‘Blitz Boom’ Town : Dec....

JINX McCAIN

Jinx McCain, who will be 70 in February, was a tool engineer for Douglas Aircraft in Santa Monica when the war broke out. He quickly joined the Marine Corps and saw considerable combat in the Pacific. He received a commission after the war, and went on to fight in Korea and Vietnam, ending a 33-year career as a colonel and with five Purple Hearts. Today, he serves as the director of the Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society at Camp Pendleton.

“I was on my way to a football game. We heard over the car radio that Pearl Harbor was attacked and we didn’t believe it. When they made an announcement at the football game, then we believed it.

“Right after that, everybody lined up to join the service. I wanted to wait till after Christmas because I knew I was going to war. I waited till January ’42 and I went down to join the Marine Corps. To my horror, I couldn’t pass the physical. I had an old football injury, three broken ribs, one punctured my lung.

“I tried seven times to enlist. They started taking draftees and I said, well this is my chance. I went up to the biggest stud I could find down at the recruiting depot and asked ‘How’d you like to be 4-F?’ We exchanged physical exam papers. I took his papers, he took mine. He became 4-F. I never knew his name or what happened to him.

“I went through the war as a PFC and a corporal. I fought at Iwo Jima and got shot a couple of times. They ran out of metal plates and I ended up with somebody’s shin bone implanted in my head. It came from a guy who had his leg amputated.

“President Truman is the best President we ever had. He personally saved my life by making the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan. I had been scheduled to be in the invasion force.

“I hadn’t decided what I wanted to do before the war, but when I saw the camaraderie and the job people were doing, I decided that’s what I wanted to be, a Marine.

“I stayed in 33 years. My only regret is I couldn’t stay in longer.”

“I feel bitter at letting the Japanese buy our country; mostly I’m bitter at our government for letting it happen.”