I met them during the war

I saw the doctor for my regular checkup. I go to John Storch, and

since I’ve managed to reach the age of 91, I guess he knows what he’s

doing.

I knew John’s father, who was a World War II ace. I thought he was

the first ace of the war. That wasn’t John’s memory, but he did allow

his father shot down 11 planes.

It’s probably hard for the younger generation to realize just what

an amazing feat that was. They’re used to things like the war in

Iraq, where missiles launched from miles away can take down an

airplane. In those days, it was much more like the gunfight at the

O.K. Corral. Enemies were yards, not miles, apart.

The conversation about John Storch Sr. reminded me of the

remarkable people I met during the war. For some reason, Adm. Chester

Nimitz selected me to be on his staff, and as a result, I became the

chief press censor. This threw me in with all the writers covering

the war in the Pacific, people like Robert Ruark, who went on to

write “Something of Value,” and St. Claire McElway of “New Yorker”

fame. I got on well with most of them because I took a pretty liberal

view of what I let through.

The only one who gave me a hard time was Frank Tremaine. He worked

for one of the news services and he was always pushing the line.

Almost every day, there was some violation, and I would cheerfully

have tossed him off the ship except he was bigger than I was.

Instead, I spent idle hours plotting how an artfully placed banana

peel might accomplish the task.

We were getting ready for the big push on Japan, the battle that

was going to end the war and cost us, as we were told at the time, a

million casualties. I was being sent to Washington for a briefing,

and then I would return to the fleet, where I hoped I wouldn’t be one

of the million.

Suddenly, my orders were changed. I was going to have a day off to

be with my family in California, and then my wife was going to be

allowed to accompany me to Washington.

Whom did I have to thank for this? My old nemesis, Frank Tremaine.

He had pulled strings to make it happen. I was very glad then that my

nefarious plotting against him had never gotten past the drawing

stage.

As we bounced around the Pacific, I ended up rooming with a number

of different people. For a few days, I bunked with Adm. Raymond

Spruance. He spent most of his time moving tiny model ships around a

big map of the ocean. He would set them up in one configuration and

study that, and then rearrange them and ponder his new set up. He was

widely acknowledged as a naval genius, the one who would craft the

plan to win the war, so I tried not to think of how much he looked

like a boy playing with his tin soldiers.

Another time, I roomed with Chestie Puller, recipient of four gold

medals. We were on some island or another, and there was one woman on

the entire island. To say she was homely would be kind, but a woman

is a woman, and Chestie and I set out to vie for her attention.

Chestie was a big man with a chest like a pouter pigeon and a bona

fide war hero. I was a skinny guy who drew lines through writers’

copy. Didn’t matter. She had no use for either one of us, and we left

the island with our virtues intact.

I also roomed with Gene Tunney, the boxer who took the

championship from Jack Dempsey and then won their rematch in the bout

famous for the long count. They were doing a goodwill tour in the

Pacific, and at the end of their bit, to give it that extra oomph and

to show his confidence in our fighting men, Dempsey said, “OK, you

guys. See you next week in Okinawa.”

Somebody had told him that was our next target. They’d forgotten

to tell him it was top secret, and everyone scurried around beating

the bushes in case some Japanese spy was hiding in them.

Fortunately, our initial landing was unopposed, and Dempsey didn’t

have to be hung as a traitor.

* ROBERT GARDNER is a Corona del Mar resident and a former judge.

His column runs Tuesdays.