Biography of Bob Tassinari
Signalman (SM), Armed Guard, USN, WWII
Needless to say that even at the age of 84 I think a lot of WW!! and my experiences and my life subsequent to 12/14/45, my discharge date. I recently exclaimed to someone that WW!! was the catalyst for many of us to get out of a small mill town sort of an escape with all of its travel and , of course, the possible risk although I doubt that many of us gave that much thought.
As the oldest of seven children I left HS after my third year and went to work in a shoe factory in a nearby town. That was in June of 1940 and after 20 months of that the war was well under way. I did enter an NYA program in Holyoke MA and learnt to be a welder. A few months in a ship yard and I knew the draft was going to get me so I joined the Navy in September of 1942. Unfortunately my eyes were deemed not up to snuff due to the fact that I had been a welder and somehow I had a temporary eye weakness. I was offered the chance to delay enlistment for six months to see what would happen but I wanted in so I was USNR. The Navy sent me to signal school so so much for my eye problem. After boot camp and five months of Signal Schools, I was a rated SM and assigned to the branch of the Navy known as the USN Armed Guard.
The service consisted of two RM two SM and a couple of GM's and a gun crew of about 20 gunners to man two large guns and 8 20 Millimeters. The ships were managed by merchant marine personnel. So 1943 was two trips to the Med...one to Oran and one to Algiers. These trips were in convoys of about 60 ships with a bunch of escorts. Our Navy commanding officer was usually an Ensign or a LT jr. grade. By 1943 the war in the Atlantic was a lot more tolerable than in the prior years although subs were not a thing of the past.
In Dec 1943 I was assigned to a different ship (that was generally the rule) and passed through the Panama Canal and from then on we were in the Pacific Theater. An eight months trip to the islands with little of significance.
My next ship, the SS Francisco Morazan, another Liberty, was back to islands and participation in the Liberation of the Philippines. We anchored at Dulag, Leyte, on November 15. On November 24 we were credited with a probable Japanese plane shot down during an air attack. Escorted by eight destroyers, we sailed for Mindoro on November 27th. When they opened up with their five inch, followed by their awesome quad 40 mm'a and then 20mm's, the enemy was close to the convoy.
December 28th kamikazes hit the SS William Sharon and SS John Burke. I have a vivid memory of the plane crashing the rear of the stack on the Sharon and the destruction of the Burke, which we were anchored next to when kamikaze hit.
In action I was a loader on a bridge 20mm and was busy those days. The merchant marine crew supplied our ammunition and I had the highest regard for their cooperation and attitude.
Back to the States another leave and I got engaged on April 2nd 1945.
Then real good duty. Assigned to a Danish freighter that had been in the states when the war broke out and it became a part of the merchant fleet. Two trips to the Philippines, one in peacetime, and back to Boston for discharge in 12/12/45.
My cousin Charles Coggins was on the USS Belleau Wood for the duration and was an Ordinance Man. He spoke little of his experiences and died relatively young. We both joined the USN in Sept 42 in Boston and came from the town of Hudson and only spent less than 4 weeks in boot camp. I saw him three years later in SF and we had a great liberty.
I had about 4 pages of a paper that I titled REFLECTIONS that I had put together on the 60th Anniversary of D Day. It was intended to be something for the family and, I thought, a good piece of work. And, a few years ago I put a paper together a paper on my experiences in the Philippine Campaign. Also a good piece of work (brag) It was published in the Pointer the Armed Guard publication.
----- Bob Tassinari
Email: Robel46 AT aol.com
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