In the Navy

On June 8, 1944, less than two weeks from his 18th birthday, as many young men of his era were doing, Junior enlisted in the military. He tells the story of traveling by train to the first assignment in the Navy. He considered himself old enough to smoke and bought a pack of Lucky Strikes for the train trip. He got so sick he never smoked again.

Dad served on a gunboat that followed a minesweeper in the Pacific. The boat was a troop landing craft (LICL) converted to hold three 40mm guns. This conversion was an LCIG, his boat was the LCIG729. The minesweeper would cut the mines loose and when they floated to the surface Junior’s boat would then shoot them so they would explode.