Voices of Veterans: Corporal Wayne Terwilliger Shares His Story of Service in the United States Marine Corps
AUSTIN, Texas— Today, Texas Land Commissioner and Veterans Land Board (VLB) Chairwoman Dawn Buckingham, M.D., is proud to introduce the next installment of the series highlighting the VLB's Voices of Veterans Oral History Program. This week, we highlight the service of Corporal (Cpl) Wayne Terwilliger who served in United States Marine Corps during World War II.
Born in Claridge, Michigan, Terwilliger moved to the small town of Charlotte, Michigan when he was young. He was one of two children, with a sister who was five years younger. His dad, Terwilliger said, was an athlete. "My dad was a pro baseball player among other things, and so I got a little bit of a background that way, and I was into baseball from the time I could throw it against the steps in front of our house."
He remembered he was at the movies with his family the day Pearl Harbor happened. "I can’t remember what time of day it was, my mother coming out of the movie and hearing about this," he explained. "I had no idea where Pearl Harbor was, or anything like that, and that just stands out in my mind. I didn’t realize what a big deal it was."
Terwilliger said that even after war was declared and the gravity of it sank in, he never thought that he would join the military. "I was intending on going to college at Western Michigan in Kalamazoo, and I had that in my mind because they had a good baseball program and I didn’t think about the service. I thought I’d go to college and if they called me or something, that would be fine."
He changed his mind about joining the service when he failed his history course. When his history teacher refused to change his grade to a D-minus, he decided to join the United States Marine Corps. He said he walked in "and told the Sergeant that I wanted to join the Marine Corps. First, he asked me if I was a student and I told him yes, and then he told me to think it over first. I told him, if you don't sign me, I'm going someplace else and that's all he had to hear."
As soon as he signed up in 1942, he was shipped off to San Diego. He described it as, "really exciting for me," and remembered being a "gung-ho guy."
"Boot camp wasn’t tough at all for me, and so and I didn’t know what to expect of course, I just knew that the Marines were kind of the elite branch of the service and I was enjoying myself," he said.
After boot camp, Terwilliger said he went back to Michigan for "a week or ten days" and then went to radio school where he learned he would be part of an "assault wave," the first echelon of combat troops sent to seize a hostile beach or landing zone.
Terwilliger's first operation was in Saipan and he recalled those first moments before they were commanded to move in.
"We watched a pre-invasion, ships from the Navy shelling the place, and we all
kind of thought, Jesus, nobody would be alive when we get there anyway [...] so it was all exciting, you know, really exciting until they started shooting at us," he said about waiting for the call to move. "I could feel my heart beating. And then over the intercom they said something about close the hatches up, and we’re going in, and off we went."
After Saipan, Terwilliger's service in the Marine Corps took him to Tinian and Iwo Jima. While his time in Tinian was uneventful, he recalled when one man was killed. "A sniper got him. He had his hatch open and he got hit and killed."
Terwilliger said when he made it to Iwo Jima, "we were the assault wave again [...] and we did the same thing as Saipan. While the first barrage was happening, we stood offshore and watched all the Navy and the airplanes [...] and I thought well, maybe this time there won’t be anybody to shoot at us, but of course it turned out different."
"They let us come right in. I think the first wave, maybe two waves came in before they even opened up and zeroed in on the beach," he recalled. "You could tell because all of a sudden everything broke loose and the poor infantry guys that were coming in, the second, third waves, fourth waves, those waves, boy they got hit hard."
To listen to Cpl. Wayne Terwilliger tell his story, click the button below:
Veterans can email VoicesofVeterans@glo.texas.gov to tell their stories. Please note that the Veteran must be a resident of Texas at the time of their interview.
Voices of Veterans is a state agency's first Veteran oral history program. It records the stories of Texas Veterans through their time in service and after returning home from combat.
The VLB records interviews with Veterans over the phone or in person. Their interviews are then permanently archived in the Office of Veterans Records at the GLO, where they join the historical documents of other Texas heroes such as Sam Houston, Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, and William Barret Travis.
Veterans' interviews are also available to researchers, historians, genealogists, and the public. These precious records inspire future generations and remind us of our Veterans' sacrifices.
To listen to the over 500 archived stories of Veterans documented through the GLO's Voices of Veterans oral history program, click the button below:
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Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham, M.D., brings a lifetime of experience to the Texas General Land Office (GLO). In 2016, she became the first Republican elected to the Texas State Senate from Travis County and the first woman to represent Texas Senate District 24. She made history again in 2022, winning a statewide election to become our state’s first female Land Commissioner.
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