Veteran's voice: ‘I will always be proud to have served my country’

Editor’s note: This story was written by Nancy McKelvie from the words of her father, Tom McKelvie. It is told from his perspective.

On Sept. 16, 1940, the United States instituted the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, which required all men between the ages of 21 and 45 to register for the draft. This was the first peacetime draft in U.S. history. Those who were selected from the draft lottery were required to serve at least one year in the armed forces. Once the U.S. entered World War II, draft terms extended through the duration of the fighting.

I heard on the radio on Dec. 7, 1941, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Congress to declare a state of war with Japan. A few days later Germany sank a cruise ship with Americans on board, and we declared war on Germany.

I turned 18 in May 1942. Since there was a draft, a friend and I decided we would enlist before we were drafted. We did not want to join the Army so decided we would join the Navy.

I served on the USS Cythera, which was a yacht that was converted to a naval vessel. We patrolled the eastern coast from New York to Guantanamo Bay. Later, I was reassigned to the USS LST-285. The USS LST-285 was assigned to the European theater and participated in the invasion of Normandy in June 1944 and the invasion of Southern France in August 1944.

Before we headed to Normandy, we practiced landing drills in the English Channel. Two German E-boats snuck into the channel and attacked near Slapton Sands. Two LSTs were sunk; a third received major damage. One of the sunken LSTs was only about two minutes behind us in the convoy. The incident was kept secret due to the impending invasion and little was known about it for decades. Today there is a stone monument at Slapton Sands to commemorate the event and honor the nearly 750 lives lost.

During the invasion of Normandy, our ship made five trips back and forth from Omaha Beach to our station in England. Each time we landed to let off the soldiers and the equipment, we took heavy fire from German forces. We carried soldiers, tanks, heavy field artillery and ammunition. The guns we carried had 27 1/2-foot barrels with a range of up to 14 miles. We had 188 bunks on the ship just for the wounded soldiers that we took back to England. We filled those bunks every trip. There were 23 other landing ship tanks or, as we called them, “large, slow, targets” that made the same trips. We also carried prisoners of war. As a gunner’s mate, one of my duties was to guard the prisoners. I also shot 10 mm guns that were on the ship, mostly at German planes during the Normandy invasion. We would be shooting the guns off so fast that one guy’s job was to keep pouring water on the gun to keep it cool.

I have some memories of some of the injured soldiers. One of them I met years later in Gunnison. We talked about the war and decided that we were on the same boat. I remember him on the table in the galley having surgery on his face.

After the invasion of Normandy, our ship traveled into the Mediterranean Sea. We participated in the invasion of Southern France on Aug. 13, making many trips across the sea carrying ammunition.

On Nov. 19, we were homeward bound. We had two days of severe weather. The waves were enormous. Our ship would be centered at the tip of the wave time after time. When it was there, the whole ship vibrated intensely and felt like every nut and bolt on that ship would come loose.

Finally, we pulled into Norfolk, Va., and I was one happy guy. The first thing I did when I got off the ship was to call my mom to let her know I was back. As years have passed, I can say that although this was one of the hardest journeys of my life, I will always be proud to have served my country.