War Stories Database
My Father, William Penrod
By Linda L. Young
Service Date: September 21, 1942 through December 16, 1945
In 1942, my Father, William Penrod attended Naval Boot Camp in the Chicago Great Lakes area for three months. He was then sent to Keyport, Washington where torpedoes were made. It was also a supply depot for the Pacific Fleet, plus our foreign allies. There, he was assigned to a twin twenty-man gun crew. He attended torpedo school, and was assigned to the carpenter shop. He also spent many nights on patrol boat duty in the straights. A lot of subs and destroyers came for re-supplies of torpedoes. In the Spring of 1943 he volunteered to go to the US Naval Air Base in Whidbey Island. There he was assigned to the parachute loft, and given a squadron to manage. There were approximately 30 to 40 squardrons at the base, some land planes, and some sea planes. He took care of both land and sea planes at various times. Then a few months later, there became a shortage of parachute riggers because of the many transfers, so he was sent to parachute rigger school in San Diego. The school was a factory that made parachutes for the services. The school was owned by the prize fighter Joe Louis. My father would see him occasionally at the school. After completing parachute rigger school, my father was also qualified to fly as a crewmember, so he spent time as an observer and gunman on anti-sub patrol. One day while the plane was landing in extremely rough water, my father suffered a broken nose when his head hit the inside of the plane while landing. The bone in his nose was replaced with a piece of ivory. While on leave in 1943, my Father and Mother were married, and they moved into an apartment in Anacortes, Washington. Then I was born in 1945 while my Father was still in the Navy. Two months later they sent my Father to Oakland, California with a squadron of planes for the first Peace Conference. He was honorably discharged December 16, 1945
