I entered Yale in July, 1942 and enlisted in the Navy's V-12 program. In June,1944, in the middle of junior year, I was assigned to Midshipmen's School at Northwestern. My first assignment, as a bright, shiny young ensign was to the Amphibious Base at Ft. Pierce, Florida. The base was filled with shiny, new ensigns, and we lived in eight-man, rat-infested tents. The toilet facilities were in such short supply that we had to sign up 24 hours in advance for our seven-minute slot in the shower.

When the Scouts and Raiders detachment found out I had been on Yale's Varsity Swimming Squad it tried to get me to volunteer to spend 30 days in the Florida swamps eluding alligators as an entrance exam. I was determined to have a naval career in communications. It took a lot of badgering, but I was finally transferred to Communications School at Camp Bradford, VA.

After graduation as a Communications Officer in March,1945 I was assigned to a new LST being built in Hingham, MA. Following shakedown in the Chesapeake, we sailed to Pearl Harbor and immediately began training for an invasion of Japan. Every morning for 30 days, our Task Group landed 40,000 Army troops on the beach at Maui. Then we loaded 500 Marines, tanks and jeeps and headed for the invasion of Japan at Sasebo. When Armed Forces Radio announced enroute that a second big bomb had been dropped, this time on Nagasaki, our quartermaster show me his chart and commented that Sasebo was a very short distance from Nagasaki. The Marine officer who was sharing my cabin suggested that on landing at Sasebo we get one of his jeeps with two of his best sharpshooters and drive over to see the damage. That we did. We looked over Nagasaki from a point of land on the outskirts. We knew nothing of atomic radiation or its potentially deadly effects. The devastation was awesome. Macadam roads were bleached white with the shadow of tree trunks and telephone poles etched in the pavement, showing the bomb's location at the instant of detonation. We landed at Sasebo about two weeks after the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. A subsequent news broadcast reported that a group of doctors were the first Americans to visit Nagasaki on September 11. That told me that my Marine friend and I were the first Americans to see Nagasaki after the bomb was dropped.

From Sasebo we went to pick up the Army's I Corp in Lingayen Gulf in the Philippines and take them to Osaka. Coming off the beach in the Philippines we suffered some propeller damage, and we were sent for repair to Okinawa, just in time to be greeted by the infamous third typhoon off Okinawa. Our anemometer broke down at 167 knots (for those of you in the Army 192 MPH). I've been around boats and ships all my life, and I never imagined such fury. One minute we were on top of a wave and could look down 100 feet on either side. The next minute we were in the trough and the waves were 100 feet above us on either side and we couldn't understand why they didn't come together and close over us. We were one of three ships that went through the eye of the storm that cost the US Navy 136 ships that were either sunk, beached or damaged so badly as to be non-operational. After 36 hours the typhoon abated and we made port in Okinawa.

While the Engineering force replaced the propeller and shaft, I spent my days at the Marine Corps airfield near Buckner Bay, illegally learning to fly. I was 20, young and foolhardy, and after a few weeks I soloed in a C-47 that had been declared surplus and was going to be scrapped.

Ninety days following Japan's surrender we were ordered to San Francisco with stops in Guam and Pearl Harbor to pick up personnel being returned to the mainland. During the four months we were in San Francisco, I volunteered at the Pacific Fleet?s big Naval Radio Station, NPG. I handled much of the classified traffic relating to the upcoming atomic tests Bikini. At 21, I was given command of an LST and took the ship up the coast to Portland OR for eventual decommissioning. A few months later I was released to inactive duty at the end of June,1946. Three days later I was back at Yale.

I was 19 when I went on active duty. I grew up in the Navy and loved being part of it. I was fortunate to have a good commanding officer and a few older officers who took me under their wings. One in particular, a handsome 32 year old bachelor, taught me confidence, especially when choosing dancing partners at the officers? clubs. Socially I was quite shy. Although I learned to dance, I hung on to my virginity during the war, solemnly handing out prophylactics and medications with the usual warnings to the crew who had no such inhibitions when going on shore leave.

After the war I stayed active in the Naval Reserve for 23 three years. I qualified for command of destroyer type vessels and made eight two-week training duty cruises over the years in submarines, some nuclear. I eventually served in Naval Intelligence in Communications Security and finally retired with the rank of Commander USNR.