Bomb and Mine Disposal: WWII Transition

A young naval officer joins the Navy's belated efforts to retain special skills in bomb and mine disposal only to find his newly deployed ordnance disposal team confronted with extraordinarily hazardous situations while operating in the Marshall Islands. World War II had come to an end, sailors who had entered naval service for the duration of the war were being discharged. These citizen warriors were taking with them knowledge and critical skills hard earned during the war. One such skill was the safe handling and disposal of unexploded mines and bombs. The U.S. Navy was at risk of losing these skills and sent an ALNAV message to ships and stations requesting volunteers to enter a new Explosive Ordnance Disposal Training Program. The volunteers had hardly completed their training when situations and events demanded a disposal team be dispatched on an extended deployment. The author entered the U.S. NAVY'S V-12 Program in 1943 as an officer candidate. He received his commission as an Ensign in June 1945 and served twenty years on active duty in the U.S. Navy attaining the rank of Commander. While he served upon a battleship, aircraft carrier and two destroyers his duties ashore were strongly oriented to research, development, production and logistics of naval ordnance. He was intimately involved in the production of electric powered homing torpedoes and the modernization of a Naval Ordnance Plant. He is a recipient of the Secretary of the Navy Commendation Letter awarded, while serving on the staff of Commander Service Force Pacific, for independent study in the field of underwater sound transmission. As O-in-C of the Special Project Office, Sacramento, CA, he administered Navy contracts for the Polaris ICBM Propulsion System. The author is a BSEE graduate of the US Naval Post-Graduate School and was awarded an MS Industrial Engineering by Purdue University.