Young, Bob

Bob Young was born on October 29, 1924, on Pittsburgh’s south side.  He grew up against the backdrop of the Great Depression, and he remembers that it was a difficult time, and that the family made do with hunting game, as well as occasional scraps Bob’s father would bring home from work.  Bob attended school and was quite the athlete until a knee injury ended his prospective football career.  When Pearl Harbour happened and the war came along, Bob was drafted into the navy and sent to the Great Lakes and then San Francisco; he learned in short order that his mother had suffered a heart attack, so he went home for a time before returning to his naval duties.  Those included being a radioman, allowing him to put his Morse Code skills to the test.  When the time was right, he was sent to the west coast and then on to Pearl Harbour.  Bob was assigned to several of the amphibious attack transports during his time in the service, including the USS Logan (APA 196).  He would see action in Saipan, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa, where he saw the terrible damage inflicted on the Marines landing on the beaches as well as the other ships in the armada.  Bob was almost selected to go ashore as a radioman at Iwo Jima, but fate had other duties in mind for him.  At Okinawa the ship was damaged and had to report to New Caledonia, in the south Pacific.  By the time they were steaming north, the atomic bombs were dropped, leading to a Japanese surrender.  The ship was briefly in Yokohama before returning to the U.S.  Bob was welcomed with open arms by his family, and he soon was married and ready to start his new life in postwar Pittsburgh.  And we met Bob in virtual Pittsburgh, at a zoom session of the Veterans’ Breakfast Club, and we thank them and Bob for agreeing to meet Crestwood students via zoom.