Mail call! For a 17-year-old Merchant Marine far from home, the chance of getting a letter from my mother—or from one of my three older brothers who were also serving in the military—was like a gift from heaven.The cargo ship I’d been assigned to had just docked in Manila, the capital of the Philippines. I had no idea where my brothers might be stationed that October of 1945. Any occasional letter that made its way to me from my brothers had been censored, and there was no way to know where their letters had been sent from. The Japanese had surrendered in September, but our ship, the U.S.S. Wideawake C2, was still delivering essentials like flour and other goods to ports all across the Asian theater. We didn’t stay in one place for long. It seemed a marvel that any mail ever reached me at all.
“Dennis!” I heard the seaman in charge of
