I was stationed on a cruiser built in Camden, New Jersey, the USS Dayton. We spent four months getting the ship ready to be commissioned on January 6, 1945.  I called my girlfriend and asked her to marry me in Philadelphia before we left. We went through the Panama Canal to join the Pacific fleet at Leyte Gulf in the Philippines. There we saw the USS Franklin, an aircraft carrier which was terribly damaged by kamikaze attacks. I don’t see how they got it to sail. It was quite an experience to know that was where we were going! We stopped in Hawaii on our way, so I got to go to Hawaii on my honeymoon, but without my wife.

There were 1,000 enlisted men and 110 officers aboard. We worked 4-hour shifts on a 12-hour rotation. You were on duty for one shift, spent the next shift cleaning the ship, and then you slept. You learned to sleep in those 4 hour shifts. My parents were very proud that I was their second child in the Navy, and later my third brother joined the Navy. Dad was a World War I veteran, so he knew what it meant to serve your country.

One particular battle experience comes to mind. In the Pacific in July of 1945, the Japanese were under aerial bombardment. They had two radar jamming stations. Three cruisers and two destroyers planned to bombard mainland Japan and take out these jamming stations. We went in at night to the mouth of a bay and some of the guns on the shore fired at us but they fell short. The mission took three hours, and we left after we thought that we’d knocked out those stations. On the way out, 15 or 20 miles off the Japanese coast, someone threw a valve in all of the excitement, letting saltwater into the boiler room where only fresh water should go. So we had to slow to about 5 knots. The rest of the fleet went on except one destroyer and our cruiser. The only planes the Japanese had left at this time were cargo planes, so we knew that we were not in great danger, but it took six or eight hours to fix the problem.

My fondest memory of the service was after Japan signed the treaty on the USS Missouri.  Eight hundred navy servicemen from the United States, Britain, and Australia went into formation. I was working on the bridge of my ship and from there it looked like you could walk from ship to ship. This was my proudest moment. 

The most fun moment was during the sixty days when I was first assigned in New York City. I was a young officer, and there were many guys back from the Pacific to teach us what they knew and instill in us a sense of discipline. The scariest moment was anytime we were sent to general quarters which means that the ship was at maximum security and everyone went to their battle stations.  You would get so engrossed with what you were supposed to do that you forgot to be scared. My job was to stay aft (at the rear of the ship) and man the radar transmitter rooms. One thing we had to learn is when our ships fired their guns, the vacuum tubes they used for electrical power often broke.  You had to replace them quickly to keep the radar going.

We were close to Pearl Harbor at the time the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. I was watching the radar for signs of ships and aircraft.  When I looked at the screen it was absolutely filled with blips showing 200 or 300 American planes, B-29’s coming back from their bombing runs. Being an engineer, the fact that the atom bomb dropped was absolutely unbelievable because we had no idea what it was. We were interested in the technology but hadn't heard anything about it.

One thing that was exciting for us was when we were at sea 72 days from Leyte Bay to Japan. You get used to the motion of the ship and life on board, which we called getting your "sea legs". Then we outfitted again in Tokyo Bay were we got shore leave and went into Kokosuko. Enlisted men got some shore leave and the Marines were already there. Officers went off first to show proper military decorum. We were under strict orders not to take anything, but we could buy things. I bought decorated lacquer bowls, colorful tapestries with block printing used by the Japanese as wall hangings and an obi (sash for a woman’s kimono), all of which I still have. We took a jeep to the countryside, 13 miles from base to Komakora, home of the largest stature of Buddha  which is 30 or 40 feet tall. We visited the temple and museum but got lost on the way back. We stopped a Japanese fellow on a bicycle, and he spoke English. He gave us directions. He was 55 years old or so and said his home in Tokyo had been bombed and he was bicycling 15 miles to his other home. He had learned English in England and the United States as an attaché for the steel industry and asked if we knew a certain Captain Zacharia.  We knew he had broadcast the surrender terms from Hawaii to Japan. He had known him when he was stationed in Japan.

We spent the last few months before the war ended in the Pacific (it was already over in Europe) as members of the 3^rd fleet, and then 5^th fleet. We left the Philippines and went north to Japan. At first there were lots of aircraft carriers were with us. I got to watch planes take off from the carriers. When they came back all shot up they had great difficulty landing and sometimes the planes crashed. Our ship was assigned to go to Northern Japan and even though it was July it was still 35-40 degrees. As our big warships hurled shells, we could see the chimneys of steel mills being knocked down.

We left Japan on November 17^th and took the Great Circle Route back to San Pedro. It took three weeks. My grandfather lived there at the time. He was elderly so I stopped to see him immediately. I was lucky to have someone to visit in the port.

I met many friends in the service and just last September I hosted our ship’s reunion. There were 55 crew members from the ship, including a good friend I hadn’t seen in 56 years. I’ve met some of my old shipmates while traveling. It’s tough that after all these years some are no longer with us, so we have to keep renewing our friendships.

Some interesting facts: enlisted men were given mess (food), but officers had to pay for theirs. As part of the radar crew which watched for incoming planes I was considered part of the Intelligence Division. Our dog tags showed our classification, religion, name, serial number, rank and medical information. We had two dog tags. One they took off if you died to send notification of your death back to the States. I have battle ribbons for the American Defense of the South Pacific and Asian Pacific Theater, and my Victory ribbon for the armistice. I saved the letters from my wife and found out later they had to be reviewed by one of my bunkmates before they could be sent. This was to make sure no classified information was written in your mail.