Shadow box

Excerpts from the oral history of Dr. Sam Sherman:

I joined the Navy the day after Pearl Harbor. Actually, I had been turned down twice before because I had never been in a ROTC [Reserve Officer Training Corps - located at many colleges to train students for officer commissions] reserve unit. Since I had to work my way through college and medical school, I wasn't able to go to summer camp or the monthly week end drills. Instead, I needed to work in order to earn the money to pay my tuition. Therefore, I could never join a ROTC unit.

When most of my classmates were called up prior to Pearl Harbor, I felt quite guilty, and I went to see if I could get into the Army unit. They flunked me. Then I went to the Navy recruiting office and they flunked me for two minor reasons. One was because I had my nose broken a half dozen times while I was boxing. The inside of my nose was so obstructed and the septum was so crooked that the Navy didn't think I could breathe well enough. I also had a partial denture because I had lost some front teeth also while boxing.

But the day after Pearl Harbor, I went back to the Navy and they welcomed me with open arms. They told me I had 10 days to close my office and get commissioned. At that time, I went to Treasure Island, CA [naval station in San Francisco Bay], for indoctrination. After that, I was sent to Alameda Naval Air Station [east of San Francisco, near Oakland CA] where I was put in charge of surgery and clinical services. One day the Team Medical Officer burst into the operating room and said, "When are you going to get through with this operation?" I answered, "In about a half hour." He said, "Well, you better hurry up because I just got orders for you to go to Pensacola to get flight surgeon's training."

Nothing could have been better because airplanes were the love of my life. In fact, both my wife and I were private pilots and I had my own little airfield and two planes. Since I wasn't allowed to be near the planes at Alameda, I had been after the senior medical officer day and night to get me transferred to flight surgeon's training.

I went to [Naval Air Station] Pensacola [Florida] in April 1943 for my flight surgeon training and finished up in August. Initially, I was told that I was going to be shipped out from the East Coast. But the Navy changed its mind and sent me back to the West Coast in late 1943 to wait for Air Group 5 at Alameda Naval Air Station.

continued... see "Oral Histories - Attacks on Japan, 1945" on the right side of this profile page.

SHERMAN, M.C., Samuel, CDR