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Family
Robert
Bosan was born in Newark, New Jersey on December 8, 1921. He had a dad
named William and a mom named Corinka. They lived
on West Aurora Road. His only sibling
was his brother Stephen who was 16 months younger than him. He spent most of
his early years growing up in Fairfield, New Jersey on a farm. As a
kid he loved going to school and got pretty good grades. After grade school
and high school, he went to a Community College near his home. Some of his favorite
hobbies were tending the farm and running sprints in track and field. He met
his spouse, Irene, while attending an Indians and New York Yankees Baseball
Game at Old Jacobs Field. They got married on April 3, 1943.
Pre - War
He decided to
enlist himself in the Navy on September 6, 1939 at the age of 18.
He enlisted because there were job openings and he couldn’t find work. World
War II didn’t start until after he had joined. He received his basic training
in a training camp in Rhode Island as a mechanic. He
didn’t request any specific job but they found him to just fit right in with
the job he was good at. He had some experience before hand while working with
the farm tools, but other then that he hadn’t dealt with that much. After
leaving the basic training, he went on to go through more advanced training
for ship machinery. He worked on three different destroyers and a
minesweeper. During this whole time he made many friends and lost a few too.
He mentioned that the submarine had the
best food of all of the places he went. The rules in the Navy were strict,
like we all know, but he said it was just something you had to follow, it
didn’t matter that they were strict. He
woke up at midnight and trained or
worked, then he could relax at noon then went back to work around three in
the afternoon. He didn’t do much during his free time that we might want to
do, he washed clothes, studied, played guitar, or read a book. The standard
uniforms he had were blue and white with long sleeves and black shoes. He
slept in a large room in bunk beds and many other people in the Crew
Quarters.
Wartime
When it finally came time to move out and go
to different countries and regions, the War Zone was near him and he could
see it from where he was stationed. The names of the two destroyers he was on
were the Herndon
and the Jouett and the minesweeper was a
YMS. The ships
weighed about 1,850 tons each and were about 300 feet long. His tour began in
September of 1939 and ended November of 1945.
The places he traveled to included Africa, South America, Europe, and smaller
countries around Australia. He remembers a
time when he traveled to Africa and visited a
village and the people there were very dirty and the sanitation was very
poor, they had no toilets or bath tubs, and they had to go in the woods to
use the bathroom. It smelled horrible and he almost got sick. The times that
he went to different countries were the first time he had ever left the
Unites States and it wasn’t the greatest thing to see what it was like in Africa compared to where
we live. There was a time when a German ship got too close to theirs and they
started to chase it away. They never
caught them, which was a good thing, because the Germans had powerful weapons
on their ship and ours had less powerful, so it would have been a very
devastating loss. The most frightening experience he had was when he was
working on the ship when a submarine fired
torpedoes at them, the captain was able to maneuver out of the way of a few,
but one of them hit the boat, but it wasn’t a vital enough hit to sink them.
His job would wear anyone down, but the one experience that just tired him
out to where he needed to sleep was when the engine blew a piston, so he had
to take the engine apart, clean it, then put the whole engine back together
and get it up and running again. His favorite experiences were just visiting
all of the foreign lands and seeing the buildings and the different cultures
and the people. He had parts of his job that he disliked, like most people
have when there in a job, he hated to clean above the boiler in the Boiler Room because of
how high it was and how hard it was to reach. He had great leaders that were
nice and kind while at the same time doing their job. The commanders had a
lot on their hands when the ship had to provide support for an anti – submarine fleet. He
never thought of the fact that he might die because they had to stay positive
and they weren’t on the front lines. They were attacked a few times and they
weren’t serious enough to be vital attacks. He met so many people during the
war, and he met many outside of the war too. He went to a Philadelphia POW
camp that held Germans and Italians. The war wasn’t going very well but there
wasn’t anyway of them for knowing what was going on outside of the ship. The
people on board the ship were not allowed to bring their own radios. He saw
many weapons during his time in the Navy, but his favorite weapon that was an
allied weapon, was radar he saw on a ship. He said that it was a weapon
because it showed them where the other ships and enemy craft were so it could
help them take the enemy down, like a weapon does. He saw a few enemy weapons
and the one he found to be most impressive was a German
cannon that could fire a 2,000 lbs shell and was 60-70 feet long. He mentioned some funny times that happened
on the ship. One of them was when some of the guys would drink a little too
much and the things they would say and do was very
funny, but they didn’t get out of hand or obnoxious. The food they had when
they would stop in a port was usually good, but sometimes not what they
liked. The food they might have they wouldn’t be accustomed to because they
were in a foreign land that makes different foods and adds different flavors.
Good food could usually be found on the shores. He had time that he could be
away from the boat for a while. Whenever they landed in a port they had some
time to browse around the nearby places.
Leisure Time
Every once in
awhile they had time-off for a week. While away from the ship for awhile, he
saw Bob Hope in San Francisco and he saw many
movie stars. He went to some USO
shows only in the U.S. to mostly dance.
While gone he and his wife Irene would write to each other, they could only
receive mail while in port so sometimes he would get old mail. When his tour
finally ended, he said he was relived and also excited that he finally got to
go home and see family all the time now.
Promotions
He was promoted
many times and the highest rank he received during his tour was a Warrant
Officer. The other ranks he received included Apprentice, 2nd
class Seaman, 2nd class Fireman, Machinist 2nd class, 1st
class machinist mate, 2nd class machinist mate, Chief machinist
mate, Chief motor machinist mate, then Warrant Officer.
Post - War
After the
tour ended, he was discharged in Philadelphia, bought a
second-hand car, and drove it back home. He didn’t’ have a
huge celebration or party, but he was just happy to see his wife and
kids and that’s all he wanted. He stayed in the Reserves for four years after
the war. He didn’t have time to lay back and relax, he picked up some new
jobs, working for the Telephone Company and teaching Marine Engineering. He
was stationed in a variety of places but his favorite was Norfolk, Virginia. He had to rent a
room from another couple. He liked it because it was a huge Navy Town. Right after he
was discharged came to Cleveland and had his
daughter, Karen. He also had a son named Kenny. At this point, he started
working for the Telephone Company. He had careers in Glastic Corporation,
and in a fiberglass company. He decided he would meet new friends in
different organizations like the Plant Engineering Society, VFW, and
different Church organizations. He hasn’t contacted any friends. He talked and
met with them for a few years after the war but since he has lost contact
with them. The things he still loves to do when he can include: bowling, ice
skating, softball, boating, fishing, reading, history, traveling, and sports.
Robert Bosan is a great person and has served his
country in a variety of ways that he is proud of, and that we should all be
proud of too.
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