Some serve who never fought

My father served in the US Navy in World War II but never saw combat. Never the less his story is rather interesting. He did his undergraduate work (before the war) at the University of Colorado and as a senior he worked for an engineering professor on an early proto-type radar. That made him one of few people on the planet that understood radar. After graduating he went to work for Westinghouse in Boston.

When the war started he was exempt from the draft as he was in a critical industry. In late 1943 an army officer showed up at his door and told him that his exempt status was being dropped and in addition in 2 months his number WAS going to be drawn in the draft lottery. Wouldn't my dad rather be an officer in the service of his choice?

Dad joined the navy. He spent the next several months in boot and then in officer training. I always thought it funny that the training included spending 8 weeks learning to sail a small sailboat and ettiquete. Here the war is at its peak and dad is catching wind in the Chesapeake. But I guess I should thank the navy for the times in the Carribean and South Pacific.

He finally was sent back to Boston to continue work on the radar and to await orders. In late 1944 he got his orders to go to Chicago and then catch a specific train to San Diego. He thought he was going to be a radar officer on aPB4Y (long range 4 engine recon float plane) that was being fit there.

When he got to Chicago he showed his orders to a WAC officer and she took him to his train. The scene was the usual, guys on the train saying good bye out the windows to parents, wives and girlfriends. The WAC took my dad to a car the was a bit different then the others. All the windows were closed and the windows were painted black. When he boarded the train he was assigned a seat and was told not to talk to anybody else. There was over a dozens guys in the car all looking at each other wondering what was going on. My dad and his companions road this way for about 36 hours when the train slowed to a stop. A sargeant came into the car and pointed about 6 people, including my dad, and told them to get off the train. So my dad and his companions found himself literally in the middle of nowhere at 1 AM. All that was there was a boarded up building and a train platform. As they stood there the train left. About two hours later they spotted something with blackout lights approaching them in the distance. It was a bus with blackened windows and a thick black curtain between the diver and passengers.

They got on the bus and after two hours they were deposited at the La Fonda Hotel in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He recognized it as the Hotel starred in dozens of nickel westerns in the thirties. The next day they where told to cross the plaza go up Palace road to a doorway. They went threw the door and were escorted to the bus in waiting at the back door. Three dusty hours later my dad was working on the Manhattan project in Los Alamos.