Y’all have way more interesting stories than me. My great grandfather (far right) was drafted in the navy then sat in a training submarine in New England by the time the war was practically over.
by GenZ_Nathaniel
Y’all have way more interesting stories than me. My great grandfather (far right) was drafted in the navy then sat in a training submarine in New England by the time the war was practically over.
by GenZ_Nathaniel
4 Comments
Not a bad thing.
My grandpa and his brothers were all drafted. Gramps was a blacksmith – which was considered essential skilled war supply services – so he was sent to work as a civilian corp hot riveter in a boatyard. His 3 brothers went to the front in France, only 1 came back and he was so messed up he spend most of his adult life in and out of asylums.
My great grandfather was killed just hours before armistice on Nov 10, 1918. My grandmother never met him. Boring is good.
My father turned 18yo in February 1944 and got drafted into the US Navy sometime thereafter. He went through boot camp in Farragut, Idaho. He got assigned to the Haskell-class attack transport USS Mellette (APA-156) when it was first launched after being built. He was in the radar group. The ship took part in the assaults on Iwo Jima and Okinawa during the war. The USS Mellette (and my father) was in Tokyo Bay during the official formal surrender of Japan on September 2, 1945. My father was assigned to the USS Mellette until it was decommissioned in Norfolk, Virginia in 1946. His active-duty draft obligation was completed around the same time, and he was a civilian again. He ended up staying in the US Naval Reserves for another 6 years. That’s my father’s story about what he did during WWII.
Your Great Grand Father most likly knew he was going to be drafted and joined the USN. I’ve never met anyone personally that was drafted into the Navy. If you were drafted it meant the Army and to a lesser degree the Marines but your ticket wasn’t for the Navy or Air Force.