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World War II vet tells of life in Navy
Chris Faulkner/Staff writer
WEST POINT - Most would agree with Mary Olomon: Her husband should have received a medal.
But Max Olomon just shrugged off the praise after relating the memory.
“I was just doing my job,” Olomon said.
Yes, all Navy Coxswain Max Olomon did was attack a fire on his ship while his mates were scampering to the stern.
Then there was the time that eagle-eyed Olomon spotted something floating in the water nearing the USS LST 846. “It had spikes this long,” Olomon said, measuring about two feet across with this fingers. Water mines; the kind that with the slight bump from a boat would send the crew down to Davy Jones' locker.
Yes. He was just doing his job.
Oh, and did we mention that despite serving 12 years with the Navy and getting an honorable discharge, Olomon is not a good swimmer? He was almost afraid of the water, such as the time he fell off the boat while painting it and landed in the Panama Canal.
---
When veterans march past in the seasonal parades the crowds applaud with respect. But how many stories such as this are never heard? How many men had stories to tell but didn't return from the fighting to pass them on?
Olomon shared some of his stories from his Parkview Manor apartment in West Point. At 81, his days and years in the military are long since gone. Some memories, he'd rather keep tucked away in his mind.
But his days on the Landing Ship Tank 846 meant enough to him that he's had a picture of the ship engraved on his headstone for when he dies.
After the war he worked a farm and spent many years with the J.I. Case company. He's been retired from Case for 26 years now. His health isn't too good right now, but it's clear from the memories he did share that he lived a full life of adventure before most young people these days are getting started.
World War II was a different type of war than Vietnam in that many young men were eager to sign up and serve. So much so that when Olomon was 17 and working for one of the railroads in Burlington he found himself without a lot of his friends. They had all joined the service to fight overseas.
So one day he went to his boss and said, “I quit.” Why? What are you going to do? he was asked.
“I'm going down and enlist in the Navy.”
You can't do that. You're not old enough.
“You just watch me.”
So he lied about his age, and after training in Great Lakes in Illinois, he was staying at Carnegie Hall in Pittsburgh, Pa., waiting for his ship to be built.
“We went down through the Ohio River, through New Orleans,” Olomon said. Along the way he took amphibious training in Virginia. He even served on a submarine for a short while but that proved too claustrophobic.
Life on the LST
He spent most of his time serving out the duration of the war on the 846. The purpose of the LSTs was to transport soldiers from the larger ships to the beaches. The front of the LST would open up and swarms of soldiers would flood the beach. The LSTs were smaller boats but still the size of a football field.
When he saved his ship from the mines, he said, “They made the water look different.” The skipper aboard the ship carefully maneuvered the craft away from the mines, saving the men.
When part of the ship caught on fire, Olomon said he “grabbed two fire extinguishers and put the fire out.”
Yet despite his heroics, he never received any special commendation or medal.
He also survived another scare, one that is still considered a mystery today. Many ships and planes went through an area near Cape Hatteras known as “The Bermuda Triangle” and never came out.
Yet Olomon and his men went through there several times. “You've got to know how to read them buoys,” he said. He believed that the waters were treacherous at times and some craft sank as opposed to mysteriously disappearing.
But what may be the most important memory was at the end of the war. “The sky was black with bombers,” Olomon said. “We were going to bomb them (Japan) off the map.” But President Harry S Truman met with the Japanese leaders on the USS Missouri and “they signed a peace treaty.”
Although he still keeps in touch with one of his fellow sailors - Edmund Hartz of New Hampshire - Olomon said he doesn't attend any reunions. In fact, one of his memories of life on a Navy ship was, “It gets awfully lonely out there.”
Max wasn't the only one in his family to serve. Of the 12 Olomon children - two died in infancy - five boys went into the military, three of them serving in WWII. Glenn - who visited Max during the storytelling - and Arnold came into the service after the second world war.
After his honorable discharge at Lambert Field in St. Louis in 1946 Max married Mary Schubert, originally of Hillsboro but her family moved to Burlington.
She wasn't sure she could trust a sailor, but a mutual friend persisted and Mary has been married to Max for 60 years this March 28.
The stories of heroics and daring deeds have now been replaced with those of sharing food with apartment neighbors.
“It costs money,” Mary will tell him when Max offers to share some roasting ears that Glenn has brought. “Yeah,” Max said, “but it makes people happy.”
So if you happen to live near a veteran - whether of World War II or the current one in Iraq - ask them if they have some stories to tell. It will make that march down the streets of Fort Madison a little more meaningful.
WEST POINT - Most would agree with Mary Olomon: Her husband should have received a medal.
But Max Olomon just shrugged off the praise after relating the memory.
“I was just doing my job,” Olomon said.
Yes, all Navy Coxswain Max Olomon did was attack a fire on his ship while his mates were scampering to the stern.
Then there was the time that eagle-eyed Olomon spotted something floating in the water nearing the USS LST 846. “It had spikes this long,” Olomon said, measuring about two feet across with this fingers. Water mines; the kind that with the slight bump from a boat would send the crew down to Davy Jones' locker.
Yes. He was just doing his job.
Oh, and did we mention that despite serving 12 years with the Navy and getting an honorable discharge, Olomon is not a good swimmer? He was almost afraid of the water, such as the time he fell off the boat while painting it and landed in the Panama Canal.
---
When veterans march past in the seasonal parades the crowds applaud with respect. But how many stories such as this are never heard? How many men had stories to tell but didn't return from the fighting to pass them on?
Olomon shared some of his stories from his Parkview Manor apartment in West Point. At 81, his days and years in the military are long since gone. Some memories, he'd rather keep tucked away in his mind.
But his days on the Landing Ship Tank 846 meant enough to him that he's had a picture of the ship engraved on his headstone for when he dies.
After the war he worked a farm and spent many years with the J.I. Case company. He's been retired from Case for 26 years now. His health isn't too good right now, but it's clear from the memories he did share that he lived a full life of adventure before most young people these days are getting started.
World War II was a different type of war than Vietnam in that many young men were eager to sign up and serve. So much so that when Olomon was 17 and working for one of the railroads in Burlington he found himself without a lot of his friends. They had all joined the service to fight overseas.
So one day he went to his boss and said, “I quit.” Why? What are you going to do? he was asked.
“I'm going down and enlist in the Navy.”
You can't do that. You're not old enough.
“You just watch me.”
So he lied about his age, and after training in Great Lakes in Illinois, he was staying at Carnegie Hall in Pittsburgh, Pa., waiting for his ship to be built.
“We went down through the Ohio River, through New Orleans,” Olomon said. Along the way he took amphibious training in Virginia. He even served on a submarine for a short while but that proved too claustrophobic.
Life on the LST
He spent most of his time serving out the duration of the war on the 846. The purpose of the LSTs was to transport soldiers from the larger ships to the beaches. The front of the LST would open up and swarms of soldiers would flood the beach. The LSTs were smaller boats but still the size of a football field.
When he saved his ship from the mines, he said, “They made the water look different.” The skipper aboard the ship carefully maneuvered the craft away from the mines, saving the men.
When part of the ship caught on fire, Olomon said he “grabbed two fire extinguishers and put the fire out.”
Yet despite his heroics, he never received any special commendation or medal.
He also survived another scare, one that is still considered a mystery today. Many ships and planes went through an area near Cape Hatteras known as “The Bermuda Triangle” and never came out.
Yet Olomon and his men went through there several times. “You've got to know how to read them buoys,” he said. He believed that the waters were treacherous at times and some craft sank as opposed to mysteriously disappearing.
But what may be the most important memory was at the end of the war. “The sky was black with bombers,” Olomon said. “We were going to bomb them (Japan) off the map.” But President Harry S Truman met with the Japanese leaders on the USS Missouri and “they signed a peace treaty.”
Although he still keeps in touch with one of his fellow sailors - Edmund Hartz of New Hampshire - Olomon said he doesn't attend any reunions. In fact, one of his memories of life on a Navy ship was, “It gets awfully lonely out there.”
Max wasn't the only one in his family to serve. Of the 12 Olomon children - two died in infancy - five boys went into the military, three of them serving in WWII. Glenn - who visited Max during the storytelling - and Arnold came into the service after the second world war.
After his honorable discharge at Lambert Field in St. Louis in 1946 Max married Mary Schubert, originally of Hillsboro but her family moved to Burlington.
She wasn't sure she could trust a sailor, but a mutual friend persisted and Mary has been married to Max for 60 years this March 28.
The stories of heroics and daring deeds have now been replaced with those of sharing food with apartment neighbors.
“It costs money,” Mary will tell him when Max offers to share some roasting ears that Glenn has brought. “Yeah,” Max said, “but it makes people happy.”
So if you happen to live near a veteran - whether of World War II or the current one in Iraq - ask them if they have some stories to tell. It will make that march down the streets of Fort Madison a little more meaningful.
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