Bob Felsenthal

Bob Felsenthal, U.S. Navy, Radarman 3C

I was on a Track 2 Transport, which was an APA which stands for “Auxiliary Personnel Attack.” They were on all the landings – they carried the troops in plus all the landing craft. The personnel on board the ship were transported to shore but the APA couldn’t really attack much.

How old were you when you went into the Navy?

I was 24 years old. It was 1944.

Where did you do your training?

At Great Lakes. Then I went to Radar school in Ft. Lauderdale. Naturally they pick out a good spot for you and that time there were only two hotels on the beach. We had the trade winds and the Lauderdale beach. It was a cram course of only three weeks. We went from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. six days a week with no liberty for three weeks. If it was too much for you, you would go to the Commander and he would review your records. If you were doing okay, he would make you stay. If you were having trouble, he would let you drop out.

It was pretty tough because radar was very, very new. For every class we had, we had a test after that, so it was really a cram course. At that time the surface search radar was on the 6th floor or the hotel and the only target we had was the water tower in town.

I wasn’t assigned when I finished school, so they sent me down to Miami for two or three weeks waiting for assignment. That was nice since it was starting to get cold up here.

I then went up to Providence, RI where they were assembling crews to be assigned to ships that were just being built. My ship was still being built so I was sent up to Newport to meet the rest of the crew. I was there for about two weeks and then the radar men assigned to that ship were sent to Little Creek, Virginia for more training.

After two weeks, I was assigned to a mine sweeper base. I could have been on a mine sweeper that was built on the Chicago River at a yacht builder near Riverview but during the war they built mine sweepers. They were all wood. After two weeks, they sent us to Brigantine Island a couple of miles off Atlantic City where the Navy had taken over a hotel belonging to a black religious group.

I then went to Brooklyn, New York. The ship I was to be on was being fitted out and you could look out across the water to the Statue of Liberty. I was there for almost two months waiting for the ship to be finished. The name of the builder was Ingalls Ship Builder in Pascagoula, Mississippi, who had a contract with the Navy for eight or ten of these particular ships. I was fortunate enough to go to New York and spent a lot of time at Times Square.

Were you originally from the Chicago area?

I was from Old Town near Wells and Goethe. I lived there for 15 – 20 years. I went to the Schiller School right off of Goose Island and then I went to Washburn High School. It used to be Lane Tech and at that time every union apprentice went to Washburn one day a week.

The particular ships that I was on were named after counties and also the LSTs. Mine was the USS Riverside (in California). It had to be a county and a city and it was a class called the Bayfield.

When the ship was finally ready, we had a shakedown cruise at Long Island.

We then went through the Panama Canal over to Pearl Harbor.

From Pearl Harbor, where did you go?

We came back to the states and were in San Francisco while they added more radio and radar equipment to the ship. There were twenty radar men on the ship. Our ship was originally a cargo ship with a lot of space. So they took us up to San Francisco Bay to an armory and for two weeks, they loaded us with 15 inch shells. We then went to Pearl Harbor and unloaded all of the shells.

We were supposed to go to Okinawa and the ship I was on was a flagship with a Commodore on board. We were supposed to be in charge of the landings. On the way to Okinawa, there were too many ships there. We stopped at an atoll called Ulithi. There must have been two hundred ships in the atoll at the time. We then went to Okinawa after two weeks. It was in 1945 and the war was still going on. We unloaded some troops at one location and then went to another. The kamikazes were coming over but we were fortunate enough to have smoke generators and fog generators on small boats that allowed the ships to hide.

How long were you at Okinawa?

About two weeks, because the war was coming to an end then. When the war was over, we went to the Philippines and anchored at Tacloban. Then I got emergency leave because my mother was dying. It would take two to three weeks to get home by ship so I asked about a plane. I took a ferry to a naval air station on the island of Samar and the next morning I flew out to Pearl Harbor on DC-3 cargo planes, island hopping from island to island. The first night, I made it to Guam. From Pearl Harbor, I took a four engine plane to a naval air station near San Francisco.

Did you get home in time to see your mother?

No. She was pretty young, only 50 years old. She had three sons in the service. One brother was in the Army and ended up at Ft. Shafter on the island of Oahu. My other brother was in the Navy and I met him on the train returning home.