US Navy

4th Veteran of the Quarter

On November 6, 1943, Willie C. George took the bus to Houston intending to enlist in the U.S. Coast Guard, but when they said he wasn’t tall enough, the neighboring Navy guys yelled, “Come on over here, we’ll take you.” After basic, Willie began training as a radio operator and with training complete, Willie was assigned to Admiral Raymond A Spruance’s 27-man communication crew on the USS Indianapolis that would later become the 5th Fleet. The ship was involved in practically every major operation in the Pacific Theatre. A list of some of the battles that the ship was involved in include: the Invasion of the Gilbert Islands, the Battle of Tarawa, the Invasion and Conquest of the Marshall Islands in early 1944, the Battle of Kwajalein, the Battle of Saipan, the Battle of the Philippine Sea and the Battle of Tinian in June 1944, and the Battle of Peleliu in September 1944.

Willie C. George, E-2 Radio Operator, U.S. Navy, gives his account on what it was like to be a radio operator: “Being a radio operator was a pretty boring job. You would think you would be ‘in the know’ about what was going on. But all we did was transcribe coded messages for the Admiral. I worked a four-hour shift. The messages came in as Morse code and then we copied them down as five random letters in groups of three. It’s hard to believe now that a fellow could do it but I could transcribe 30 words per minute. Two of us were assigned to the same transmission so that if we made a mistake the other fellow was likely to get it right. The messages then went to the translation team. These translators were the famous Navajo Indian ‘Code Talkers’ that turned the random bits of information that were in their native Navajo language into English. Anyways, as you might guess, that left us completely in the dark about what was happening.”

Throughout his 21 months of active duty, Willie had several brushes with death where fate intervened and saved his life. On one particular day, March 24, 1945, upset that his relief was late for duty by 30 minutes, Willie finally was able to head to breakfast and some well-deserved rest: “I got my chow and sat down at a bench by myself. About that time I heard the most god-awful roar you ever heard and at the same instant a bomb flew right through the very bench I was sitting on! Splintered it to smithereens! A few seconds later an explosion far below, rocked the ship. We had been bombed by one of those crazy Kamikaze pilots! You can imagine how quick I got out of there. It was only later I realized that if I had sat on the other end of the bench, I would have been history that very instant.”

Additionally, a decision was made to transfer Admiral Spruance and his staff to the USS New Mexico which meant that his communications staff was to follow him. On May 12th, Japanese planes killed 54 men and injured 119. Willie had dodged yet another bullet.

On October 12, 1945, Willie prepared to receive a promotion to Seaman 3rd Class but when he was called into the Quartermaster’s office, he was elated to find that he would, instead, be honorably discharged after 21 months of active duty service to the U.S. Navy. “No one can imagine the hell that I went through in those short 21 months of active duty. I came back a changed man, grown up, and ready to find my place in the world.”