And so, they said it would be a couple months before theyd call me. So, thats the reason why i did this baseball thing. I figured, well, you know, maybe i will flunk the physical or something. I dont know. But, anyway. So, it wasnt two days after i got the letter from the dodgers about going to almira that i got the letter from the navy to report to Church Street, to report to go to boot camp. So, i never got to play ball. I went over to Church Street to get sworn in. They gave us a perfunctory physical there. It was probably a couple hundred of us. They took us over they walked us over to penn station. We got on the train. It took us up to sampson, new york. This was a new boot camp. It was i dont know how long it had been open, but not very long, because we spent a lot of time, while we were there, helping build barracks for the guys that were coming after us. And i remember i went into when we got off the train, they took us in to give us a haircut and to examine us. And the dentist looked at my mouth, and i was in that chair for over two hours. 26 fillings, they put into my mouth. Because we couldnt afford to go to a dentist. That was the last thing we could spend money on. 26 fillings. Boot camp lasted about four weeks. Got to come home for five days. I think. Back to the boot camp. Two days later, they put us on a train to go to the amphib school in fort pierce, florida. Now, when we were on that train going to florida, every time we went through a city, the sps came through and made sure all the window shades were down on the windows, because they didnt want people to know if there was any spies or whatever what kind of troops were moving where. Of course, we had uniforms on, so it was easy to see this was the navy sending people someplace. So every time we went through a city, we had to pull the shades down. It took us a couple days to get down there. We got off the train. Went to a reception area. And thats where i made the biggest mistake of my life. I sat down in front of this interviewer. He started asking me questions. And he said, can you swim . And i said, yes, i used to be a lifeguard. I forgot to tell you that. I used to be a lifeguard at home. And i worked 80 hours a week and i got 20. That was a lot of money, even though it was 80 hours a week. But i said, yeah, i used to be a lifeguard. He says, oh, go stand over there. So, i went over and stood over there. There was three or four other fellows standing there. Finally, they finished interviewing everybody. So they loaded probably have a dozen of us altogether on a truck. And they took us to a fenced area on the outskirts of the base. We went through a wire fence, but they opened it just for the truck. As soon as they got in, they closed the fence gate. I thought, what the heck is going on here . I had absolutely no idea. Well, another reception area, and we found out that we had just volunteered for underwater demolition. I had no idea what that was. I didnt know that i had volunteered. But i wasnt arguing. I mean, you know. [laughter] this was the navy. So. So, here we were, in this area. So they dropped us off at an area where they had these sixman and eightman tents. And this is florida. Sixman and eightman tents. And they counted us off to each tent. We had our sea bag and our hammock that was issued to us when we joined. And i went in and a bunch of bunks, canvas bunks. Not anything but that. They were just foldup bunks on the tent floor. So i picked out one, threw my stuff on it, sat down, and waited for somebody to tell me what to do. Eventually, some other fellows came in, threw their gear on bunks. None of us knew each other. Finally, a petty officer came in and said, ok, you fellows, line up outside. So they marched us to the chow hall, fed us, marched us back to where we were. And then it started. And we found out that we were what outfit that we had been assigned to, underwater demolition, udts. As the other people in the navy used to call us, undesirable tourists. So, they explained to us that what we were going to do is learn how to blow up obstacles that the enemy was putting on the beaches to prevent the invasion of the various islands in the pacific and, of course, over in europe. And so, then we we started learning how to handle explosives. We used tetrytol, which was about 1. 5 times more powerful than dynamite. It came in 20pound sacks. I forget how many tubes of tetrytol was in each sack. Whatever made it come out to 20 pounds. The sack had a long strap on it, which was adjustable. There was a fuse, a primer cord fuse, that came out of it. So we they took us out let me think. Where did we go . I guess they took us out to one of the beaches, where the seabees had constructed some tetrahedrons, which was an obstacle, a block of concrete with ive got some pictures over here i can show you. And they put them on the beaches for the tanks. George thats right. So anyway, they showed us that this was the type of obstacle that we would likely run into, how to put the charge on it, how to hook it up to the cord that primer cord that went around the obstacles. So while we were doing it, somebody was coming by. We were doing this in the water. They would come by and make sure we were tying it in right. So then, in the meantime, before that, they had issued us swim fins and a face mask. Well, the swim fins didnt fit. You had to cut the top part to fit the arch of your foot. Otherwise, it was very uncomfortable. The facemask, none of them fit, because you had to cut those so they would fit the contour of your face. But this first couple of days, we didnt know that. And we were having trouble with the fins and the facemask. It was a mess. They were making us swim oh, i guess it was probably a little over a half mile, which wasnt much. Because during hell week, which came later, you know, every day, we swam four miles in through the surf and out through the surf twice. We ran, god, i dont know how many miles. We crawled on the beach. We were learning how to to detect mines that were buried in the sand. And how we did that was by feeling our way across the beach. Were soaking wet. Were on the sand, our bodies are covered with sand. It was very uncomfortable. And feeling for these mines as we crawled across the beach. And if you happened to trip one it was not a mine, of course. It was just a firecracker that would go off and blow up in your face. And you would get covered with sand. That was how you learned how to feel for mines. But this was during hell week. I think, probably, during that week, we never got back to where we slept. We never had a meal. We lived on k rations and c rations. I think, in that week, if we got maybe five hours sleep, it was probably a lot. And to be honest with you, i dont remember if we did sleep, where it was that we slept. Because if we werent running, swimming, we were going through the mangrove swamps outside of fort pierce. And that was brutal. We did that for a week. And then, the last day, last day, they told us, they said, fellows, this is your last day, but weve got a special treat for you. Oh, shoot. [laughter] they took us we walked through the mangrove swamps. They took us to the open field. When we got to this field, theres a bunch of foxholes already dug. And they said, all right, pick out a foxhole and get yourself in it. Thats fine. So, i took one over here, got myself in it. And then they said, over a loudspeaker, that what they had done, they had planted explosive charges all around and in this field, and they were going to set them off. And what this was supposed to do is to acclimate us to what it would be like if youre under fire. Well, the first ones they set off, to me, they sounded like they were outside the perimeter of the field. I said, well, this isnt too bad. Then they started getting a little closer. And they started having them go off in the field, near the foxholes. And one of them went off probably three feet or four feet from my foxhole. And a rock came and hit me in the side of the head. God, i thought i had lost my eye. I said, medic, medic, medic so they stopped firing. They come in. Blood was pouring out of here. It must have been a mess. So, they took me out of the foxhole and took me over to an aid station. And the corpsman took one look at me, said, my god, hes lost his eye. That made me feel even better. But it wasnt. It was just a bad mess. So, they cleaned me up. And i dont think they shot off any more explosives. I think we all got on the trucks and went back to civilization. But that was hell week. And it was i dont know. Some fellows dropped out. I know that, because i never saw them again after we got finished. Some were asked to leave, for whatever reason. I dont know that either. So and they still have hell week today for the navy seals. Not exactly what we did. Because ive been to that navy seal base over there in coronado. And they do things quite a bit different now. Im sure glad i dont have to do what they did, because i dont think i couldve done it. And anyway what were the big differences between today and back then, the first things that you notice that made you go wow . George first of all, the fellows were in a heck of a lot better shape than we ever were. I mean, these fellows, when theyre not doing their training, they are doing exercises, you know, on the weights and i mean, those guys are theyre built like rocks. I mean, we were just a bunch of kids off the street. [laughter] id never lifted a weight in my life. That just wasnt it. But these guys are in so much better physical shape than we ever could have been. And theyre trying to do better. They keep at it. I got talking to one guy over there who was a corpsman in team 6. And i was asking him about because i saw him in the gym. I just, by chance, walked into the gym, and these fellows were working out. And my nephew was with me, who is a retired Lieutenant Commander in the navy. And so, we were standing there in the gym, watching these fellows work out. And this guy came over, and he said, can i help you with anything . And he saw my i have a hat that says world war ii vet Navy Frog Man. He said, were you a Navy Frog Man . I said, yeah. He said, come on over here. He toured me the whole place. Showed me the warehouse where they keep all their gear, all that stuff. But, anyway, and i said, is this what you fellows have to do every day . He said, no, this is all voluntary. These guys working out in the gym, they were voluntarily doing that, along with what they had to do regularly to keep in shape. I just couldnt believe it. But anyway, it was interesting. So, we we stayed there, in fort pierce, probably a month, month and a half. And then they picked, probably, two dozen of us. Why . I have no idea. And they said, were going to take you over to normandy. And so, we got our gear, and we they took us out to the airport. We got on a plane. And we flew from fort pierce, i think, to someplace in virginia, where we refueled, and then we flew from there to someplace up in maine, where we refueled. Bangor, maine . George i dont know. Someplace up there. I know it was pretty cold. And then we flew from there to newfoundland and refueled. And the next stop was someplace in scotland, where we refueled. And then they flew us down to southern england. And thats where the trip ended. And when the normandy invasion went off, the fellows that in those days, over there, it was ncdu, naval combat demolition units. They were fiveman teams with an officer, usually an ensign, in charge of that fiveman team. And these fiveman teams were to take care of the obstacles that were on the beach. Well, what happened at omaha was that, because of the water coming across the channel, when they got to normandy, it was so bad. It was so rough. They lost practically all their explosives. They had nothing to work with. And plus the fact that the one big mistake that they made, as far as the invasion was concerned, was that these ncdus should have gone in before the invasion rather than with the invasion. Because a lot of the gis were hiding behind the stuff that we were supposed to blow up. So even if we had our explosives, we couldnt blow it up, because these guys were hiding there. They didnt want to go any further because of what was happening. So, at omaha beach, the channel i dont want to use the word channel. The opening that the mechanized units needed to get through the up behind the line, we couldnt get those obstacles out of the way. So, thats what screwed up omaha beach real bad, because the mechanized stuff couldnt get through, because the obstacles hadnt been blown up. So, that was that was that was a real snafu. And there probably were others, too. But, you know, that was that. Which unit did you land with . The 2nd rangers . George no. No. No, the i saw the rangers go up the cliff. I could see them trying to get up there. I was watching it. And i said, my god, im glad im not trying to do that. I didnt know whether i was going to see the sunset that day. I was so scared. I pissed my pants. And i was what in the world am i doing here . I just it was awful. The noise. The noise was terrible. I equate it to a thunderstorm and a crack of lightning, the crack is right above your house. And the crack and then the thunder, and thats what its like continuously, hour after hour after hour. You just cant get away from it. Its just terrible. Awful. Its not good. No. Bad. So, but, anyway. Did you go in with the 29th . George i dont know. I have no idea. The only the two things i remember very clearly, one is i think it was a canadian. Im not sure. But i think it was a canadian uniform. He had a hole blown through him. You could have put a bowling ball through it. Theres another fellow i saw his arm get shot off. Evidently, he didnt realize what had happened. Because when his arm was shot off, his rifle was laying there. And he saw his rifle there, and he tried to pick it up with his right arm, but he didnt have a right arm. It was terrible. Terrible. But, anyway. How old were you when you joined the navy . George 17. Did your parents have to sign a waiver . George yeah. Why the navy . Why not army . Marine corps . George because my father told me what the army was like through the world war i, and i didnt want any part of that. I figured, if i went in the navy, id get three meals a day. [laughter] every person in the navy tells me im guaranteed a place to sleep and a place to eat. George that is right. [laughter] the army is like, i dont know where im going to be tomorrow. George thats exactly what i thought. So my father said, why join the navy . I went, i dont want to go through what you went through. I mean, after all, you know, food and sleep are important. So thats the reason. Never dreaming that id wind up doing what i was doing. But, anyway. So, omaha beach was your only assignment. Your assignment wasnt to go further in and do more stuff george no, no. Then, they took us off. We came back to fort pierce. And thats when commander kauffman, draper l. Kauffman he was in charge of all underwater demolition. And he i dont know how all this came about. But thats when we started forming into 80man teams or 88 men and 12 or 13 officers. So, we started doing the team concept. And what we were learning how to do and were training to do because we were getting ready to do the islands in the pacific. I think the first one that udts did was saipan, but im not sure. I wasnt there. But so, what we started doing in fort pierce was that the one platoon would be assigned to an lcvp, Landing Craft vehicle personnel. And that was our boat. And the boat had a crew of three, a coxswain, moter mech a guy who took care of the motor and the Communications Fellow who handled the radio. And then it would be our platoon, which would be about 20 fellows. So the way we were taught that we were going to take care of the work we had to do in the pacific was that they would lash a rubber eightman rubber boat to the port side of the lcvp. Because the coxswain of the lcvp, his position was aft on he would control the speed and the direction of the boat. He could look right down and see that rubber boat tied to the side. Then we had a line, probably 1. 5 inch line, attached to a cleat on the port side of the lcvp. And that line was just long enough. And at the end, we had an eye at the end of the rope and put tape on it so that we wouldnt cut our hands. We put tape on it so that this eye could be handed to a swimmer in the water, as the lcvp was going by with the rubber boat on the port side, thered be a man in the rubber boat. He would take that eye and hand it to the swimmer. The swimmer would grab that, he would swing it around to the back of the rubber boat, and he would clip his fins, and pulled himself up into that rubber boat. And the fellow that was in the rubber boat would take the line and give it to the next swimmer that he would come to. Thats how we picked up, so that we didnt have to stop the boat to pick somebody up, because if you stop the boat, youre vulnerable to getting hit. And we didnt want to lose the boat and all those men at one time. We went off to swim the same way. We would go over to the side and into the rubber boat, and we would roll into the water. And we did that every 25 yards. And we always swam in pairs, so there would be two of us that would go over this at the same time. And then we would swim in and it would never break and it was pointing at the sea. We took that light. We swam over there, put that up. We lost one or two fellows doing that, i think. But we got it in a good spot, and everybody was happy. And the beach that we worked, it was to my left. That was overlooking the whole island. It was over on my left. I never did see them raise the flag because we were long gone before that happened. But i remember seeing that mountain sitting up there. I was trying to think. Some of the other problems that we had at iwo maybe itll come to me. Iwo, that lava sand was a different type of grit. Normal sand, you step on it, you might sink a bit. But this one was so loose, that it was hard for troops to kind of get up on there. There was miles of it. George the beach was all lava sand. I think they were concerned about whether the sand would support tanks and machinery. I think ive read someplace that they had already tested that out on the island of hawaii in the Hawaiian Islands because they had beaches there that were all lava sand. I think they tested that out there and they knew, i guess, that the lava sand would take certain kinds of mechanized equipment. So they had that all figured out. But we had to bring back samples of that sand. We each carried a little bag with us. And when we got up on the beach, we filled the bag with sand, tied it on to our waist and brought it out. That was all analyzed someplace. We didnt know how to do that. We had no equipment to do anything. You brought sand back from the beach . George yeah, a little sack so that they could analyze it. It seemed like it was Something Else that we did there. I dont know. Maybe itll come to me. From what i know, i know that went up there. Ts when the tide would come in because when you come in if you came in at low tide, you would have 500 feet before the first embankment. And then they would land at high tide and they would have 200 f