U. S. Navy Photo |
I was 19 years old at the time and was in downtown Newport, Rhode Island, with a buddy of mine killing time at a restaurant. As we left the restaurant, there were crowds outside shouting that Pearl Harbor had been hit.
Everyone wanted to get revenge, and so the decision to volunteer was a no brainer for me. I was fishing with my father, it was late in the summer and fishing season was almost over for the year. When we finished, I marched right down to the recruitment office.
I knew the alternative was to be drafted by the Army, so I figured I’ d head to the Navy recruitment office and see if that might be a good fit.
When I got there, I mentioned that I was a fisherman and asked what the Navy could offer a guy like me.
” Oh, you’ re a fisherman?” the officer asked.“ Well, you know, the Navy just ordered 175 ships, all destroyers, to be built. They’ re going to need some young guys with expertise to serve on these new ships.”
I also found out that with some commercial fishing experience, I would have the opportunity to enter the Navy with a promotion, which sounded pretty good to me. So after thinking it
|
USS THE SULLIVANS- GEORGE MENDONSA ABOARD- OFF THE COAST OF PONAPE( NOW POHNPEI) IN MAY, 1944.
ONE YEAR LATER, ON MAY 11, 1945 OFF OKINAWA, THE U. S. CARRIER BUNKER HILL WAS HIT BY TWO JAPANESE KAMIKAZE PLANES AND SEVERELY DAMAGED. MEN LEAPT INTO THE OCEAN AS FLAMES ENGULFED THE SHIP. THE SULLIVANS WAS STATIONED NEARBY, AND RESCUED MANY OF THE SURVIVORS, TRANSFERRING THEM TO A HOSPITAL SHIP. THE DEDICATION FROM THE NURSES IN CARING FOR THE WOUNDED STRUCK GEORGE MENDONSA, WHO WOULD NEVER FORGET THE KINDNESS THEY HAD SHOWN HIS FELLOW WOUNDED SAILORS.
over for a short time, I joined the Navy and they promoted me to a 2nd Class Petty Officer, which was the equivalent of a deckhand on the ship.
When I joined the Navy in 1942, there were about 150 men in the company I joined. After a short time, there was a real need to transfer some
|
men out of training and into the fleet since the war had already started. They tried to identify the men who entered the Navy with some kind of skill. I was chosen because of my fishing experience, along with another 15 to 20 men to ship straight out into the war, onto one of the new ships that were being built.
So I went home and awaited my orders. The rest of the 15 to 20 men had shipped out already to join the war in the Pacific, but my orders hadn’ t come. I couldn’ t figure out what was going on, so I went to the Navy base and asked what had happened. I was told they wanted to boost my rate. They told me that as a kid on the water, they felt I could learn to run a boat and wanted to send me to Quartermaster School.
” What the hell is Quartermaster School?” I had no idea what I was being asked to do, but I found out a quartermaster does celestial navigation and sends messages by light. I was also told that this was a better rate than what I had been offered, so I went along with it.
The five Sullivan brothers were killed in action aboard the USS Juneau November 13th, 1942, and the president ordered Bethlehem Steel out in San Francisco to build a new destroyer and
|