For Navy medic Bert Thornton, WWII offered an adventure, although of course it wasn’t without its dangers.
Navy
Marvin Elfman left the fantail of the USS Minivet on a cold December night to head toward the bow for a cup of coffee.
During the invasion of a German-held beach in southern France, the two USS LCT 1012 boats next to Bernard Fink’s hit mines and blew up. He remembers a soldier being thrown 20 feet into the air from the blast.
Waterskiing behind a motorboat in a man-made lake was the extent of Gene Tubbs’ water experience before he was drafted.
George B. Delaplaine Jr. joined the Navy within weeks of his 18th birthday.
More than 6,000 miles separated Americans from the city of Hiroshima when the atomic bomb was dropped on Aug. 6, 1945.
Bert Sikowitz had just returned to his bunk on the USS Horace A. Bass on July 30, 1945, when a kamikaze pilot slammed his aircraft into the ship’s superstructure.
Marion “Bill” Rice knew he wanted to join the Navy from his uncle’s stories of serving during World War I.
Out on the Atlantic Ocean, a constant procession of planes took off and landed on the aircraft carrier on which Louis Best served as a torpedoman.
Bill Thompson, now 100 years old, was older than most soldiers when he was drafted to join the U.S. Navy. Five years married with a young daughter and a career as a press operator at IBM, he was suddenly called to serve, at 26, as a storekeeper on an amphibious cargo ship, watching fellow sa…
Paul “Burt” McKenney had no aspirations to follow in his father’s footsteps.
On a boat 30 miles off the coast of Japan, James Bromwell saw something he’ll never forget.
Lee Jacobs knew at some point his time would come.
The first Japanese person Cecil Culpepper ever saw was the face of a kamikaze pilot whose plane was tumbling from the sky toward the ocean below.
Army
By the time Milton Erdmann had enrolled in college, World War II was well underway in Europe, and the eventual involvement of the United States was, for most, a foregone conclusion.
Bernard L. Gaver enlisted in the Army at 18 and was inducted in October 1944.
When offered a five-day, all-expenses-paid trip to Europe earlier this year, Thomas “Tom” Hoke said no.
Donald Rosenthal’s WWII injuries never quite healed.
Frank Devilbiss served on the water for two years in World War II, working as a diesel mechanic on Army boats in the Pacific. But in all that time, he never learned how to swim.
During the war, it was Albert Riffle’s job to bomb airfields, refineries and rail yards to cut off supplies to German forces.
Thomas Schuerger hoped to fly planes in the U.S. Army Air Forces but instead supported the war effort from the states.
Raymond Pettingall’s late wife, Frances Sanger, hated the Army, so much so that she got rid of his uniform after he was discharged in 1945.
Jumping out of planes never really scared Guy Whidden.
Photographs depicting military scenes from the Philippine Islands during World War II very well may have been the handiwork of Frederick native Charles Bare.
Kenyon Parker learned to drive on a six-wheeled, 13,600-pound behemoth that traversed land and water alike.
The situation was tense in the winter of 1945, a little-known chapter of the second World War. On the Filipino island of Manila, an estimated 3,800 civilian internees were being kept on the grounds of the University of Santo Tomas by Japanese guards. Food supply was running perilously scarce…
Five years after the end of World War II, Tom and Norma Day met as schoolteachers at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School. But it was only a few months before they got married, Norma said, that they spoke about their service during the war.
When George Deluca’s draft number came up, he deferred his high school graduation in Wanamie, Pennsylvania, to join the Army. He entered the European theater in the last days of the Battle of the Bulge and stayed on in the occupation of Germany.
As Charles Austin Marker’s unit worked its way across Europe, they kept steadily on the move.
Carl Molter Jr. stalled his jeep turning around on a narrow Belgian road just outside the city of Bastogne. It was the early days of the Battle of the Bulge, and Molter had inadvertently driven into a field where German and Allied troops were about to clash.
John Katsu always considered himself an American.
Hank Hilburn joined the 77th Infantry Division in 1944. He had tried to enlist two years earlier, but being 16 at the time, he was told to wait.
The glimpses of training aircraft circling above the Louisiana cotton fields where he worked inspired George Henry’s passion for planes.
William Weber enlisted in the Army at the age of 17 in 1943.
Missing arms and legs were some of the most common injuries that Mildred Winkler would see among soldiers as a nurse at Tripler Army Medical Center, a military hospital near Honolulu. Harder to absorb, she said, were the mental injuries — soldiers with traumatic brain damage or lingering psy…
Irwin “Buck” Isaacs still has the dog tags that hung from a chain around his neck during most of his service as an Army tank mechanic. But at one point, they were almost lost to war.
Eugene “Gene” Long remembers Hermann Göring, a Nazi leader tried in Nuremberg for crimes during the war.
A bullet saved Bruce Nissley’s life.
James Baker joined the Army looking for adventure. In November 1945, the Frederick native quit high school and went with a friend to enlist.
Raymond Gafney was drafted into service and completed basic training at Camp Campbell in Kentucky.
Making his way through Europe, John McGolerick often wore three or four pairs of pants.
More than 70 years after Frederick resident William Smith enlisted in the military, it is not surprising that he does not remember everything that happened during his tour.
Early New Year’s Eve 1944, Robert Hardesty stood on the top floor of a factory in Wecker, Luxembourg, running through gun drills.
“I remember one of the patients so dramatically because I can still see his face,” Marilyn Sandler said. “A very, very young soldier who had been overseas and was in a coma. I was taking care of him for three or four days. He was in a coma, and one day his eyes flew open like that, and he lo…
Not long after Warren Dorsey learned he had qualified for a scholarship with the Julius Rosenwald Foundation in 1943, he got some news that significantly altered his path — he had been drafted.
William Edwards spent two Christmases during the war on a ship. In Hollandia Harbor, New Guinea, in 1944. And, after the war ended, waiting to settle back on land in San Francisco Bay in 1945.
John Hargett had never flown before entering the military.
High school typing classes saved Earle Browning’s life during World War II.
Marines
Stanley Sundergill was only 17 when he graduated from high school, so he asked his parents to sign a special form that allowed him to enlist in the military.
Joseph Brooks was 17 when the Army rejected him for being too young. But he ended up joining the Marines, he said, for a pretty girl.