Walter D. Happel

Walter D. Happel

I was born on June 25, 1926 in Effingham, Kansas. I enlisted in the Navy on June 15, 1944 at Sacramento, California. I went to Boot Camp and Radio School at Farragut, Idaho. While I was at the Naval Distribution Center at Shoemaker, California, I was assigned to the U.S.S. Nassau in April 1945.

My trip to the South Pacific was a very good experience. (Except when I got a very bad sunburn.) My fellow shipmates kept me out of trouble. Two days out of Hawaii, on our return trip, in the middle of the night I got very sick and was bleeding internally. I tried to get out of my bunk and passed out. They say the only thing that saved me is that when I fell to the deck, my arm hit the shipmate in the bottom bunk and woke him up. Otherwise, I might have bled to death. (Never did remember his name.)

I was a striking Radio Operator and learned a lot the short time I was aboard.

I left the ship, at our first port, on June 1945. I was put in the U.S. Naval Hospital in San Diego from which I was discharged on August 9,1945.

After two years of college, I started working for the State of California. I was married on August 3, 1947 to Ula Astell. We have three children and five grandchildren. I retired in 1987 and enjoy traveling in our motor home. We have enjoyed square dancing for 40 years. George Hartman: I was born and raised in Sioux City, Iowa. I enlisted in the Navy on February 25, 1944, just before my eighteenth birthday. I was sent to Great Lakes Naval Training Center for Boot Camp, and to Shoemaker, California. About a week later, I joined the crew of the U.S.S. Nassau at Alameda Naval Air Station around the 3rd of May 1944. My first trip was to Finschafen, New Guinea.

I wanted to be a Storekeeper, but didn't have the education for storekeeper school. When I went aboard the Nassau, I told them I wanted to be a storekeeper. I was put in "S" Division, and assigned to provisions, which made me happy.

On that first trip, I was told to paint the spice storeroom down by the "Barber Shop". It was a narrow, little storeroom with only one three inch pipe, and the air from the doorway. I had to paint it with a spray gun, something I hadn't done before. I was showed what to do, and I started in the back, working my way toward the door. When I got near the door, the Chief came down and found me spraying the wall, in one place, with the paint continually running down the wall. I was drunk from the fumes! Good thing he got me out of there.

One of the things that impressed me very much, while on the Nassau, was when our ship was part of Admiral Halsey's Third Fleet. I'm not sure that's right, but it was what Sam Moore referred to in his 1998 Ship's History, on page 45. I was thrilled to be there and see all those ships on both sides of the Nassau. Also, when the SB2C went over the bow into the ocean, Joe McGrath and I were up in the bow of the Nassau, underneath the Flight Deck, when it happened. We both started yelling for the pilot to get out, which he did, and we were happy.

I "grew up" in the Navy, and have always been grateful for my tour of duty on the Nassau. I was 18 years old when I went aboard and 20 years old when I get off.

I was mustered out of the Navy at San Pedro, California on April 6, 1946. I stayed in California, as my family came out from Iowa. I went to night school and got my high school diploma. I worked several jobs, until I went into the grocery business in May of 1950, and there I stayed until I retired after 37-1/2 years.

I found Gloria at the first little market I worked in. We were married on September 12, 1953. We have two sons, David born on January 25, 1960 and Darrell born on November 21, 1961.

I bought a track house in Reseda, California in November 1949, before I met Gloria, and this is where we lived until we moved to Pryson, Arizona in May 1994.