My name is Morton Rosenberg, and I was born on April 22nd, 1917. My father was born in Lithuania, and my Mother was born in Massachusetts. When I was a young child, my parents moved to Thomas River, NJ where they built a commercial poultry farm. I grew up on that farm until the age of 17, when I enrolled in Rutgers University.
In 1941, I was enrolled in a doctoral program at the University of Wisconsin Graduate School. When Pearl Harbor occurred, I left school the next day, went to the Great Lakes Naval Station and enlisted. I thought we had been attacked in such a cowardly way and had to defend our country. I didn't even wait for a draft. Not only was I outraged, I felt it was my duty to defend my country as a familial obligation. My Father always said he thanked God he could raise his children in America. He came to the US at 16 years old and he understood the blessing of liberty and opportunity.
My 4 years in the military service moved in a direction I would have never anticipated. As a pharmacist I was sent to the San Diego Hospital Core School as an instructor. Because of my teaching ability, they suggested I apply for an officership in the hospital core.
As it turns out, there were no positions available and I was ordered to reintroduce my application as a line officer. Coming into the service did not wish to be an officer because I didn't want to be responsible for the lives of other people, but I became one regardless. Without any training I reported to a Naval station where I served as a personnel officer. I was sent to the Amphibious command, where I was assigned to an Landing Ship, Tank. We were actually the first crew to utilize that particular ship for combat.
Our core proceeded from Boston through Atlantic waters and the Panama Canal. We ultimately reached the Pacific, where we were in a number of engagements over a period of 22 months.
From the time we deployed, we moved continuously West. First we moved to Pearl Harbor, where we were loaded for the invasion of Guam. We were totally unprepared for the invasion - lost our stern anchor, which was designed to keep us from turning sideways and getting stuck onshore. None of us had any real experience on an LST. Only three of us had ever been to sea. We had never performed any of the functions that involved landing.
Our Captain misjudged the distance onto the shore of Guam. We had 900 feet of anchor and ran it all off the ship. When the captain came to me and asked how much anchor we had placed ashore, I jokingly said "1,200 feet". My captain replied, "there's only 900 feet", and I quipped "but the bitter end is 300 feet of stern." He didn't find that very funny.
During our time at sea, we had very little contact with the enemy. The nearest we came to them was an instance where a ship behind us was torpedoed in the midst of our convoy leaving the shore. We heard the explosion in the dark and received a message to drop out and standby. We ended up towing that LST 15,000 miles, ultimately dropping it off at Pearl Harbor.
We came closer to combat than the professional Navy, because we hit the beach, whereas they were always beyond the horizon. It was truly the Army and Marines who did the grunt work though. I felt guilty when we'd hit the beach, the military dropped down, and we'd leave them. It felt like they were carrying the bulk of the war.
The soldiers we picked up from Guam were pretty shell shocked, most suffering from dengue fever. They had been through a horrendous experience of personal combat with the enemy for 21 days. They told us a tactic the Japanese used of asking an American soldier for a cigarette in English then shooting the soldier as he reached for them. During the time the operation was completed and we were taking the soldiers back to the Guadalcanal, we were ordered to never approach them from the rear, because they were very likely to turn and shoot.
After that there was invasion of Okinawa and the coral in the water had destroyed the bottom of two small boats we used to unload ammunition. After continuously dropping them into the water for a 24 hour period, the propellers were destroyed by the hard coral.
When we got to the Guadalcanal our Captain told me to get two replacements for them. We had a vehicle on the ship we stole from Guam, which I drove around the canal looking for small boats. I eventually came upon an Army depot with a bevy of beautiful boats. I asked the captain running the depot for a vessel, but he said wouldn't give it to me because I was in the Navy and there was too much paperwork involved in the transfer.
He then invited me into the depot for lunch. We were eating spam, and I could tell he didn't like it. I asked him how long it had been since he had fresh meat. He rolled his eyes and said he didn't know when. I offered him 12 cases of turkey, which we had stolen from a food locker in Guam. The Captain acquiesced and gave me a small boat for the turkeys.
We participated in 4 additional D-Day invasions: Leyte, Mindoro, Luzon and the Philippines. Each time, we would return with additional material and personnel. The most interesting missions were the D-Day invasions. Our ship was never struck by any fire, but did take one shell, a portion of which hit a spot on the deck I was standing in just two minutes prior! I was very lucky to go through five invasions and find myself in imminent danger only once.
We were rarely near any combat or members of the enemy. I remember one time, a Filipino ran toward us and said "pesos for sale". My fellow soldiers wanted to buy some as souvenirs. They crowded around him and gave him American Dollars for pesos. At the time the Peso was worth 50 cents on the American dollar, so he was making a 100% profit off of us. I couldn't help but think about how stupid we were, but we wanted the souvenirs.
It was a very brutal war. I didn't leave the military with any sense of regret, I was just glad to go home. I was away from my family and friends for four years, and I wanted to get home and continue my career.
War is the most horrible experience that anyone can be subjected to. It's full of unintended consequences. There's no campaign that's carried out as it's planned. It distorts personalities and brings out the worst in us.
I came home and resumed my graduate studies four days after. It took me three and a half years to complete my doctoral work. When I graduated, there were only three jobs offered to me. All the good positions had been taken by Canadians while we were at war. I took a job at the university of Hawaii and stayed there for 24 years, where I ultimately became Dean for 17 years. I married my wife two days after a blind date in Washington State, and she came to Hawaii with me. I retired from the university at 55, because I wanted new horizons in my life.
I moved to New Jersey in 1972, where I've been for 40 years. I use my time doing things for others, particularly family. I'm primarily involved in living a good life with my wife.
