Description
| Summary: | William Ingram was born in Springfield, IL on 13 June 1924. Ingram got in trouble at school and was expelled when he was in the eighth grade. He decided that he wanted to follow his brother Robert and join the navy. Ingram's brother Robert was serving aboard the heavy cruiser USS Houston (CA30) when he enlisted in June of 1941. He actually volunteered for service when he was still sixteen years old and was placed in a group that was waiting to reach as certain number of men before being inducted as a group. By the time the group was inducted into the navy Ingram had turned 17. Ingram had enlisted on the condition that he would be sent to join his brother aboard the USS Houston and already had his orders to report to the ship when he completed his boot training at Great Lakes Naval Training Center. Ingram travelled to California where he boarded the old transport ship Shalmat (unsure of spelling) for passage to Pearl Harbor, HI. Ingram arrived in Hawaii on 4 December 1941 where the transport made a brief stop before continuing on to Perth, Australia. In Perth Ingram got orders to report aboard the cruiser USS Pensacola (CA24) and was assigned to a battle station in the powder room beneath the aft 8 inch turret. The powder room was very small and once the sailors assigned to that position were inside, the hatch to the room was sealed and there was no way to open it from inside. This was a safety measure in case the need arose to flood the powder room. This made Ingram incredibly nervous, especially once the ship got underway.
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| Item Description: | Archive Reference: OH.3133. |
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| Physical Description: | 1 online resource (video file 1:56:28) : sound, colour. |
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| Source of Description, Etc. Note: | Description based on online resource (viewed on 12 June, 2019). |
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| Location of Originals/Duplicates Note: | The National WWII Museum. |
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