"Ping and His Chickens and World War II" are based on true stories set in 1950's and 1940's (World War II in the South Pacific). Phil Vernon relates his unique and heart warming experiences of raising chickens from an original two that were destined for a cooking pot. Phil tamed his chickens and they (and offsprings) soon made home of the Vernon household, and, soon after that, the neighborhood. Numerous humorous anecdotes are portrayed, including a hen laying eggs in the Inbox of the President of Silliman University in the Philippines. The World War II section portrays experiences in the South Pacific of Phil Vernon's father, Douglas Vernon...a Presbyterian missionary in Philippines. Namely, in the Marine Corps beach head incursion of Tarawa in 1943, which resulted in 2,000 Marine Corps deaths. My father was in the 3rd wave of Maines to hit the beach in face of withering Japanese gun fire. This section is based on my father's written personal account of the beach head...events leading up to beach landing and its aftermath.