My father, age 18, WW2

Here is my father in December 1942 in the U.S. Navy's V-5 Aviation Cadet program at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. He was there for a year to make him officer material. He then went to basic flight school at NAS Ottumwa, Iowa.

Unfortunately, the Navy thought they had enough pilots in the training pipeline ahead of my father's class and his was cancelled. (This turned out later to be a mistake.)

He was given his choice of enlisted training, so to have a chance at getting on a carrier, he chose aviation ordinance. After six months of that training, he was assigned to the carrier USS Intrepid (CV-11) in 1944 while she was at San Francisco for repairs where he served aboard as a AOM 1/c USNR for the rest of the war.