about the past. oral history has a power of bringing out individual voices, but also it will always be based on interaction between the interviewer and interviewee. in the case of oral histories it is not really only about survivors themselves, but also about people finding out their own history. it is a mutual process that is very unique to this particular kind of historical period. delia: thank you very much. naoko: thank you. pleasure to talk to you. >> this sunday night at 8:00 eastern. first ladies, influence and image. we look into the personal lives of three first ladies. letitia tyler and julia keller.

letitia tyler becomes first lady and her husband, vice president john tyler, assumes the presidency but she passes away just a year and a half later. the president remarried julia tyler, who was the first photographed first lady. aaron henderson, letitia tyler -- anna harrison, letitia tyler and julia tyler. on a series on first ladies, influence and image, examining the public and private lives of first ladies and their influence on the presidency. from martha washington to michelle obama. as a comment to the series, c-span new book "first ladies, presidential historians on the lives of 45 iconic american women." it is a veritable as hardcover or e-book through your favorite bookseller. >> this year, c-span is touring

cities across the country exploring american history. next, a look at our recent visit to fort lauderdale, florida. you are watching american history tv, all weekend, every weekend on c-span3. >> welcome to the naval air fort lauderdale museum. this is one of 200 buildings that was part of the naval air station at fort lauderdale station in world war ii. this was a training base for a torpedo obama. -- torpedo bomber. most of the three-man crews trained here. president bush trained here. there are probably 3500 aviators who came through the space. this was built in 189042 -- april of 1942. they received the first bomber which just began its production

for the military in 1942. by october of 1942, this base was fully built and operational. it stayed open and commission until the end of 1946. the property, when they built the base, originally was a small golf fcourse. in fact, president harding played golf your back in the 20's. -- played golf here back in the 1920's. when it became overgrown with weeds. in pearl harbor, the u.s. government was very interested in building a base here. the county sold the land the navy, and they built base. this torpedo bomber, which is very slow, fully armored which was shot down pretty much every time they tried to sink a ship. the navy contracted another

company to build another computer bomber. -- torpedo bomber. it was displayed in a 1941. during that "-- during that open house, they got word about the pearl harbor attacks. they got together and decided they needed to tell what had happened. during that delivery, they also said that you plane you see here is going to help us win the war. you have a name -- we do not have a name, but we are going to call it the avenger. >> the plaintiff appealed to be. there were three of us in the airplane. -- the plane appealed to me. i asked to be trained for peto bombers. -- petotorpedo bombers.

>> george h w bush, our 40 1st president came here after he was transferred from corpus christi in 1943, probably september of 1943. he was in this room. he would have to train in the lane trainer. he has not been back to this building since then. but he has been back to the base and the building he lived in, which has been worn down 1998. when he was running for reelection in 1992, he came into that building and walk the land. he found his big mural which used to be in that building. he went around, and said this was the room i lived in. they were tearing the building down, it was empty. people in our organization later took the flooring and fixtures and doors out and re-created that room in our museum.

we call it the bush room. we are now entering the george bush room. this is a re-created barracks room. the actual flooring and the desk and of the water heater, the sink -- all of these were in the room that president bush lived in when he was in the base in 1943. this is the picture of the base where president bush lived when he was stationed here in a bachelors office quarters. that later became the navy service workers assigned. that piece of property is now empty grass across the street from us. we have autographed things here. this is a picture of president bush during his graduation. this is his flight instructeror and squadron. they began to practice in the great lakes and then went off to fight the war.

the president signed this picture. this room has a lot of little mementos. here is a picture of our brought when she was 15. -- barbara when she was 15. this is what they wore when they trained. this is a navy aviator jacket, made of leather. small carrier his squadron was assigned to the carrier. it was off of that carrier that the president with shot down. >> it was a momentous day in my life that i would never forget. center second, 1944 -- september 2. we were to go back again the next day. not a clear day. we got the signals from our

squadron leader to push over, doing what they called glide bombing. the plane was designed to go straight down like a diaper bomber. like a dive dbomber. i pushed the plane over and we dived. seeing the stuff breaking all around you, you can feel the plane going up in smoke and fire. i did manage to finish the bombing run. i made a turn so that we could come back and get out. i jumped, and pulled the ripcord too early. i hit my head on the tail of the airplane. you know in baseball, when you slide, it rips the skin off. i hung just for a moment on until the plane -- on the tail

of the plane with my parachute. i came to, and i was floating down is the pacific. i had forgotten to hook my seat back, so one of the fighter pilots dove down and show me where that was. he swam over and got it. he proceeded to set the record for the fastest yellow raft in the history of the pacific trying to go against the wind against this island. >> he was rescued by a submarine. japanese on the island saw his plane go in the water and sent boats out to capture him. this submarine rides and rescued the president. the japanese said at that point they knew that the war was over. that was it, they were done.

president bush stayed on that submarine for 30 days before he was reunited with his squadron. it is a beautiful story of his experience. they would do nightwatch while they would recharge their batteries. he said it was time like that, at night alone the beauty of the pacific that made him think something's important to him. his thoughts are just beautiful. they made a big impression on me. he was rescued, and at that point, no one knew he was going to be president. we have all of the fine things here. there is a picture of him in front of his plane. a picture of him in his plane. we keep all of these things in here. that was the submarine that rescued him.

our mission from the beginning our founders wanted to preserve a place where people could come and learn about what happened here and also to remember the sacrifices people made with their lives and to honor them and i am sure this will continue on. we have lost the money people involved in this but now we have new people helping and everybody that comes gets involved in basic the value of it, about educating our kids. that is our mission. >> find out where c-span cities tour is going next online at www.c-span.org/citiestour.