“Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it.”

A quote by Thomas Paine (1737-1809), a Patriot and founding father of our new republic. These words were drummed into my head by my sixth grade history teacher in the 1930s and were instrumental in the decisions I had to make after Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941.

I turned 18 in December 1940 and left high school due to the hard times my family -- mother, father, twin sisters, and I -- was going through during the Great Depression years.

I found a job in the local shipyard as a helper for 68 cents per hour. This particular yard was very busy repairing damaged British ships, due to the war in Europe. We worked 6 and 7 days a week, 10 hours a day. After a few months the yard sent me to ship-fitter school, a six-week course.

I then was reclassified as a ship-fitter improver and given a raise in pay to 75 cents an hour. My father was working again and things were looking up in our household. Like the song in those days, “Happy Days Are Here Again,” the depression days were over.

On Dec. 6, 1941 I was working the night shift, came home and went to bed. When I awoke on the afternoon of Dec. 7, my mother informed me that the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and did extensive damage to our fleet with many lives lost.

I had never heard of Pearl Harbor or even knew where it was located. I went to work that evening unaware of the life changes I would have to make and the influence words would have on me.

In January 1942 I tried to enlist in the U.S. Marines. I passed the physical and because I was still considered a minor, I was given papers for my parents to sign saying they approved of my enlistment. My father, an ex-British infantryman during WWI who was sent to fight in France with the first contingent of British troops and went through the hell of trench warfare, would not sign, nor would my mother, who lost a brother during the same war.

My parents explained to me that as a 19-year- old I would not be drafted for another two years and by that time I would be a full-fledged ship fitter and most likely be deferred from the draft due to my job. They also said if you insist on joining up and want our approval, join the U.S. Navy, which I did, and as an apprentice seaman I was paid $21 a month.

I was sent to Newport, Rhode Island for three weeks of training, given an I.Q. test and sent off to torpedo school. After torpedo school I was assigned to a torpedo overhaul shop, also in the state of Rhode Island. Here I learned all about the handling and repairing of torpedo engine parts.

After much pleading with the torpedo officer I was transferred to new construction and assigned to a new type destroyer, the “USS Cooper DD 695.”

After our shake-down cruise we escorted a new aircraft carrier through the Panama Canal and joined the 3rd Fleet. We supported bombing operations at Luzon in the North Philippines and sometime around the middle of November 1944 the USS Cooper DD695 and three other destroyers were sent south to Leyte to replace ships that were sunk due to enemy action.

Leyte was bombed each morning and early evening, and as a torpedo man my job was to attend the smoke generators, which blanketed the harbor in smoke preventing aircraft from homing in on the targets in the harbor. On the afternoon of Dec 2, 1944 our captain addressed the crew over the ship’s PA system; we were told to sharpen our knives and sharpen our wits as we were being sent south to Ormoc Bay, which was still held by the enemy.

We, along with the destroyers’ Moale and Sumner, were to intercept and destroy a number of troop ships scheduled to arrive in Ormoc Bay around midnight.

On our way south, sonar picked up the underwater sounds of a submarine following us, and the Cooper was assigned to check out this contact. Torpedo men were in charge of firing a pattern of depth charges, which we did, and then our ship re-joined the other two ships.

Just before dark we were attacked by two aircraft. We shot one down and the other turned away. Just after midnight on Dec. 3 we entered Ormac Bay, but unfortunately, the enemy was expecting us and all hell broke loose.

The sky was lit up by star shells fired from both the shore and ships in the harbor. Our three destroyers fired and set docks, warehouses and some ships afire. It was like a thousand Fourth of July’s. My battle station was tube trainer on torpedo mount No. 2 and the sight was spectacular. We shot down five or six aircraft, the destroyers Moale and Sumner took hits and suffered some casualties, the Cooper was unscathed and about a half an hour later our radar picked up the targeted troop ships entering the harbor from the south.

The three U.S. ships, each equipped with three twin mount 5-inch 38 cannons, opened fire and hit their targets, which set the troop ships on fire. We were close enough to see hundreds of troops jumping overboard and as the “lead destroyer“ we got the word to make a torpedo run, fire our 10 torpedoes, then get out. I got the order to train my tubes out to port at a certain angle and set the depth. The torpedoes would be fired remotely from the bridge.

At that moment there was a tremendous explosion amidships and the next thing I remember was being underwater. When I surfaced the ship was gone along with 191 of my shipmates; there was fire all around on the water, and there were many wounded in the water screaming and drowning.

The official battle reports said the ship sunk in less than one minute. The other two ships could not stop and pick up any survivors, as the enemy was still firing from the land and strafing the water from the air.

I found a log, held onto it, and then three other survivors came along and joined me. We all held onto the log and felt we were the only remaining survivors. When morning came we were bouncing up and down with the swells and soon heard voices on each side of us, then realized we were surrounded by about 20 Japanese survivors hanging onto logs just as we were. They did not bother us and went the opposite way.

In the morning a number of U.S. aircraft flew overhead buzzing the ships and the land, soon all firing stopped. As evening approached the tide was pulling us with our log out to sea, but luckily we were spotted by a Navy PBY. It landed and pulled us aboard to join 52 other survivors, many wounded. Since the plane was overloaded it took the pilot nearly two miles of taxiing on the water before we became air bound.

In December of 1944 some 21 of us were put aboard the USS Liddle, which was damaged by an enemy plane crashing into the bridge and killing 35 crew members. The steering mechanism was damaged and the ship could only be controlled by the aft control with a top speed of six knots per hour. We sailed unescorted across the Pacific and it took 30 days for us to reach San Francisco.

After the war ended I returned to my home in New York, found a job, got married, raised five sons, took part in three labor strikes for a total of 48 weeks, which helped attain “unheard of benefits“ for U.S. working men and women.

Unfortunately “Big Business” in recent years found ways to take back most of these hard-earned benefits.

Now who are we you may ask? We are the men and women who have helped to make this country the greatest and most powerful in the world.

We survived the Great Depression along with our parents, fought a war on two fronts, put a man on the moon, and are proud to be known as the Greatest Generation. Thomas Paine would have been proud of us.