A MEMORY — Bill Schaefer of Follansbee stands with the large Japanese watercolor he obtained while serving in the Navy during World War II. Schaefer said the artist accepted a pack of cigarettes as payment for his work, which depicts a dragon and a tiger, and carefully folded it to bring back to the United States – Warren Scott

FOLLANSBEE — A local World War II veteran remembers his military service as a time when he encountered a lot of danger but also adventure.

Bill Schaefer noted that he was only 14 years old and a student at Follansbee High School when he heard about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor which led to U.S. involvement in the war .

He said he was watching a movie at the Rex Cinema with a friend, Loreto. “88” Iafrate, later Follansbee’s longtime barber, when he was interrupted by news of the attack.

“A lot of people were coming out of the theater, (we) didn’t know how to understand what happened. Of course, we didn’t know the extent of it until later.” he said.

Historians have reported that 2,335 soldiers and 68 civilians were killed and 1,143 soldiers and 35 civilians were injured in the attack, while 21 ships of various sizes, including four battleships, were sunk or damaged and 347 aircraft Americans were destroyed or damaged.

Schaefer said he had finished high school when, at age 17, he enlisted in the Navy.

He noted that he was one of many young men eager to serve their country.

“Everyone my age wanted to join the service” Schaefer said.

But he said his mother refused to give written consent for him to enlist early.

Schaefer noted that at Follansbee High School, he and other male classmates received basic instruction, from one of the school’s teachers, in handling a shotgun. of an imitation firearm.

This is part of efforts to prepare them for their role in the war effort, he noted.

After completing basic training at Fort Perry, Virginia, Schaefer was transferred to Oakland, California, and then deployed to Shanghai, China.

Eventually, he was assigned to the USS Scania, a ship that carried troops, heavy equipment, and other cargo for amphibious assaults on Japanese-occupied islands in the South and West Pacific.

He said the waters contained about 40,000 mines and he was responsible for monitoring them from the ship’s crow’s nest, a barrel-shaped structure attached to the foremast more than 75 feet above the deck.

He was armed with binoculars and a loudspeaker so he could communicate with crews below who were firing blasts at the gunpowder-filled globes from 200 yards away.

Schaefer noted that one of his targets turned out to be an oil drum, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

The mines typically featured protrusions, often called horns, that would catch on the underside of a passing ship, causing them to detonate beneath the ship, he noted.

He recalled that the Scania crew included white and black sailors, but “At that time, unfortunately, blacks and whites were segregated on our ship. »

Schaefer said he only got seasick once after boarding the Scania, but it was significant.

“I thought I was going to die for two weeks” he said. He added that he avoided eating because every time he smelled food he would start vomiting.

He said a longtime sailor on the ship recommended he consume oranges and lemons, which proved to be a remedy for his stomach ailments.

But he said his love of being on the water led him to choose the Navy over other military branches and that later in life he enjoyed sailing the Great Lakes on his own boat.

“It has a calming effect on you” Schaefer said.

“I was happy to be in the amphibious forces because you saw so many places,” ” he said, noting that Scania’s missions involved a lot of traveling from island to island.

He said most of the stops were not in modern cities, so the 72-hour passes he and his shipmates received were spent in small towns with beaches where they could consume a case beer and play softball.

“Those 72 hours went by quickly” he said.

Schaefer said there was no way to communicate with his family back home. There were no cell phones or computers in those days, he pointed out, and “We moved around so much that the mail never caught up with us. »

Of his mother he says: “She must have been very worried.”

He said he also helped dismantle a military hospital on Okinawa, built to house expected casualties of a planned invasion of the Japanese island.

But he said that never happened because President Harry Truman and other officials chose instead to detonate atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Schaefer said bombing was seen as the best way to end the war and prevent further casualties.

At the end of the war, Scania was tasked with recovering American troops and equipment from various Pacific islands in a mission known as Operation: Magic Carpet.

“The reason is that we were everywhere” he said.

For his service, Schaefer received the American Theater of War, Asiatic-Pacific Campaign, and World War II Victory Medals.

After his release, he enrolled at Washington and Jefferson College under the GI Bill, but later transferred to the College of Steubenville, where he earned a degree in English.

But he had worked as a teenager at Weirton Steel, then became involved in producing materials for the military. And his father owned the Gateway Steel Co. in McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania, so he helped him run that steel mill for a while.

But his career brought him closer to his country and to Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel, where he worked in management for 41 years.

He joined Follansbee American Legion Post 45 and served as its commander for seven years.

At that time, large cardboard posters bearing the names of approximately 1,600 local World War I veterans were discovered on the second floor of the post.

Believed to have been compiled by John Platt, the list included those killed in the line of duty and those who were prisoners of war. But they had been slightly damaged.

With the help of many people, Schaefer was able to see that the list had been reproduced on two large signs posted outside the post since 1999. He credits much of the work to the late Ralph Stift, another veteran and military officer. job.

“I had the idea and he did it. What a good guy he was. he said.

Now 97, Schaefer lives with his wife of 36 years, Terri, with whom he has two children: Adelle, a psychiatrist in New York, and Lincoln, a chemical engineer in Morgantown.

"I was born in Follansbee and will undoubtedly die here," he said, adding: “I love it. I wouldn’t live anywhere else.

Reflecting on his military service, Schaefer said he and others from that era were motivated by a sense of patriotism that may have disappeared today.

“We loved the United States. I still love him, “ he said.