This is an excerpt of an interview of John Thompson by Patrick Pace.

Patrick: Do you remember where you were when you heard that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor?

John: I can't remember that exactly. I wouldn't swear to it but I think I was in school when I heard about that happening on December 7, 1941. I remember having mixed emotions about that. At the particular time, my best friend in school was a Japanese boy. A lot of people in the United States hated the Japanese so much that they didn't like any Japanese person. I knew that my particular friend, whose name was Roger Suda, his father was the manager of a grocery store. He had a sister. That Japanese boy and his sister were two of the smartest people I've ever met. They always made straight A's in school. He was really a nice kid.

Patrick: Did anyone in your family have to fight in World War II?

John: Yes. My father did, I guess because he had four children: myself and three sisters. He was a fireman for the Washington D.C. Fire Department. He had been in the Navy prior to World War II. I had several uncles who fought in World War II.

Patrick: What was it like at home during the war?

John: I can remember some things that were different. We rationed food and some of the things that were hard to get I remember were bacon and a lot of different meats. Bacon was almost impossible to get. Butter was hard to get and people started using oleo margarine. It came in a big old plastic bag. It was white and inside it had a little coloring thing and you'd have to break that little coloring tab and mix the stuff up in order to get it to turn yellow. Then it would resemble butter. There were lots of things that were rationed besides food. Gasoline was rationed. You could only get so much gasoline so you had to kind of plan your trips and save up your coupons in order to take a trip or anything back then. People just didn't take as many trips and they didn't drive their car unless they had to.

Patrick: Did everyone in your family support the war?

John: Oh yes. They supported it.

Patrick: Do you remember where you were when you heard that the Germans had surrendered?

John: I was in school but I don't remember the exact circumstances.

Patrick: Was there a lot of talk about it when it happened?

John: Yes. Everybody was talking about how wonderful it was and how people could come back home and start to rebuild. We were lucky that there wasn't a lot of stuff torn up in our country. Of course, other countries were torn up pretty bad.

Patrick: What was your reaction when you heard that the atom bomb had been dropped on the Japanese and they had surrendered?

John: I thought about my Japanese friend and how some of his relatives who lived in Japan were probably killed from that bomb. But, the way that I thought about it was, even though that bomb killed several thousand people, it also probably saved lives in the long run. If they hadn't dropped it, the war would've continued on for who knows how many more years. Who knows how many more people would've been killed because the war was still going on.

Patrick: Thanks for doing the interview.

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