Paul Oliver

Paul Oliver

PM3

I was born in St. Louis, Missouri. I was in college, before I entered the Navy, so I was very young. I was inducted into the Navy in January 1944, and attended Boot Camp in Great Lakes.

I went onboard the U.S.S. Nassau in January 1945 at either Mare island, California or San Francisco, California. I was seasick from San Francisco to Hawaii. The only time I was seasick was on that trip. It was horrible.

Aboard the Nassau I was in V-3 Division, assigned to the Photo Lab with Tony Calleo. I passed the test and was an Aerial Photographer's Mate 3rd Class. I was on the Bridge or the Flight Deck with a 35mm movie camera, a F-56 or a K20 camera, during flight exercises or operations.

After a couple of months aboard ship, I was a very proud young man to be on the U.S.S. Nassau.

Life aboard ship was somewhat exciting, with something going on all the time. There were Basketball Tournaments, Badminton Tournaments, Smokers, Skeet shooting at the Fantail, Target Shooting a 45 caliber pistol (it sure gave me a kick!). Church Services, and Bible Study with John Kruis and Wilbur Zink. I was also kept busy developing negatives and printing pictures.

A couple memorable events to me were the typhoon in Okinawa with over 100 mile an hour winds, and the trip to Tsingtao, China. The V-3 Division didn't have many men, but we had Six or seven men who could play basketball. I remember an incident when a sailor, named Griffon, drove a scooter off the Flight Deck into the ocean in Hawaii.

I Decommissioned the Photo Lab, in July 1946, in Tacoma, Washington, by cataloguing every item. I was discharged in Brooklyn, New Jersey in August 1946.

I married my high school Sweetheart, Alta Ann, on February 22, 1947. We have one boy, three girls, and four grandchildren. Alta passed away in 1994, and I'm sure she is with the Lord.

My anxiety to be discharged and not being observant of my discharge papers was costly. My rate was PHM3C. I was discharged with a rate of PHM3C. I was called and had to serve in the Korean War because they, whomever they are, insisted that I was a Pharmacist Mate 3 Class. After I arrived in Guantanamo, Cuba, higher authorities realized the blunder. I resumed my duty, during the war, as an Aerial Photographer. Oh Happy Day, after the war, when I was discharged and I went home to my wife and two children.