Navy Days

Jan & Sandi said, now that my Navy picture is on the Blog site, I should write about those days. I will attempt this, but try not to make it to long, as there are many things I could write that would matter little.
I was a senior in High School & was in the lead part in two plays put on by the High School music teacher. This changed my life, and her and I got involved & serious about each other. She being 23 & me 16. This became more & more of a problem as time went on.
That summer her older brother was killed in WW-2. When I became 17 that fall, I decide I must join the Navy & help the cause. That also would calm down the problems of our relationship. Later after leaving the Navy in 1946 we were married. She was still teaching, so I was just working part time, I and a buddy decided to go to Ithaca High School and finish school. This we did and then both went to a so called War College in Binghamton. I took Electrical engineering while there.
After joining the Navy I was sent to Sampson Navy base for basic training & 12 weeks of electrical school. The basic training was tough but a good thing for me at that time & made a better person of me.
After leaving Sampson & a weeks leave I was sent by train to Treasure Island, a Navy base near San Francisco. this was to wait to be assigned to a ship.
The war with Japan was going strong & we were to be sent to the Phillipine Islands to take part in the re-taking of it from the Japanese & then on to the invasion of Japan itself. While on the way we had engine trouble and had to spend a time in Hawaii at Pearl Harbor for repairs. This was a good experience and saw a lot of Hawaii.
I remember going out of San Francisco bay, under the Golden Gate bridge & past Alcatraz island & pretty scared as a 17 year old kid.
When we finally got to our destination off the Phillipines, I was transfered to a smaller repair ship. While on that ship I repaired motors and generators of ships that had been damaged in battle. We mainly saw some, but very little action & just some submarine attempts to knock us out. Another problem was floating mines all over the Pacific, put there by the Japanese.
During this time the US dropped two Atomic Bombs on Japan & they before long surrendered.
This saved us invading Japan and an estimated loss of half million Americans, we were told, Japan was tough & did not give up easily. As we heard the news on the ships intercom we had no idea what an Atomic Bomb was & what it could do.
After the War was over I was assingned to some shore duty on the island of Samar & Manicani. There were still a lot of Japs in the jungle who refused to give up. While there I became friendly whith a family and had several visits with them in thier large thatched hut. Ate with them several times, a meal of raw fish & rice, sitting on the floor on at a rough wooden table. Found out you could eat raw fish if it came from salt water. They even ate the eyes ( yuk ). They had a daughter who taught and could speak English well, so learned a lot of thier customs and culture.
While there I ran into three old school buddies from our little town of 750 souls.
After a while I was transfered to a Floating Dry Dock ( ABSD-1 ) which was the first of its kind in the world & very large. I helped in dismantiling it to be towed home in ten seperate sections. While on the Dry Dock I became good friends with a guy my age, whom I still keep in contact today.
I was next transferred to a smaller repair ship USS Proserpine which would take us home. Before leaving the area we dumped all our electrical & mechanical supplies in the ocean. We were told this was so it wouldn't effect the US economy by being brought back to the States??
Don't remember to much of the return home trip, as I was excited, I guess to be going home. We ran into a typhoon and one ship in our convoy was lost and many drowned. We went home by the way of Alaska & not sure why. Down the coast from there to San Francisco & by train across country to Lido Beach Long Island. I was discharged there & made my way into NY City to Grand Central staion and train home to Ithaca, NY.
A great experience & something you can never forget. I thank God for getting me thru it safely & for my long life since.