Like most other young men and women in the days following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which immediately drew the United States into World War II, Islander Tom Hale wanted very badly to enlist in the armed forces and fight for his country.

Mr. Hale had just graduated from Milton Academy and tried to join the Navy, but was turned down for physical reasons. Then he tried the Air Force, but also was turned down. Finally he tried the Army Officer Training Corps, but still had no luck. Things got so bad, even the draft turned him down.

But Mr. Hale would not be deterred, and he sought out different ways to join the war effort overseas. Eventually he joined the American Field Service, a corps of volunteer ambulance drivers who transported wounded soldiers from the front lines to aid stations and hospitals for treatment.

Although Mr. Hale was not a member of the armed services, he saw plenty of combat, traveling with Allied forces through Italy and France and finally Germany. In the final days of the war he was among a group who liberated the German concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen, a horrific scene that still evokes strong memories and emotions in Mr. Hale to this day.

Mr. Hale recounted these experiences during a recent talk at the Martha’s Vineyard Museum, part of the Voices of World War II lecture series. The talks augment the ongoing exhibition Those Who Serve — Martha’s Vineyard and World War II, which features oral histories, photos, film footage and artifacts from Vineyarders who experienced the war at home and abroad.

The second part of the exhibit opens Memorial Day weekend, on May 28. Meanwhile the Gazette is publishing excerpts of Vineyarders’ recollections of the war, continuing this week with Mr. Hale’s recollections of being an ambulance driver during some of the bloodiest battles in the European theater during World War II.

“I was 18 years old in 1943. I had just graduated from [high school], and like every other young person at that time I wanted to enter the service. I wanted particularly to get into the Navy, but I failed to get into the Navy for physical reasons. Then I failed to get into the Air Force for physical reasons. Then I failed to get into the Army Officer Training Corps for physical reasons.”

“Finally even the draft turned me down as being physical unfit for military service. I was what you call 4-F, or 1-A-L, meaning I was fit for limited service only. This meant I could only pound a typewriter in Wichita, Kansas for the duration of the war, and that didn’t appeal to me. So I joined the American Field Service as a volunteer ambulance driver to the French Army.

“In World War II, of course, the French surrendered very early, and the few field service drivers who were with the French escaped to Spain and Portugal. The British at that time were fighting alone in Africa and were desperate for all kinds of volunteers. So the American Field Service volunteered to help the British, and they of course welcomed them with open arms.

“The only requirements to join the American Field Service were you had to be 18, you had to have a character reference and you had to have a driver’s license. That was the full extent of the training. I just graduated from high school in June, and by August I was aboard a ship convoy from the U.S. to Africa . . . 35 days later we passed through Gibraltar and ended up in Alexandria, Egypt.

“In Alexandria we transferred to a truck convoy to go across Africa to Tripoli . . . from Tripoli we went across the Mediterranean to Italy. The invasion has just taken place . . . we got into the mountains in the middle of the country. The American forces were on the west coast; and the British forces — the Eighth Army — were on the east coast. Both were moving north against the Germans.

“We were moving north with the British Eighth Army, a remarkable group really, full of British divisions, Australian divisions, New Zealand divisions, Indian divisions and Canadians. There was even a Polish division, and eventually there was an Italian division, if you can believe it, who had surrendered from the German side and joined up with the British.

“As we moved north, the Germans fought admirably, as did we. All the bridges as we moved north had been blown up by the Germans. There was one river in particular, the Sangro River, that held up the [British Eighth] Army because the bridge had been blown out. The Germans defended the river fiercely, and it resulted in a tough fight.

“So the [British] Royal Engineers were put to work to put up a temporary pontoon bridge over the river; they were all under fire by the Germans, but they built that bridge in a matter of days, and it carried trucks, tanks and infantry just fine. [The bridge] lasted for about three weeks until the storms washed it away, but by then most of the army was across the bridge.

“Our job in the ambulances was to carry wounded patients back down the north side of the river. The wounded men were then loaded onto landing craft and sent downstream to the south part of the country, and loaded on to more ambulances and onto the hospital — if they lived that long.

“The Italian campaign was quite a bloody affair. The ambulance work was divided up so some ambulances went as far forward as they could go to the regimental aid post, to get emergency aid to the men in the field. Many of the wounded men would then be evacuated to an advanced dressing station, and then back to a main dressing station a few miles back.

“Because we had very fine four-wheel drive American Dodge ambulances, we got all the frontline duties, which is frankly what we wanted. And I’d like to think we did a pretty good job. In the middle of it all I came down with malaria, as did a lot of other men, and somehow I ended up in a maternity ward.

“Eventually I was going to be evacuated back to Africa for rehabilitation, and I thought that was for the birds. So I just got up and walked out, and hitchhiked back to my unit. I took it easy for a while and recovered from my malaria.

“As we moved north the German line stabilized. It was held at a high point called Monte Casino, which was a Benedictine monastery overlooking the road heading north to Rome. The Americans had been unable to conquer Casino, so they called the British Eighth, and the second New Zealand Division went to help the Yanks capture Casino; we went along with the unit.

“It was the hardest campaign I can remember. War stories are a dime a dozen, you don’t want to hear all the details. All I can say is the New Zealanders had as hard a time as the Americans did. That was the second battle of Casino, and then the third battle also failed. Finally on the fourth try a Polish brigade managed to capture the monastery and open the gate for the American army to move north towards Rome.

“The summer of 1944 was a busy one. We were still moving north into Florence and beyond. One day I had an ambulance-load of patients, and a shell burst over my left shoulder, and a piece of shrapnel came through the windows and through the sleeve of this very jacket. I saved the jacked on purpose — you can still see where the shrapnel went in.

“I was in for about a year, and my service was up. It was recommended that I take leave and go home, which I did. But I was very frustrated and unhappy about that. So I went into the Boston office of recruiting for the Field Service and finally got permission to return to Italy. I went back again on a convoy to Naples, and again started moving north.

“At that point, the war in Italy was almost over, so we were transferred to France in early 1945. The war was over there, but you would hardly know it. We went through France in the spring and it was perfectly beautiful, but by then the country had been liberated. Then we went through Germany, and it was a horrible mess.

“We were advancing northeast to meet the Russians, who were moving west and south, and the Germans were retreating. The British 2nd Army was moving north, and the Germans were fleeing south. We were moving north with the Second Scottish Brigade when we overran the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.”

Mr. Hale then paused for a moment before he continued.

“I will say that nobody should ever tell me that the Holocaust never happened. Because it did. And it was perfectly terrible. Many of our platoon in the Field Service volunteered to work in the camp, if we were allowed to. The British had flown in three field hospitals to try and cope with the flow of dead and dying and people in the camp.

“There were thousand of patients. I don’t mean hundreds, but thousands, dead and dying, or almost dead. They built a wooden trough pointing downhill, and they put civilians along the sides from nearby Belsen, who of course said they didn’t know what was going on in the camp. Well, of course they knew, they could smell it.

“Those prisoners who were still alive were put on this trough and stripped of their dirty clothes and moved down and washed and dressed in skimpy clothes, but at least they were clean clothes. And they either went directly into the hospital there, or went into our clean ambulance, and we took them to other hospitals.”

Mr. Hale stopped again, and held up a series of photos, his voice growing louder as he explained what was in each.

“This here is a gibbet where you hang people. This is Bergen-Belsen. I took that with my own camera.

“Here are two of my friends holding a box of human bones that would have been crushed into fertilizers for German farmers.

“This is a picture of one of my friends standing on a mass grave. I can’t tell you how many; there may have been 50, I don’t know. This one said grave number six, approximately 4,000 [buried below].

“And this is the best picture of them all. It’s the day the British burned down the camp. There is nothing there now but the mass graves and the trees.”

Mr. Hale then put the photos away, and gave a final thought.

“A few days later, it was over. [British Field Marshall] Montgomery and [U.S. General] Eisenhower took the surrenders of the Germans. I came home. I went to Harvard. I went to graduate school. I got married, had five children. I moved to the Vineyard. Raised a family here,” he said, adding:

“I love the Island. And that’s my story.”

Those Who Serve — Martha’s Vineyard and World War II will be expanded in May and continue until January 2011. Museum hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Saturday. Entry is $6 for adults, $5 for seniors, and $4 for children over six.