Arthur H. Pera

Arthur H. Pera entered the Navy on November, 19, 1942, at Duluth, Minnesota. He served as an Aviation Radio Technician Second Class.

Mr. Pera shared the following:

"The Navy was looking for recruits with an aptitude for training in the then-new and highly secret radar equipment developed for war usage. My high school background in math and physics helped me in this test and I qualified for this training as a Third Class Petty Officer (Radio Technician) but first had to go through boot camp at Great Lakes, Illinois.'

"Boot camp was followed by a 30 day pre-radio training session at the Chicago Naval Armory; then on to a three month course in radio mechanics at the Bliss Electrical School in Tacoma Park, Maryland. After which I was transferred to the Ward Island Naval Air Technical Training Center near Corpus Christi, Texas, for advanced training in aviation radar. My first impression at Ward Island, after the awesome sight of many hundreds of airplanes on the ground at one location, was how did any enemy dare attack a country with all this air power? Actually this was only a very small sample of our total air power.'

"Because radar was new and highly secret, radar trainees were issued special ID cards and our school was in a heavily guarded compound. We were checked by Marine guards at entry and exit.'

"After Ward Island, I was one of a small detachment assigned to an additional two months training in some newly developed, ground-based, blind landings in adverse weather, fog and darkness, presumably for military duty in the Aleutians.'

"My first assignment was to the Naval Air Station at Astoria, Oregon. Awaiting further transfer, I was given temporary duty as an assistant air traffic controller, first at the Navy seaplane base, where traffic was rather light, and then at the Astoria airport which was then heavily engaged in military traffic from all services. This was followed by a short stint at the Moon Island airstrip in Gray's Harbor near Hoquium, Washington, where 'rookie' pilots practiced the landing techniques needed to land on real aircraft carriers. My job was to provide radio communications from ground to air and to maintain the radio equipment.'

"My next assignments were successive transfers to Naval Air Stations at Alameda, Monterey, and Mugu, California, in the process of forming CASU F47 (Carrier Aircraft Service Unit #F47). We boarded the USS Sea Marlin, an Army transport with a Coast Guard gun crew carrying a cargo of sailors and marines headed for Saipan. We ran into heavy seas the first two days, creating an epidemic of sea sickness compounded by close-quarter living in 15-tier bunks. The head (wash rooms) were especially awash with vomit.'

"The Sea Marlin was a fast ship and we traveled without escort to Pearl Harbor when we had a few days of shore leave while waiting for a huge convoy to be assembled before the Sea Marlin and other cargo ships would be escorted into the war zone. We made it safely to our destination after a voyage of about 4300 miles in about 18 days.'

"On-site enlisted personnel are generally not aware of the 'Big Picture' of the war as it progresses while they are serving and it was a long time after the war that I came to understand the status of the Pacific War at the time we were convoyed to Saipan in February-March 1945. The steady, relentless, island-by-island American conquest had prevailed through out most of the SW Pacific and the battles for the Philippines and the Marine attack on Iwo Jima were then underway. Okinawa was still under Japaneses control and the invasion of the homeland was yet to come.'

"CASU F47 would service Navy and Marine aircraft at Naval Air Base Marpi Point on the North end of Saipan where the Seabees were just completing the reconstruction of a Japanese airfield. The USS Sea Marlin, after unloading us at Saipan, was reportedly sunk en route to Australia.' 

"I was just one of a crew of radar technicians who worked in the line. My job was to check the IFF (identification friend or foe) equipment and the various search radars used in fighters, scout bombers, and torpedo bombers to locate and target the enemy and to return to the home carrier. The function of the line crew was to find defective radar units and replace them with good ones from the shop. I worked on the night shift, to have the aircraft ready for the next day's operation. I recall beautiful, moonlit tropical nights, often interrupted by short periods of misty rain.'

"We had battery-powered portable lights and testing equipment which we moved along the line of parked aircraft and up and in and down and out of the cockpits, passenger compartments and crawl spaces of the tested aircraft. If the workload was light, we sometimes completed our checks in time to take in the nightly outdoor movie, shown even when it rained, and which was one occasion was interrupted by shots fired by one our armed guards at a Japanese survivor watching the movie from a nearby sugar cane field, or so we thought. Anyhow, he escaped.' 

"Night crews had to get their sleep in the daytime. We lived in metal Quonset huts, open at both ends, with vented tops and side windows. The open portion were screened to keep out bugs and small mammals. Each hut housed about 30 technicians who slept on cots. Even with all this ventilation the temperature inside rose to very uncomfortable highs by mid afternoon. We would spread our ponchos over out cots to keep our perspiration from soaking up the mattress.'

"We ate our meals in a large Quonset mess hall and the food was generally OK except when Australian mutton was served. We would take it on our trays and dump it, uneaten, in the garbage barrel, lest the leftovers be made into hash on the next day. New Zealand butter (in cans) and dehydrated eggs and potatoes were very palatable, and the canned turkey (from the USA) was very good. Ice cream in Sunday is a Navy 'must' and a morale booster. Outdoor shower platforms in which brackish water was sprayed from metal pipes drilled holes kept us fairly clean, except that the special soap needed with water left a residual gummy felling on your body. Innovative washing machines made from metal barrels and propellers powered by the wind cleaned up our dirty laundry.' 

"As an after thought I should point out that radar was a crucial factor in out naval war against the Japanese who did not have it. On defense it lessened the element of surprise attack by the enemy. Conversely, on offense it gave us the ability to accurately locate and target the enemy, often before defending aircraft could be launched from the carriers. My contribution was in this field."

Mr. Pera was awarded the following: Combat Action Ribbon, and Good Conduct Medal

He was honorably discharged on December 23, 1945, at Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Source: Hometown Heroes: The St. Louis County World War II Project. 244.

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