World War II Veteran
Hersey Dee Taylor
1927 - 2018

Interviewed by:

Sarah Hufnagel and Alyssa Rodriguez

"If you could describe the war in one word, what would it be? ... Hell!"
~ Hersey Dee Taylor

Hersey Dee Taylor's Story

Imagine sailing aboard a ship, the waves crashing, a war going on in the back ground; You aren't allowed to speak

with your family, you can only hope the random people in the freight yards mailed your letters to them.

For Heresy Dee Taylor, this was his life. Heresy Dee Taylor, mainly called Dee, served over a year in the Navy

during World War II. He saw the vast devastation after Hiroshima was bombed, and helped out after the fact. Dee

didn't want to be drafted, so he enlisted before his18 birthday. He went to boot camp in New York, and couldn't

graduate with his class. He was radio man.

Radio men use computers as radios and have a special code to send messages. When he first was in training, he didn't know the code; He had to serve the radio men as he trained. Dee spent the majority of him time in class, but when he wasn't in class he did have time to take part in sports with his Navy friends.

Later, in his time in the Navy he was aboard a ship, called the Cascade, which was the first ship to sail into the Sea of Japan. They had pig boat duty, which was when they used long oars to filter out the bombs in the waters. Once, while he was crossing boats, he was carrying a bag of souvenirs and the board he was walking across broke; he either had to fall into the deep waters or drop his sack. So, unfortunately he wasn't able to bring back any souvenirs, just memories. Dee is a very extraordinary man, and he has seen what many people can't even dream of.