
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...
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Jack Murphy
Hey everyone, welcome to the Team house. 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. We're very excited to have him on the show. Arthur, welcome to the team house.
Arthur Lewis
Glad to be here.
Jack Murphy
So, author, let's start at the beginning. Tell us where you grew up and what life was like before the war.
Arthur Lewis
When did I grow up? Well, I was born in New York City. My mother rented a room in bungalow in Brighton Beach. I never really remembered my mother. She passed away when I was about 3, 4 years old. This was Lewis who owned the bungalow with her husband. She was a chef. She used to cook in the mountains at 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 orphan room. 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 go to the gate with her as she was leaving and asking her when are we going home in particular. 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 by 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 Lewis, that was the only name I knew. I didn't know my name was anything other than Arthur Lewis. And grew up Walworth. Started in 41, graduated in 43. Brooklyn Tech was across the street from the Brooklyn Navy Yard. And it was basically an engineering school, all different kinds of engineering with an incredible institution. It took up a full city block. And in order to get into school, apparently they gave a citywide exam. And before I matriculated from the sixth grade or the eighth 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 high school, the exam was sitting wide and apparently I passed whatever the tests were about. And that's when I went to look for Tech. But I wonder when this would be. Navy, I believe. Living with relatives of the Lewis's. And they were pretty good to me. I was raised with four girls, various ages, and still she was a son. And my, the relative I was living with with old ones, they were raising another daughter. Her father couldn't take care of her. Her mother passed away and they took her and 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, was near an airport and could see all those airplanes running by. That's what we wanted to do. We wanted to fly. And I knew that if I did my list I would be grafted into the Army. And we didn't really 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 list. I needed to get the parental approval and the family didn't want me to go. And I told them that, well, I'm going to be 18 in three or four months. So they relented and signed and let me join the Navy if you want me to keep talking.
Jack Murphy
Yeah. 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're 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, or, I'm sorry, 1930s into the 1940s.
Arthur Lewis
Well, I was born in 1925 and I entered the Navy in 1943. And from there I served in the Navy. That was quite an education. Again we took some exams, maybe wanted to know what to do with you. I went for the physicals. I was a healthy kid at the time, nothing wrong with me. But when I was less than 2020 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 with the reportedly good CI it didn't work. And I entered boot camp in Chicago Great Lakes Naval Training Station again exams. And 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. They didn't know what it was. And the first thing they did after boot camp was to send me to naval training soldiers to Wright Junior College in Chicago. And we found out that they gave us a lot of training exams and electronics or radio. And we spent about a couple of three months there and she did reasonably well. They moved on and then I transferred into along with a couple of other kids to Oklahoma Inn in those days. And we were there for six 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 capacity and vacuum tubes. We still have a few around, but they're rare. We built a radio. We learned about hospitality radio and moved from there to Treasure Island. And that's when you found out what this is 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. But it was enabled user onboard ships to not depend on the stars. Radio transmitters with long range aids in 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 radios. We knew 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 A rating that was the same as a radio operator. And that presented a problem later on because we had been dealing with radar. That was extremely secret in those days. They didn't want to distinguish us from any other sailor or whatever they want anybody to know that way. No one understood radar to a greater extent than most people did. But the rating was the same as the radio operator, which was no problem. I got up to a second class. Well, we weren't called electronic technicians in most days. But when you're out in San Francisco in a bar, well, if you're a sailor in San Francisco, there's no other place to go. I didn't drink, I didn't smoke. Just barely, barely 18 at that time, not quite 19. And I'm sitting in a bar drinking Coca Cola. The sailor next to me has got the same rating, same symbol. And he's looking at me and he starts to give me more cold. I'm looking at him like he's looking at me, like there must be some kind of a phony. I didn't learn those stripes. And so a little pushing and shoving, whatever, we soon got over that.
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Arthur Lewis
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Jack Murphy
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, probably didn't know where you were being deployed to.
Arthur Lewis
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 to give it 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 so large at the transport 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 is to the family that had raised me to 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 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. It was five 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 cotton 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 and do I get a mask? And I have been through 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 four buildings. There was Royce hall and the library. Typical great college campuses, four buildings. An old administration building and an old chemistry building. And I got a job with fella and alchemist for the sewer lines that they knew they were going to be building when the war was over. That's what was going on there. But she's hoping 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 a day late. Now nothing happened. Nobody gave me a gig or a black mark. And so we wondered where we were going to be assigned. And then one day somebody says, your name is up on the shipping list, you better sign out. I didn't know what it was, they didn't know. Had to go to the board and find out. That's when I found out I was being assigned to an lsm. An LSM is the smallest ocean going ship the Navy had. And 238 was right behind me on that screen that Courtney dug up and found. It's like an lst. Most people have seen them, they've been around Europe, landing on the beach. France was typical. It was very similar although it wasn't enclosed on A 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 LSM was it was the last of a group of seven or eight 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. Now this was back in 44. 45 was 44. We hadn't reached 45 yet. And he knew that the LSM was entitled a group A. Eight ships so were entitled to an electronic technician. And he knew that it was an electronic nation and he didn't want to leave until he got one because he knew there were none amongst all the seven ships. And he had insisted on one. And I strongly suspect that being a day late may be the first one to get assigned to an ls. That was kind of interesting. When I came on board, just load the Flag? Yes, of the mission. Come on board, you've got all your papers with you and there's a young man who comes, picks them up. And before you know it they've got Arthur Lewis here on board. And the first thing that radio operator says to me is, I'm glad you're here. We got this piece of machinery, he said, don't know what to do with it. And that was an smart. 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 of that radar. And he says, we can't get this thing worth the week. So the first thing I asked for the schematic and I see that we've got some tubes in there. One of the first things you know when you begin to work on radio communications 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 ask them where to spread parts. Had no idea. I 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 ready 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 never been to Pearl harbor and I never seen Honolulu. And sightseeing was interesting. We saw the bombed out ships that were laying there, it was still there. And we. One of the things I noticed the kid on a first trip abroad or anywhere out of the city of 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 of nothing. And so we spent a lot of time drinking pineapple juice. We didn't bother 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 strap with 238 that's behind me with the outdoors 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 of 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 of hundred yards or more and head to the beach full speed. And while we're running into the beach at full speed, we're dropping an anchor off the fantail and keeping your fingers caught, hoping that it's going to grab hold somewhere because you're beginning to unwind a 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 that they'd unload whatever you had there beach by 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. And 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. And 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 of Oahu. And I think maybe it was around 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 board got. We were able to put.50 caliber gun 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, they don't carry guns, but I got that as my duty station because everybody else in 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 pen which would let you run it on. And I think the captain one day noticed that as we swing that thing around, we can go right past the iconic power where he would be new fellowship is underway. Or he Quickly realized that he didn't want to have any accidents and put his stuff on it, even if he wanted to. You 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 lined. I don't want to get my captain any trouble and say that we didn't like him, but we had a feeling because while we were traveling, he would have the. It was a black officer. It wasn't officer. A black sailor. He does duty in the kitchens and Segregation. Works in 4th Wing 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 cruise quarters, all the way on up to the. To the conning tower and they have a coat. And of course, we didn't have the coach at that time. Later we got some on board, had a lot of cigarettes. The country was good to sail it. We ate well. Not as well as the submarine, 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. All the communication fees. 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 was in charge of the group and. You sure you want me to continue with this?
Jack Murphy
Yes, yeah, please.
Arthur Lewis
We were traveling with it. And they would start the engine on the. On the armored bulldozer. And after a couple of days, when they went to start, after they came checking it every day, and they couldn't get me 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 motorbike to help them get it started. And they finally got us started. And a few days later, again, a creek very stormy, and the ship is traveling about six 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 because 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 is getting a little nervous about that. So he gets a hold of the Marine captain and he tells them, when we get to Saipan, we're going to get permission from the harbor message 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 Harrison told 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 four striper, he was a two striper. But the ring captain. So said captain, when we get to where we're going, I'm going to need 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. And when we got to Saipan, we finally got it started. And the agreement was that it 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, but they hadn't told us. And I guess that's Navy routine, any war. And we found an island close to Japan. And with Ioshima, I don't know whether it was Iwo Jima or not, but it ended up to be. We were heading for. So we had, we had that going during that entire trip, pouring gasoline in one end and burning 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 drawn from the air, from the big battle wagons. And you probably know those battleships with those 1820 inch guns. The shells are about the size of a little car. And you would have thought that there was nothing that could have survived it. But we didn't have the kind of air attacks that later became the routine. But we did have some flying over. And every ship in that armada was firing at those planes that were attempting to come in while alone weren't around. And the order finally came out that all used ships without radar control, fire control, stop shelling. Those things have to come down. And apparently we're 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. And 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 the most day. I guess we couldn't find them. We walked or through but maybe apparently had a lot of pictures taken. And later if you want to see if I can't find. Yeah, please. And we hit the beach. When we 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 by 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 deli Ghina Ghalane. But we finally pulled off and then we had some other duties. Interestingly, at Humero Igo was the largest number of marine casualties. The army was there also with the marines that bore the front of it. And they. Let's see, 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 four and we would take some ordered back. So we went. You never hesitated to follow. I remember nobody questioned whether it's been. You don't have time for that. You're told to go somewhere to 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. On the well deck. And the marines didn't want to get on board with them because they had been battled with them for the last week or more and they refused to get on. And the board 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 and they stared down at those prisoners. We pull off the beach and now we have to find out where we've got to go. For whatever reason, we do 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 like one of them started, as I recall, to try to get the cigarette that he had. It was obvious we 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 off 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. You know, they were just soldiers doing their job. Cancer helped themselves, afraid they were going to get tortured or whatever from what they had heard, just like other 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 by the hand and feeding them. And meanwhile we're still trying to figure out where the hell are we going? And finally we did.
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Arthur Lewis
And while we're on the beach, I tell a story that I learned to tell to drive on Ewa. 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 son and yellow's kids, I thought, oh, weapons carry out of here. I look around, I die 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 knew how to drive. So I get my foot on the clutch and I'm holding that big clutch down, I'm shifting. My dear, in any year I didn't know or care, I get that truck to move. And if my wife hears me tell that story, he'll say, he still drives like that. But I didn't get any injury. I did have. I'm embarrassed to even talk about it. I had a cut and I deal. It was a piece of shrapnel somewhere. But anyway, he got infected and it's swelling and it's getting painful now. He says that to the captain. We got a near them over to one of the doctors on one of the ships were coming to. I can't do anything else for him. And he's getting paint on as infected. And so 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 cave rations. Nobody's got time to take care of other stuff like that when guys are dying on the island. And so the people on one of 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 Iwo Jima, because they had been bombing Japan. The B29s were stationed in Saipan. And on the way back, some of them had 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 supplies that we could on any of the ships that were there. There were others who were probably more adept at doing that. And get alongside the ship. You let her climb up the ropes. You've seen them. Cargo netsuit. 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 because 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, would know how to get it out. That's why we always had somebody with us. And the doctor takes a look and grabs off the van, takes a cigarette, shoved it in my mouth. I didn't smoke. He didn't ask me, and gets his scalpel, cuts it open. A lot of stuff comes out. He wraps it in the bag, puts my arm in the spine, 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 pulled up alongside, some of our crew had yelled to them, hey, you guys got any bread up there? And bread, you need bread. So they cook. He comes out to the rail, he says, you guys asking for bread? Yeah, well, if they get. They got whatever they wanted there was transferred to them. And on the way, he's telling me he'd like to eat while you're here. I say, yeah. So they take me down to the shot line, and it's a big long line that's long as the ship. And they moved me up to the head of the line. Now, ordinarily, you bump to the foot, the child 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 this would have been? Steak. So moving along with the tray, somebody's holding the tray, and the guy puts a big slab of steak on there because you 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 and we had a nice meal. You go back down now I've got to climb back down. 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 inland. We unloaded and we're ready to go back. And I can't let everybody from that. I take off the arm and I climb back down and we don't make a big thing out of us. But I've never made a claim on having been wounded in the war, never got a Purple Heart, never asked for a heart. It's a story I don't like to tell so much. Somebody else might hear about it making it up or something. But we were good finally. Sure, there's a few other stories we 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 and
Jack Murphy
author, how, how did. How did your ship get damaged?
Arthur Lewis
Well, by being banged alongside that beach. And the other picture that I have, you'll see seven LSMs, as many as they can get on one picture. And that's where the damage comes. They're swinging against. And when we go out to. 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 LSM238 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 four miles long, two miles wide at the widest point. That's where the airfield was put. And Mount Suribachi on this southern end lies at an angle, but it's a small area, four miles at one end, and it's only four miles, two miles wider, the widest, and Mount Suribachi at the other end. See, what they had done on Mount Suribachi was they had their borders inside the caves on the island. They had the beach grid A1, A2, B2. And they had each mortar on any spot that they wanted it. They would set at the angle and elevation that's required to hit any spot that they wanted to. And they run the mortar out to the end of the cave of 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 all the way back to. That's when I got to a cruise ship. One of the things that we dreamt about is that 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 flew by. And that's what we did. When we went up the Napa river, people on both sides were waving and. And it was a small shipyard where we left the ship. And I never saw it again. But when I got through, I got it for daily leave. I believe at that time, that's when I went home and told family that I was going to go to ucla. And we did. And I think he announced 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 a point system. I go to the CO and I've got enough points for discharge. Takes a look, you know, you're right. When you get to Japan, you tell the commanding officer, you have no points. So when I got to Japan, I did that. And six months later, we've got Philippines. We were sweeping mines on a minesweeper. That's where I got the picture of myself with a monkey. Everybody likes that. Did we have a monkey on board? Well, we had a monkey on board, but not until we had a leave. We left the monkey on the island.
Jack Murphy
But, Arthur, this was. I mean, you. You go to Japan, presumably the war is over at this point, right?
Arthur Lewis
Yeah, the war was over. I'm not sure, though, that the peace. Peace treaty had happened. This was the. February. Okay, that was in the middle of the. Yeah, that would have been the middle of the year. So the. The other island that came right after that case was going. That's what happened when you hit 100.
Jack Murphy
Oh, you're talking about Okinawa.
Arthur Lewis
Okinawa, yeah. That's where the air attacks were. There's a lot of damage on 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 place, much bigger than Hiroshima.
Jack Murphy
So the Navy had you do basically an additional tour. This time you were mine sweeping, trying to clean up after the war. That. It sounds like the Navy had you do an additional tour anyway in Japan and the Philippines, basically cleaning up after the war.
Arthur Lewis
Well, yeah, we had already occupied most of the fellow communists. We were in Salute Bay. We were mostly mine sweeping. We did mine sweeping 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 mine as they. Then we went down to the Philippines and we were sweeping mines over there. It was a different kind of ship. Minesweepers. They're having that kind of a problem. They're having a kind of a problem now. And it was. And I ran trying to lock the channel. It's a different lines people that they have these days, different minds that they have as well, but it's still a dangerous job.
Jack Murphy
And how did, how did that tour go for you?
Arthur Lewis
Well, when I got back and went to ucla, I started in engineering. By that time. 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 Cy Ramo, Dean Walridge. Those are names you recognize as being part of. Not TWA but Thompson Raymond Wahlberg's trw. They were running a huge aircraft research and development labs. They do a lot. The first airborne rocket ships when I met them. I was at U s for about 10 years while I was going to school. I switched from engineering to law and I didn't bother telling them but 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 three boys who are also practicing law now. I guess they all decided to follow law because they figured if dad can make a living, I don't know how hard could it be? So I got boys who had a daughter in law that married my oldest boy. They went to college USB Ronald played football. He was a hell of a football player in high school. I recall he made a team when he was a freshman and so they put him on the kickoff return to me. And I remember going to the first game that he suited up for and they had him take the first ball and got kicked over to them. He took it about five yards behind the goal line, ran it all the way to the other goal line and he continued that way. He was recruited by sc. Well, SC came in later, Houston LA Coach Kush from Arizona State. State. He came out to the house and he wanted to know what he could do to convince him to come to Arizona State. My, I remember him seeing that Ronald wanted to go to USC because USC was number one and all these kids that were in there good at anything wanted 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. It reminds me a story about Zelensky. Remember when Zelensky's mother was interviewed? She says in the press list with her Mrs. Zelensky, you must be very proud of your son now the head of the government. And she says, yes, but my other son's a dumb ship 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. But interestingly, USC came after him and he got all the team a scholarship. And his career ended when O.J. simpson was 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 them all. 52 years kept him in school, but I took him off with him. 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, OJ Was only one step ahead of him. So he was pretty good. The other boys I followed, they were pretty good high school as well. And they all said that funnel 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. Let me tell you. Where else would you like to know? I've been practicing a lot for others about 50 years.
Jack Murphy
What area of law? What area of law? What kind of suits did you take or cases?
Arthur Lewis
Well, when I was refused, as I said, I was there for 10 years, I. I began to. Well, once I passed the bar and they knew I was going to law school, they transferred me over to transmitted to what they call a spare parts department, where they used to negotiate into 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 F86 Night Spider. I don't know if American Airport. And we knew all the all of the parts that make up the system, and we're intimate with all of the components. I got transferred. Well, more interestingly than that. I remember meeting Cyramo at North America 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 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 expectation. They took the cabling from that airplane, brought it to the factory to see that hood wiring on it was adequate. We found that it was. And we then built a 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 America, 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, as 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 piece of equipment there. They kept me there for about 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 aside, Ramo, Dr. Ramo was with them. And they're all huddled around this group 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, overhead, whatever. And I walked away. They turn around, look 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. Well, 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? Well, I says, you know, we've been watching all of these blocks. We've seen this there. Took us a couple of three days or more to find out what the hell it was. Once we found that out, we found that that particular resistor in that particular circuit needed to be more than the usual 10%, plus or minus, and it has to be within 2 or 3%. And suddenly they made a change. But ever since then, they moved me over the spare parts where I had to fly out to. That was one of my first commercial air flights was for use 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, and 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 their bars with them. I got a $20 a week raise when they found out that they can 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'd been practicing law and we were at a cocktail party in Beverly Hills and I'm introduced to Mrs. Ramo. I said, oh, Ms. Raymond, I know you have from News Aircraft. Really? She said, yes, I remember when we worked on the E1 fire control system. Really? He said, so I come over here. Here's somebody who remembers you from US Aircraft because now he run atrw, which is 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 beating. Trying to think of anything else.
Jack Murphy
Yeah, let's start to talk and wrap up a little bit with, you know, your 50 years in law. What did you do in the field of law.
Arthur Lewis
What did I do? Well when I started to practice law I had, I had opened up an office near 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. You get a whole set of books and $50 a month. That much more than I could afford. And the office was small. But whatever your problem was with my specialty. And so I did the usual accident case, bankruptcy case, a personal injury, whatever came in. But Mrs. Lewis was getting tired of my being working days and going to school at night, working at night, Get a job, get a 24 hour job. She's taking care of three 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. So nab lawyer wanted a new young lawyer and that practice when I 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 elevate court.
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Arthur Lewis
And see the client the name of John Doe and just tell him that I am. I don't want to give his name, but the lawyer said, tell him this was John Smith and that 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 day 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 his home continues. So I aces called. I get up to the bench and. Your Honor, Mr. Smith Council of record was unable to make disappearances engaged at this time elsewhere. Just looking to put it over 30 days over anytime convenient to the court. He looks at me and says, you remember the bar? Yeah. Yes. Not yet. Yes. And he says, you have a bar card? That's what he asked. Show it to the clerk. I go over there to the club and he looks at it and he says, your case is assigned to court Neurologo 3. Mr. Smith has continued in this case four times. This is the time that goes to trial. I had no idea what the case was about, what was going to happen. Get assigned to the courtroom, case is called. He says, well, you, Honor, I was here to continue the matter because Mr. Smith. Smith, yeah. And your first appearance in court. Yes. You're annually mental. Yes. One year. He says, all right, we'll continue it for you. You'll let him know he's going to trial next month. And that was my first introduction to him since then. I'm graduating. They handled gambling cases, bookmaking, and I didn't know much about her. 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 them and ask him if he will sign a writ and if you present that to the assigned writ to the jailhouse. So I used to do that. And when I was doing it, I'd have one of the kids or whoever was giving all my trouble come along with me. And all the kids have gone through My base training with me. But I got to trying them and surgeon seizure came to the fore. And that was my piece of cake. And with a low lie. And so I started carefully. I soon began to recognize a lot of things about them. What it takes to write a search warrant when it required a search warrant. And I found out that there were very few people who took the time to study that. I also learned that the law was changing. And pretty soon instead of running into a client, we said who the hell are you? Would come into the office and say I want that kid that's working here. And I debanted about a bunch of cases and ultimately got to the Supreme Court. Oh wow. Yeah, U.S. supreme Court. That was under the California. Of course, when I tell a story, I remember being, 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. And so they instituted a, a law that indicated that you can't burn your trash in the backyard. And on search warrants, search and seizure, it also said that you can't search the trash. But the police are beginning to do that. They were going to search your trash that you put off the 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 is an honorable profession, but over here you can go to federal prison as well as misdemeanor. 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 on a lot of cases that we talk about. And they had searched through the trash because they knew him and the probability is that we'll have to jump in and crash. They found a bag that they could connect to the unit he lived in and found evidence of gambling betting slips. And 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 craft and consequently arrested him and the case got dismissed. And since I'd 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. And in any event, the appellate section calls me one day and says Art, you have gambling case Search and season. 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? We'll send you a copy and let you know beforehand so you can tell your client that we're going up our appeal. I said, yeah, and 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 means is that it's going to cost you a lot more money than Mislamina that we just got rid of. How much? I said, 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 with gold 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 a brace 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 find them. I'm walking and lay up and says, I don't want to go. Well, I'll let them know. Now, my kids have been through the law school in various stages from having graduated and partway through winter and it ain't good. You got to take it. You've got to go to Spring Club and you guys get to go in the life. Try to say, 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 court, motor along, go through all my stuff to help you with the police. And it's pretty hard. 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 got word of and they went to arrest him. And they didn't have a warrant in those days. He didn't have search and station to the extent that we do today. And they went to his rooms 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 they. It 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. And here they found some Michael Fish small film. And they took it and they arrested him. And 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. It's okay to search the trash. But of course, today, problem is that there's a right of privacy. And if there's any indication on the part of the defendant that he wanted to remain, that if you can't do it. Katz was a case. They said they saw a bookmaker go into a phone booth and they 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 it on him, that might have been a different story. But he abandoned the room and they found him. That's the federal rule. So when we had this case come up, my kids want me to go. You got to take their wives with them. It'll 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, get the papers for his admission to the bar. And. And I go to the clerk's office. I submit the papers to them. And clerk smiles. It's nice to see a lawyer removing the admission of his son. And she says the judges will like that very much. And I wait for her. Oh, Ms. Lewis, I'm sorry. We can waived the admission, but your affidavit as to his good condo is something that we can't accept. 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 the son and going to have to get somebody else assigned. The affidavit has to his great 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. That's good conduct. And as I'm walking down the hallway trying to figure out what I can do here for a kid, I see the district attorney and the head of a pellet walking down the hall. Now, that was. What was the name again? Courtney. The D.A. anyway, it was the D.A. who I knew well, and his son was mayor just recently or not too long ago. And I stopped him. I said, I need to thank any one of you guys willing to sign the mass of David that my kid is of good moral character. They smiled, of course, and they did. We moved his admission and this was in the morning they left him and they asked no session. He said, 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 displacement, and I'm concerned they're going to ask me some questions about rule against perpetuity. It's no real estate problem issue, and it's kind of complicated. Most law 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, the courtroom I've ever been in, so kind of relaxed about that. And so as I head up to speak, Justice Scalia starts. And before I could say anything other than, your Honor, and he said, tell me, Council, if I were a neighbor of yours and you were to. You were to take the trash not, not, not on the grass portion of your property, but off into the street, off the curb, and I were taking something that Nick is. And I were to take it, and what's the name? And if you were to come by and if I were to come back and to take something from that drench can your position that you could have me arrested. And I can't figure out why he put this question. Well, you, 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 intended would permanently deprive me of it. And he says, well, that was a bad example. Suppose I took the garbage, put in a box, tiny ribbon around it, and put it underneath the park bench. And he says, well, you, Honor, as you know, particularly when Coming to the Supreme Court to argue this. Not sure I said that, but putting it on maker pound bands 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, the justice next to him, and something that was with lawyering, at least I. I believe it 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 this in court all the time. And when the justices take the lawyers away from their notes, a lot of them stumble. And you responded to the entire bench, and so we figured you must handle the case. I took that as the greatest compliment I could have had. And I still feel like is 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 if 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 from most of my friends on the bar that this was an accomplishment, they also. And I said to them, and I got this phone call, what kind of a case do you have? This drugs. You're not going to get the same result. Because as a drug case, this is a gambling case, and there's a difference in the outlook on that issue. And sure enough, another case came up and they found against the defendant. So that was a small win, if you will. But winning in a case does not depend on it. Complete win. If you can keep a defender from getting the worst punishment available, then can be a win as well. And I had one that was very big. It was that Whitey Bo case where I had a client who was going into it who I was convinced ruined my heart, not what they were charging them with. And without going into any detail, there were 10 defendants. And he had a reputation in Boston that left me on down. I recall when we were Slunky and 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 hope while they had been a bookmaker years before. When he moved to Vegas and he got a job knowing what 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 we claimed that to get it 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 had refused to allow him. And we were waiting to see whether he me to take this on appeal together for never handed sentences and probably deservedly so. But my client was demonstrate probation and I considered not a win.
Jack Murphy
Yeah, kept them out of jail right
Arthur Lewis
there should have been. They should not have been prohibited. But things like that happened. That's. It'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.
Jack Murphy
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.
Arthur Lewis
Well, I don't know about the colorful. It was interesting. It always feels good to win, but mostly it's questions matter. I feel I can walk into any courtroom I've ever been in and I get the respect for 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 submitted a brief giving names to a case or citing a case that doesn't exist. I can't understand that, not by long shot. I don't understand that because the first thing you do as a lawyer when the other side submits a read, you read every one of those cases so that you know whether it doesn't, 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 artificial intelligence lie. But you can't put artificial intelligence in jail. That's a lawyer.
Jack Murphy
Not yet.
Arthur Lewis
Well, I'm proud to say my granddaughter a strange young girl, Mary Bright always has been top of her class and she wanted to go into the field that she thought she wanted to and she wanted to go to China. And we were fortunately known somebody in China who steered her in the right direction to get her into one of the best schools in China. Wow. And she graduated out of her class and then decided she wanted to go to law school and cheats on the hand. And so now she's had an interesting
Jack Murphy
career, I was going to say. I mean, so she's a lawyer that speaks Mandarin.
Arthur Lewis
Repeat that one.
Jack Murphy
Your granddaughter is a lawyer that also speaks Mandarin then.
Arthur Lewis
Well, he's more than just a lawyer.
Jack Murphy
But I mean that's a rare skill.
Arthur Lewis
I, I tell you, if I needed a lawyer, that's what we were doing immediately. Because she speaks Chinese. Because she's good student. Good student, honorable highest models any law firm. And I know that they know that when they get it. I have other granted kids that trial also speak for themselves.
Jack Murphy
Well, author, I really appreciate you spending some of your Saturday with us before we get going today. Any final thoughts, anything you want to make sure we touch upon before we get going?
Arthur Lewis
I can't think of anything if I can turn to my assistant for sending my instrument? No, she has nothing to offer. Okay.
Jack Murphy
Well thank you Arthur for sharing your life story with us. We really appreciate 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 that kind of are still with us to this day. So thank you again and thank you everyone who joined us tonight. Appreciate it and we will see you next time.
Arthur Lewis
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.
Jack Murphy
Absolutely. Thank you. Author. Feel free to reach out or have Courtney reach out anytime.
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Arthur Lewis
Thank you.
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Jack Murphy
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. The things that are on the team house on our Geopolitics podcast. Eyes on things that I write journalistically with Sean Naylor on the high side, anything else that we have going on books we recommend upcoming guests that we have coming on the show show and also, you know, filtering in some fun stuff in there as well if you'll 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@teamhousepodcast.kit.com join again. The website for that is teamhousepodcast.kit.com join so we hope to see you there. The link will be down in the
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Arthur Lewis
Foreign.
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Arthur Lewis
foreign.
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Date: May 17, 2026
Host: Jack Murphy
This episode features an extraordinary conversation with Arthur Lewis, a 100-year-old Navy veteran who served in World War II as a radar specialist. Arthur shares his compelling personal journey from a difficult childhood in Brooklyn through pivotal roles in secret radar operations, amphibious landings in the Pacific Theater, and a distinguished post-war career as an attorney. The discussion offers a first-person view of historical events, technology development, combat, and law, all conveyed with Arthur’s warm humor, candor, and insight.
[01:22 - 06:51]
“Those of you who live in New York know it. Tremendous school, had a great education.” – Arthur Lewis [03:21]
[06:51 - 18:35]
“We were learning about radar. That was an interesting thing because at Treasure island we were taught every piece of Navy communication equipment...” – Arthur Lewis [08:26]
“He’s looking at me like there must be some kind of a phony. I didn’t learn those stripes. And so a little pushing and shoving, whatever, we soon got over that.” – Arthur Lewis [12:12]
[18:35 - 48:18]
“The commander had his communications...nobody on his ship knew how to change the frequency. And I was able to find the crystals...So we were the only other ship to be able to get on his frequency.” – Arthur Lewis [28:52]
Iwo Jima Landings: Arthur described the run-up to the invasion:
Combat and Humanity: The brutality and unpredictability of battle; loading wounded Japanese POWs, seeing their vulnerable state, and the moment U.S. sailors and Marines fed and helped them.
“To me, that was really a show of empathy and humanity. You know, they were just soldiers doing their job.” – Arthur Lewis [44:04]
[55:24 - 63:05]
“They're having a kind of problem now...different lines people that they have these days, different mines that they have as well, but it's still a dangerous job.” – Arthur Lewis [61:45]
[63:05 - 104:40]
“Winning in a case does not depend on it. Complete win. If you can keep a defender from getting the worst punishment available, then can be a win as well.” – Arthur Lewis [104:00]
[104:40 - End]
“If I needed a lawyer, that's what we were doing immediately. Because she speaks Chinese. Because she's a good student.” – Arthur Lewis [108:05]
“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 artificial intelligence lie. But you can’t put artificial intelligence in jail.” – Arthur Lewis [105:03]
Arthur Lewis’s story bridges a century of American history: orphanhood and hardship, elite technical and military service during WWII, front-line participation in the Pacific War, and a half-century of legal advocacy. His unwavering integrity, humility, and commitment to both his country and profession shine through the entire conversation, making this an invaluable firsthand narrative about courage, compassion, and the ongoing responsibilities of citizenship and the law.
Final Remark:
“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.” – Arthur Lewis [109:27]