My Navy Years

"In1943 the natural thing to do at the ripe old age of 17 was to leave the nest and join the war effort. With the group of guys that I hung around with in St. Louis that meant only one thing, join the Navy. The Navy had glamour, and people looked at sailors as something special, at least the girls did, or so we thought." Albert Weese's opening sentences introduce us to a youthful account of life in the United States Navy during the final months of World War II in the Pacific. You'll join him on his first train trip, traveling from St. Louis, Missouri to the remote Naval Training Station on the shores of Lake Pend Oreille in Farragut, Idaho; then southeast to the Naval Constuction Training Center in Gulfport, Mississippi; and finally to several training bases on the coast of California. Al's small boat outfit of engineers and mechanics were assigned to a small base on the shore of Okinawa following the greatest battle of the war in the Pacific.

Yearning for sea duty and a chance "to see the world," he signed up for a second enlistment which he describes as "one of my better decisions." He was assigned to the engine room of the USS Rockwell, a troop ship assisting in the atomic bomb testing at the Bikini Atoll in the South Pacific. What we see in pictures, Al saw ringside.

"My Navy Years" offers a slice of history through the eyes of a teenager about to become a man as Albert Weese shares what he described as "the adventure of a lifetime."