In World War II my two year younger brother Jimmy was a cryptographer. However, when the Battle of the Bulge erupted, he was pressed into service as a rifleman. Getting wounded, he lay in the snow so long that one lung froze and had to be removed. Therefore, with a Purple Heart, he was discharged and returned home to Floral Park on Long Island, New York. However, he greeted Mom with a “hello” and a “goodbye” kiss; he was off to Los Angeles to marry his penpal Rosalie Vilmure and enroll in college under the G.I. Bill of Rights.
Right after Pear Harbor I quit my office-boy job and got an aircraft engineering defense job with Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation. I helped F4F fighters and TBF torpedo bombers for the Navy. However, my defense work deferment finally ran out and I was drafted into the U.S. Army. “Rosie the Riveter” replaced me and most other men and not only broke all production records but virtually abolished accidents and absenteeism. Such was the dedication of the wonderful women who were working for their loved ones.
After training in high-power radio station operation and maintenance, I was sent to New Guinea to help provide secure communications between General Douglas MacArthur and Washington. I island hopped with him, first to Leyte in the Philipines, then Luzon, and finally Okinawa. I was staging for the invasion of Japan when the atomic bombs brought hostilities to an end: saving millions of American and Japanese lives.
We flew with our radio shelters into Atsugi Air Base the second day troops landed in Japan. (The Pathfinders had landed first to set up radio beacons for the rest of the aircraft to land.) Boy, were we nervous! If those Japs were just faking surrender, we would have been dead meat, what with only a 45 Caliber automatic pistol. However, when the Emperor said surrender, the Japanese followed the Sun God’s descendant’s orders. We were eventually part of the occupation forces overseeing the Japanese radio technicians operating the high powered transmitters which used to broadcast the voice of Tokyo Rose throughout the Pacific theater of operations. Now it carried The Voice of America and MacArthur’s communications.
After six months of uneventful observing, and a total of three years of service, in February 1946 I was discharged from the U.S. Army Signal Corps as a Technician third grade.
I too enrolled in college: Pratt Institute. In three years I earned a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering degree with honors.
Now, in June 1949, I became one of only two young engineers employed by Hazeltine Electronics Corporation in Little Neck, Long Island, New York. I designed Radar equipment.
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The moving finger of Fate had written, “Cherchez la Femme:” search for the woman.
However, not knowing how to read French inscribed in the sand, I was clueless. But, my mother, although she didn’t speak that language, had a goodly portion of the French spirit of romance. And with a woman’s intuition, she seemed to “know” what was down the road for her now twenty-seven year old son.
So, one bright Saturday morning, she just “happened” to spy a little squib in our local newspaper, The Gateway. It read, “The Gay Twenties club of the Floral Park Universalist Church is having a beach party today. All twenties are invited.” And it gave the name and telephone number of its president George Wendel.
My mother “casually” mentioned, “That might be a nice thing to do. You’ve worked so hard all these years earning your degree.” Of course in those days engineering schools were only attended by young men--and a couple of nerdy females. So, I gave George a call. And sure enough, it was true and they’d wait for me to walk the half-mile down to the church.
There, among other twenties, was one lovely young blonde lass named Jean Zahn, a kindergarten teacher. Later when we took off our street clothes at the beach, I saw my first real-live TWO PIECE bathing suit. Well! It knocked this virtually cloistered nerd for a loop. Need more be said?
Subsequently I discovered that she was as beautiful on the inside as she was on the outside. Likewise, she found a few desirable qualities in me. So, after a whirlwind courtship, and an engagement party on Valentine’s day, we were married in September of 1950.
We were extremely fortunate in being able to buy--with no money dawn (we had nary a buck between us) a wonderful, new house “way out” in the 15,000 home veteran’s community of Levittown that had sprung up in three years since the war ended. Since Jean worked there already, looking back now, it seemed that that Finger of Fate had been at it again. Our house had a washing machine, a car port, numberless trees and bushes, stainless steel counter tops, an expansion attic, and--wonder of wonders--a “monstrous” built-in nine inch black and white television set! We were all set. I car-pooled to work with other Hazeltine engineers that lived there.
Jean and I billed and cooed and two kids soon arrived. We all huddled around our “big” TV and happily watched Howdey Doodie, Kukla, Fran and Ollie, Captain Kangaroo, the Sid Caesar Show and lots of other what would now be G-rated shows.
The rest is the story of a wonderful fifty-five year marriage. And, oddly enough, that Bobbie Burns’ saying on the sun dial in our back yard did come true: “Grow old along with me, the best is yet to be.”
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