Still raining. Still on picket. Had GQ at 0500 this morning. One Jap shot down.
Read in the diary →A firsthand record of the Pacific War
A sailor’s war,
one day at a time.
From training in Idaho to the waters off Japan, Elmer Carlson kept a plainspoken diary of his service as a Navy signalman: with an airfield unit at Tarawa and Majuro, then aboard the destroyer USS The Sullivans. He was eighteen when he enlisted in Seattle, nineteen when he came aboard, and twenty-one when he married Dorothy, the girl he wrote to, in July 1945, twelve days after the ship brought him home. He was back in Shelton, Washington, discharged, that fall.
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The record
Elmer’s entries are often only a sentence or two. Together, they hold the scale of a war: long quiet stretches, abrupt danger, news from home, and the daily work of a young sailor far from it.
His words appear verbatim. Chapters, tags, maps, historical links, and the Navy’s own paperwork are editorial layers, always identified and kept secondary to what he wrote.
The diary stayed in his family and was transcribed by his son-in-law. This archive was built by his grandson. How it was made →
- 389
- dated entries
- 39
- named places
- 25
- service records
“Landed on Tarawa in the Gilberts. Damn rugged. Hope I never see anything like this again.”Read from this day →
Today
On this day
September 7, as Elmer recorded it.
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READExplore the archive
The complete diary
All 389 entries in one dated stream, with 11 chapters to find your way by.
Open the diary →TRACEThe journey
Follow every named place back to the entries recorded there.
See the map →DISCOVERPeople & ships
Find shipmates, family, commanders, and the vessels around him.
Browse the index →LISTENHear it read
Every entry has a computer-generated reading, identified as such and never presented as his voice.
Start listening →VERIFYService records
Navy muster rolls, the ship’s war diaries, a draft card, a marriage certificate, and two yearbook portraits, read beside his diary.
“Everyone is in very high spirits. Its hard to believe that we are actually going home.”
— The final entry in this diary