A date never to be forgotten

Lest we forget a day of infamy that must never be forgotten, Dec. 7, 1941, the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Fewer than 1 million of 16 million World War II veterans are still alive.

“Infamy,” the one word in President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Declaration of War speech, says it all: “A Day That Will Live In Infamy.”

It was an infamous act.

I can remember the date 73 years ago, as if it were yesterday. That date was to affect all of our homes forever.

U.S. Navy

As a 17-year-old Vindicator newspaper carrier, I knew it would affect me and it did. I signed up for the draft on June 29, 1942, and was inducted into the U.S. Navy on May 17, 1943. Still 18 years old, I was in the first group of 18-year-olds from the Lincoln Elementary School Draft Board.

I had 60 customers on my East Side Vindicator No. 302 route and over 50 servicemen were inducted from that route. Seven families had all of their three sons in the military service.

As I review my East High School June 1942 Graduating Class Yearbook, I count 98 boys out of a class of 217. Most of my classmates went into the Army’s 69th Infantry Division, while about 20 of us ended up in the U.S. Navy at Great Lakes Naval Training Station.

I ended up on the U.S.S. LST 582, but with none of my East High School classmates as a shipmate. LST’s were very vital in winning the big war.

The U.S.A. was in a total mobilization mode. Many “Rosie the Riveters and “Wendy the Welderettes” were working in Youngstown, Ohio, factories. Our ship had rubber hose from Republic Rubber and Seamless Steel Tubing from Youngstown Sheet and Tube. Bulkheads for LST’s were fabricated at Truscon on Albert Street. The U.S.S. LST 582 arrived in Hawaii in October 1944 on our way to combat. We survived two D-Day invasions — Luzon, Philippines (1-9-45) and Okinawa (4-1-45) — and a major typhoon.

Michael J. Lacivita is a Youngstown retiree and member of the Ohio Senior Citizens Hall of Fame and the Ohio Veterans Hall of Fame.