"I decided I could get myself drafted…" (Video interview, 3:19)

Samuel T. Harmon

Samuel Harmon at time of interview. War: World War, 1939-1945; Korean War, 1950-1953 Branch: Navy; Navy Service Location: Treasure Island, California; Yokosuka, Japan; Norfolk, Virginia; Great Lakes, Illinois; Chicago, Illinois; Pacific Theater; also: Japan Rank: Chief Electronics Technician

Born in 1929, Chief Electronics Technician Samuel T. Harmon’s enthusiasm for aviation was so great that he decided to quit school at the tender age of 15, and convince his local draft board that he was old enough to be called up for World War II. Fascinated by the stories of Tuskegee Airmen, he wanted to be a pilot, and had financed flying lessons by parachute jumping with an air circus. The Navy had other ideas about the best job for him: he wound up being trained in electronics. Serving in Japan during the occupation, and then during the Korean War, he found he enjoyed the prestige of being an electronics technician, the mathematics involved in it, and working with the relatively new technologies of radar and sonar; after his military service, he pursued a career in engineering.