When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, Jerry Thompson was a junior at Norman High School. Thompson felt a responsibility to do his part as the war effort rose to a fever pitch, but he was too young to enlist.

A year later, he was president of the senior class and business manager of the yearbook. A member of the state championship football team, he played saxophone in the Norman High and University of Oklahoma marching bands.

His grades were good, and he had the support of his parents when he took advantage of an option to leave high school in the last semester to enlist.

“Somebody had to step up and protect our freedom. I wanted to kill a Jap,” the 82-year-old says today. “I am not proud of feeling that way. I have changed.”

So when not quite 18 years old, and with his father’s signature on the enlistment papers, Thompson left for basic training at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center. Although he was awarded a high school diploma, he wasn’t present to receive it.

Thompson was a few weeks into basic training when an opportunity arose, one that opened doors to experiences for the teenager that he enjoys recalling today, experiences that help shape the young man and allowed him to hone musical skills that he has used throughout his life.

“It was announced that if you had ever played a musical instrument professionally, you were to report to a certain place in the morning.”

It sounded intriguing to a young man with years of experience with bands, and even playing a few “gigs” around Norman.

He reported to the designated spot the next morning and was handed a saxophone. “Play this,” he was told. He played the piece. Then they gave him another sheet of music. He performed well, and was told “you are done with boot camp. You are now in the Navy band.”

The next day he was en route to New York City and his duty in the war effort, as a musician. He was assigned to a band stationed at Hunter College in the Bronx, where the WAVES (Women Accepted in Voluntary Emergency Service) were in training. “We were doing our part in the war effort,” Thompson says.

“There were maybe 100 men there, and hundreds of women,” but band duty left little time for fraternizing with the women. The work day extended from “playing colors at 7 a.m. to evening performances.” In between were rehearsals, concerts during the lunch period, then more rehearsals and other performances.

“We had four or five new arrangements to learn every week,” he recalls, and after rehearsals, each player had to hand copy their own set of arrangements. Engagements for the band included parades, variety shows, recruiting activities, war bond rallies and radio shows. The band even played at cocktail parties. “I think I had that horn to my mouth 15 or 16 hours a day,” he recalls.

Some of his fondest memories are of the professional musicians that he worked with. “Musicians with the big bands were drafted into service,” and it led to some amusing incidents, he recalls. “Most of us had experience with marching bands in high school, and marching in basic training. But these guys were professional musicians, even musicians trained at Julliard. They hadn’t ever been in a marching band. They didn’t have to go through basic training. They didn’t know how to march.”

He laughs as he recalls “in parades, we marched and they shuffled. But boy could they play their instruments.”

Thompson says that he learned a lot from them and became a better musician, he says.