Anthony Calleo

Anthony Calleo

PM1

Everyone's life is a book. This is a chapter in mine.

At home, in Lodi, New Jersey, it was a family tradition every Sunday to visit Grandma Francesca. All her children and grandchildren enjoyed the day together. This was 7 December 1941. A day which will live in infamy. A day that changed the world.

News flashed over the radio that Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor. All conversation stopped, the women began crying, the men became somber. Two of grandma's sons fought in W.W. I, and Grandpa Antonio was in the Spanish America War. The adults began to look at us teen-age boys. The conversation slowly began in Italian and we realized they did not want us to understand what they were saying. Why was mother given a towel to dry her tears?And so, before my 18th birthday, I volunteered and thus was able to select my branch of service, the Navy. Emotionally I said my good-bye to the family, embraced my mother and patted my dog, Bessie. The last words were spoken by grandma, "Courage my son, courage."

"Boots" were done at Great Lakes Naval Station, Great Lakes, Illinois. As we became molded into sailors, new words entered our vocabulary...muster, chow, swabbie, square knots, extra duty, square your hat, put your ditty bag on your left shoulder. The next stop was Pensacola Naval Air Station in Florida where I trained as an Aerial Photographer/Reconnaissance. After this, it was Anacosta Naval Air Station in Washington, D.C. for training in Photo Lithography. Then it was a six-day journey, to San Diego for O.G.U., on a train with the proverbial "square wheels." As with most service men, we had never left home or our state boundaries, and now we were to be dispersed throughout the world.

Approaching the Nassau, I was in awe at the size of the "huge" ship and its formidable gangway. I struggled up with the sea bag on my shoulder, containing everything a sailor has in the world. Making it to the deck, saluting the Ensign, I was assigned to the V-3 Division.

Aboard ship I was put I charge of the Photo Lab. A few months before, at home, the most responsibility I had was to take Bessie for a walk or bring buckets of coal in for our cold water flat. I was told to find a "striker" for the photo lab and thus entered Paul Oliver, my "striker," recruiting him from Wilber Zink, up in the Yeoman's office. He was a quick learner. The lab was located two decks below the water line and next to Eddie Kennedy and his Post Office. We heard the pounding of the ocean against the bulkhead, day and night. Of course, being so far below, our ladder was twice the length and afforded us a double slide down on the railings. A big thrill for sailors at sea.

With the three above, my closest friends also were Jack Head, Vincent Livingston, and Jessie McClain. On liberty we hitchhiked up and down the California coast. On one such occasion, Paul and I met the parents of Elizabeth Taylor at the Hollywood Canteen. They invited us to their home for dinner. Elizabeth was making the picture, "National Velvet." A favorite liberty too was Tijuana, but that is another story.

Again, new words entered our vocabulary...bulkhead, overhead, port, starboard, G.Q. smokers "the smoking tamp is out throughout the ship." Captain's and short arm inspection or air your bunting, became a way of life.

During the day, we sunned ourselves on the flight deck. At times, a gigantic wave would sweep over the ship or we went right into a rainsquall and became drenched. At night, we gathered on the flight deck for "scuttlebutt" and watching the flying fish jump out of the most tranquil ocean. It was hard to believe there was a war going on or what dangers lurked beneath these waters. It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. One never stops thinking of home. I kept thinking of grandma, "Courage, my son, courage."

Our concept of geography expanded. Our new backyard had names like Guam, Mindanao, Attu, Kiska, Finschafen, New Caldonia, Tsingtao, Okinawa, lwo Jima, Samoa, Saipan, Noumea, Ulithi, etc.

On the 6th of August 1945 it was "piped" that an Atom bomb had been exploded over Hiroshima. From my high school physics, the atom was defined as the smallest particle a mass can be split into. So we were certain that this was war propaganda...moral building.

Somewhere off the coast of Japan on the 15th of August 1945 the boatswain's whistle pipes. "Now all hands hear this, hear this, Japan has unconditionally surrendered. The war is over."

As abruptly as the war began, it was over...and 55,000,000 lost their lives. The crew was given two cans of beer each and we gathered on the flight deck to celebrate.

The "Nasty Maru" was a good ship. She earned for us 5 bronze stars. We became Fleet sailors and not just "landlubbers." She brought us across the equator many times and from "pollywogs" we became trusty "Shellbacks." On the 13th of December, 1945 we crossed the prime meridian and became "Golden Dragons." Now like her crew, a little older and somewhat wary, she sailed back to the States for our last ocean voyage to be decommissioned at Bremerton. The war was over, and we survived. Could you ask for anything more? Thank God!

At this eleventh hour, the Navy upped my rate to Photo Mate 1st class. A little too late to get the extra pay that came with it, about an extra $5.00 per month.

This was a bittersweet time. For as anxious as we were to return home, we were leaving each other, and our Navy experiences together. We most likely would never meet again.

And so we were gradually discharged. The generation that endured the privations of the greatest depression and fought the worldwide Holocaust of World War II were coming home. Like so many of us, we were not yet 21 years old. We were not yet old enough to get a driver's license, a drink in a bar, or even to vote. We were coming home to put our lives together. Now we donned "civvies" and became "ruptured ducks".

My Navy experiences shaped motor the rest of my life. I am proud to have been in the Navy and to serve my country, The G.I. Bill offered me the opportunity to attain a B.S. and a M.A. degree. I was a mathematics teacher and a chairman of the math department in a local high school for 30 years.

If it were not for Sam Moore, who initiated and carried forth our Nassau reunions, we never would have gathered together again. Sam, from all of us, thank you again and again.

Thus ends the chapter of my life in the U.S. Navy.