Interviewer(s): James Sell; Lauren Penney; Betsy Plumb. Bourg, LA and Houma, LA

Affiliation: University of Arizona

Selwyn Gilmore was first referred to me by Ed Henry, who knew him from their veterans' organization. Ed had contacted him and gained his prior approval for an interview in Winter 2003. He was also recommended by Lloyd Dagenhardt, who considered him a very good friend, whose friendship developed at first by radio contact alone. I was able to finally obtain an interview just before I left Houma in July. Mr. Gilmore is in excellent physical and mental shape. When I mentioned I was from Tucson, he told me he was stationed at Davis-Monthan Airbase just before shipping out with his B-29 squadron to the Pacific. The first interview itself has a number of references to WWII, and it is clear that there was an intermixing of oil work and war in that period of his life. Mr. Gilmore was identified to be reinterviewed because of his additional military service during World War II. The second interview was conducted as part of the study of the links between WWII and the offshore industry.

Selwyn Gilmore is a long-term Texas Pipeline hand. After finishing high school in 1941 in Berwick, he went to work for the Army Corps of Engineers, building levees. After war broke out, he continued to work for the Corps for almost a year. Although a person working for the Corps was "frozen" in his job for the duration of the war, Gilmore started work with Texas Pipeline January 1943. He was drafted in August 1943 and trained as an aircraft gunner before shipping out to Guam with his B-29 squadron. After discharge in 1946, he resumed working for Texas Pipeline. As the pipeline system developed in the 1950s, he moved around with it, working in Berwick, Petersburg, and Paradis, before settling into the Houma/Cocodrie area. His work ranged from pipeline inspection to tour engineer, relief supervisor, and technical assistant. He retired in 1985 as one of the highest seniority personnel in the company. His son works for the same company, now owned by Shell.