Bob Hewitt

Bob Hewitt

I was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania. I enlisted in Philadelphia in 1943. After various training assignments in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and Princeton, New Jersey, I graduated from Midshipman School at Columbian University. I was assigned to the U.S.S. Nassau in July 1945 and served in the Code Room of the Radio Shack as a cryptographer until being dischared in Tacoma, Washington in August 1946.

The most memorable mission was taking the Marine Air Group to Tsingtao, China where the Chinese Communists were overrunning the country. We were the first Americans to get Liberty in China, and found that inflation was out of control. Before we returned to the ship, we buried over a million dollars in Chinese money somewhere over looking the harbor.

The most exciting event was putting out to sea in the middle of the night when the anchor chain broke during the typhoon that hit Okinawa. During the night the waves were breaking over the Flight Deck. Even the "old salts" got sick that night.

Our ship served on the Magic Carpet mission which was bringing troops and aircraft back from the South Pacific. We where later ordered to Bremerton, Washington to decommission the ship and put it in the Moth Ball Fleet.

I graduated from Penn state after the war, worked for Bell Telephone of PA, and got married. In 1951, I was recalled to active duty, promoted to Lieutenant t. (Sr). Two weeks after our first child was born, I was assigned to shore duty in Pusan, Korea for 18 months and again found myself in the Code Room.

We now have two children and four grandchildren. After 36 years with Bell of PA, I took early retirement in 1983. We now live at Lake Harmony, Pennsylvania.