Things I know now
Things I knew on Monday:
Dad dropped out at 18 and enlisted to remove some financial burden from his father, who was supporting a wife and four sons on a barber's wages.
Dad joined the Coast Guard.
Dad gets seasick on mild, inland lakes, and horribly seasick on the ocean.
Dad was a radar operator when the word radar was still classified as 'secret'.
Things I suddenly knew on Wednesday:
Papa dropped off my dad on 2-2-42 at the 3rd St. Station in Detroit. Dad walked into the Marine recruiter and asked to enlist. They gave him a bunch of forms to fill out and have his parents sign. So he walked into Navy recruiter and asked to enlist. They gave him a bunch of forms to fill out and have his parents sign. So he walked into the Coast Guard recruiter and asked to enlist, and they said, "Sign here."
Three months later Papa got a letter saying Dad's paperwork had not been filled out properly; it did not have his parent's signature.
Dad went to boot camp at Manhattan Beach on Long Island, and was assigned to the S.S. Senora, a merchant ship based in Erie, PA. He went to radar school in Virginia Beach, VA, and was sent to Baltimore to want for a ship with radar to commission. He go that ship, the U.S.S. Kilpatrick DE-318, in Orange, TX, and went to Galveston, New Orleans, and then Bermuda to shakedown. He was the only trained radar operator on the ship... his battle station was a 20mm gun.
More to come...
Dad dropped out at 18 and enlisted to remove some financial burden from his father, who was supporting a wife and four sons on a barber's wages.
Dad joined the Coast Guard.
Dad gets seasick on mild, inland lakes, and horribly seasick on the ocean.
Dad was a radar operator when the word radar was still classified as 'secret'.
Things I suddenly knew on Wednesday:
Papa dropped off my dad on 2-2-42 at the 3rd St. Station in Detroit. Dad walked into the Marine recruiter and asked to enlist. They gave him a bunch of forms to fill out and have his parents sign. So he walked into Navy recruiter and asked to enlist. They gave him a bunch of forms to fill out and have his parents sign. So he walked into the Coast Guard recruiter and asked to enlist, and they said, "Sign here."
Three months later Papa got a letter saying Dad's paperwork had not been filled out properly; it did not have his parent's signature.
Dad went to boot camp at Manhattan Beach on Long Island, and was assigned to the S.S. Senora, a merchant ship based in Erie, PA. He went to radar school in Virginia Beach, VA, and was sent to Baltimore to want for a ship with radar to commission. He go that ship, the U.S.S. Kilpatrick DE-318, in Orange, TX, and went to Galveston, New Orleans, and then Bermuda to shakedown. He was the only trained radar operator on the ship... his battle station was a 20mm gun.
More to come...