Sepia Saturday 722. N is for Norm’s Navy Days: My dad during WWII. Fourteenth of 26 posts in the April 2024 Blogging From #AtoZChallenge. Theme, My Life: The Prequel (in Snapshots) — adding my parents’ story to the family history mix. Please join me on the journey.
Navy service during WWII interrupted my dad Norm Charboneau’s college years, yet it also provided a life-changing learning experience that no classroom could match.
When Dad left for Clarkson Tech in Potsdam, N.Y., in 1942, some of his older brothers were already doing wartime service in the Army/Navy.
There was speculation that Dad might be next. In fact, his brother Fred wrote a Sept. 25, 1942 letter about it, from his Army base in England, to their mother Mary (Owen) Charboneau:
“What about the draft,” Fred asked. “Now that Norman has started into college, will he be subject to it if they lower the age limit, and I see by the papers that they might after the election.”
Norm joins the Navy
Speculation soon turned to reality. Dad was called up in 1944 after his sophomore year at Clarkson, where he was majoring in electrical engineering.
Lucky for him, the Navy was looking for Radio Technicians. Among Dad’s papers, I found a May 4, 1944 letter from the Naval Training Schools (Radio Chicago) notifying him that he passed the Eddy Test that qualified him for Radio Technician Training
The letter also said Dad would be sent to Pre-Radio School after Navy indoctrination. By July 1944, according to the news story below, Dad was in Michigan receiving his initial Navy boot-camp training.
Over the years, Dad mentioned spending time in Chicago, Texas, and San Francisco before boarding a ship for Pacific duty. I have no details about Texas, but I inherited one letter Dad sent to his parents from San Francisco.
March 24, 1945, Dear Mom and Dad: “I did see ‘Winged Victory’ and the things they were doing in that camp they entered from civilian life was a lot like our boot camp. The first shot of the Bay Bridge…was taken either from Treasure Is. or Yerba Buena Is., which connects with Treasure. The Bay Bridge goes from Frisco to Yerba Buena and then to Oakland. They have trains that run on the second level that we take to either of the cities on liberty.”
Dad goes on to discuss his friend Nelson Snyder, who had been promoted to sergeant — and adds info about his own Navy training.
“I get a big kick out of keeping up with him because he was telling me last winter that I would have a tough time getting a rating when I got in [the service]. He thought I would be in the Army and so did I. This RT [Radio Technician] course was a first-class break. It’s almost unbelievable how important the Navy thinks this course is.”
Dad’s service on the USS Tolowa (ATF-116)
Dad also kept a personal scrapbook of his time in the Navy — and it coincides nicely with several official records on the military-records site Fold 3 about Dad’s Navy assignments.
Above and below are Dad’s WWII scrapbook photos of the USS Tolowa (ATF-116) — the ship he was stationed on during US Navy duty in the Pacific. On the back of the above photo, Dad wrote:
“USS Tolowa, seagoing salvage ship stationed in Tsingtao, China. Norm Charboneau, Electronic Technician Third Class, transferred to USS Vent for return to USA.”
Sure enough, the records on Fold 3 show that Dad was received onboard the USS Tolowa on Nov. 3, 1945 from Camp Shoemaker, Calif. –located just north of San Jose. He continued onboard until July 1, 1946, when he was transferred to the USS Vent (ARS-29) for the trip back to the U.S.
The Fold 3 records also indicate that, upon arrival in the U.S. on July 29, 1946, he was transferred to the intake station at Terminal Island, California.
From there, he would have arrived home in Otter Lake, N.Y., in time to head back to Clarkson Tech in the fall of 1946 — which is when he met my mom, Peg Laurence.
Impact of Dad’s Navy years
Dad’s Navy years left a lasting impression on him. No matter how many decades went by, he had stories to tell — from his first can of baked beans (which he loved) to the experience of being stationed in China, and travel to all the U.S. training/staging stops in between. He even special-ordered a USS Tolowa frame for his car’s license plate!
A bucket-list dream of Dad’s was to return to China one last time and to see the port where he was stationed in the Navy. His wish came true when he and Mom traveled there together in retirement with a group from Elderhostel (now Road Scholar).
After the trip, Dad happily compiled another scrapbook, and in it were the full-circle photos he longed for — some of Tsingtao and a portrait of him and Mom standing together atop the Great Wall.
Up next, Otter Lake, N.Y.: Dad’s connection to nature. Please stop back! Meanwhile, please visit the other intrepid bloggers over at Sepia Saturday.
© 2024 Molly Charboneau. All rights reserved.
How wonderful to have the letters and scrapbooks of Norman’s. I know what precious keepsakes they are from my own father’s wartime experience s in Europe and Burma . I only found the letters between my parents after their deaths. He often spoke about the war, but I am sure it was a sanitized version . But, like Norman, it was a defining period in his life. He too managed to return to Normandy to follow his journey again through to Paris after D Day.
This was a great story to include in your series. It makes me wonder how the smaller support ships managed to cross the Pacific during the war. My dad’s older brother enlisted in the navy in 1936 at age 16-17 and served on several ships, eventually becoming a chief gunners mate on the Battleship Missouri during the Korean War. From his experience I know how navy veterans take a special pride in their ships that is different from army and air force vets.
You’re so lucky to have the letters and photos. I really like the soft colors in your dad’s portrait.
His writing from San Francisco about taking the train across the Bay Bridge brought a smile. My Mom and I used to ride that/those trains across the bridge from El Cerrito where we lived to go to the city to meet Mom’s friends for lunch sometimes & I remember the excitement and fun of riding the train across the Bay. 🙂
The military years were also important to my father -except for those years, his entire life was spent in New York City (as far as I know!) Your Dad left you a treasure with a personal scrapbook of his Navy years.
Great information about your Dad in this post Molly, especially the personal. You are very fortunate that your family have kept the letters than enable you to build an interesting story of your family history.