that happen. That's an interesting— Yeah. I stopped because my hearing had fallen a little. I was pretty healthy until I was 95. And that's when I decided that you can't ask the judge what he said too many times before it's time to quit.
Arthur, as we kind of wind down here, I mean, I appreciate you talking at length about your career. Let's kind of finish up. I'd like to ask you about turning 100 years old and what that experience was like and what, you know, any big reflections from a very long life that you've lived, a very colorful one too.
I don't know about the colorful. It was interesting. It always feels good to win, but mostly it's questions of honor. I feel I can walk into any courtroom I better win in, and I'll get the respect from the judge. You don't argue useless cases, but you do try to do the best you can for your client. And that's allowable and that's good. And you never lie to the court. That's uppermost. I see cases today where lawyers go into court and they submit a brief giving names to a case or citing a case that doesn't exist. I can't understand that. Not by a long shot. I don't understand that because the first thing you do as a lawyer when the other side submits a brief, you read every one of those cases so that you know whether it does or it doesn't. And if it doesn't, then you tell them why it doesn't. You could win or lose a case just because you found something that they quoted that isn't accurate. And can imagine what a judge feels when he finds out that all the official intelligence lied. But you can't put all the official intelligence in jail.
That's a lawyer. Not yet. Well, I'm proud to say my granddaughter Strange young girl, very bright, always wants to be top of her class, and she wanted to go into the field that she wanted to, and she wanted to go to China. And we were fortunate enough to have known somebody in China steered her in the right direction to get her into one of the best schools in China. Wow. Of course, yes. And she graduated top of her class and then decided she wanted to go to law school. And she's done that. And so now she's got an interesting career.
I was gonna say, I mean, so she's a lawyer that speaks Mandarin? Repeat that one. Uh, your granddaughter is a lawyer that also speaks Mandarin then?
Well, she's more than just a lawyer, but I mean, that's a rare skill. Oh, I, I tell you, if I needed a lawyer, that's what I'm doing. Because she speaks Chinese, because she's a good student, good student, honorable, highest morals. Any law firm would be fortunate to have her, and I know that they know that when they get her. I have other grandchildren that I'm proud of also. I don't know why they don't want to speak for themselves.
Well, Arthur, um, I really appreciate you spending some of your Saturday with us. Um, before we get going today, any, any final thoughts? Anything you want to make sure we touch upon before we get going?
I can't think of anything. If I can turn to my assistant for sending— Yes. Okay. Oh, she has nothing to offer.
Okay, well, uh, thank you, Arthur, for sharing your life story with us. We really appreciate it. Um, it was really fun to hear your experiences from World War II through your legal career, and some of these, they sound like some of them were landmark cases really, um, that kind of are still with us to this day. Um, so thank you again, and thank you everyone who joined us tonight. Uh, appreciate it, and we will see you next time.
And let me just close by saying, as soon as I leave here, I'll think of a few other things I should have said, and I will let Courtney know about it, and she can pass that on to you to see whether it's worth talking about again. Okay. Take care. Thank you for the opportunity. Absolutely.
Thank you, Arthur. Feel free to reach out or have Courtney reach out anytime. Thank you. Hey guys, I want to take a moment to tell you about the TeamHouse Podcast newsletter. If you go and subscribe, it's totally free. And what it will do is aggregate all of our data, all of our content that we put out, uh, the things that are on the TeamHouse, on our geopolitics podcast Eyes On, uh, things that I write journalistically with Sean Naylor on the my side, uh, anything else that we have going on, books we recommend, uh, upcoming guests that we have coming on the show, and also, you know, filtering in some fun stuff in there as well. Um, if you go and check it out, we send it out just once a week. We don't want to spam you guys. It's just a kind of roll-up of all of our content on a weekly basis. You can find our newsletter at teamhousepodcast.kit kit.com/join. Again, the website for that is teamhousepodcast.kit.com/join. Uh, so we hope to see you there. The link will be down in the description.
World War II Pacific veteran Arthur Lewis joins us to look back on a remarkable life, from growing up in Brooklyn and training on classified Navy radar systems to serving aboard LSM-238 during the Iwo Jima campaign. He shares firsthand memories of the landing force, Japanese prisoners, ship damage, mine sweeping after the war, and the humanity he witnessed in the middle of combat.Arthur also discusses his postwar life at UCLA, working on early airborne radar at Hughes Aircraft, becoming a lawyer, arguing before the U.S. Supreme Court, and reflecting on it all at 100 years old.Today's Sponsors:GhostBed ⬇️https://www.ghostbed.com/houseFOR 10% off! Mars Men⬇️For a limited time, our listeners get 50% off FOR LIFE, Free Shipping, AND 3 Free Gifts at Mars Men at https://mengotomars.com/Good Ranchers ⬇️https://www.goodranchers.com/Get $25 off your first order with the code "HOUSE"For ad free video and audio and access to live streams and Eyes On Geopolitics...JOIN OUR PATREON! https://www.patreon.com/c/TheTeamHouseTo help support the show and for all bonus content including:-live shows and asking guest questions -ad free audio and video-early access to shows-Access to ALL bonus segments with our guestsSubscribe to our Patreon! ⬇️https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouseSupport the show here:⬇️https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse___________________________________________________PRE ORDER JACK'S NEW BOOK "THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN" ⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/803651/the-most-dangerous-man-by-jack-murphy/paperback/Subscribe to the new EYES ON podcast here:⬇️https://www.youtube.com/@EyesOnGeopoliticsPod/featured__________________________________Jack Murphy's new book "We Defy: The Lost Chapters of Special Forces History" ⬇️https://www.amazon.com/We-Defy-Chapters-Special-History-ebook/dp/B0DCGC1N1N/——————————————————————Or make a one time donation at: ⬇️https://ko-fi.com/theteamhouseSocial Media: ⬇️The Team House Instagram:https://instagram.com/the.team.house?utm_medium=copy_linkThe Team House Twitter:https://twitter.com/TheTeamHousePodJack’s Instagram:https://instagram.com/jackmcmurph?utm_medium=copy_linkJack’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/jackmurphyrgr?s=21Dave’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/dave_parke?s=21Team House Discord: ⬇️https://discord.gg/wHFHYM6"Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio"00:00 — Start 00:34 — Growing up in Brooklyn, adoption, and Brooklyn Tech before the war04:40 — Why Arthur joined the Navy instead of being drafted into the Army06:03 — Navy boot camp, electronics training, and learning secret radar systems12:34 — Classified radar work and waiting for a Pacific assignment16:22 — Assigned to LSM-238 and fixing radio gear before deployment21:05 — Pearl Harbor, landing training, and preparing for the invasion force28:54 — Marines, the armored bulldozer, and the tense trip toward Iwo Jima32:54 — Arriving off Iwo Jima: battleships, air attacks, and the landing37:00 — Taking Japanese prisoners and seeing humanity in the middle of war40:55 — Getting wounded, climbing aboard a transport, and finally getting a real meal47:36 — Ship damage, Pearl Harbor repairs, and mine sweeping after the war55:41 — UCLA, Hughes Aircraft, and working on early airborne radar systems01:09:04 — Becoming a lawyer and building a 50-year criminal defense career01:15:43 — Arguing a search-and-seizure case before the U.S. Supreme Court01:32:57 — The Whitey Bulger case, retiring from law, and reflections at 100 years oldBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.