Page 89: WORLD WAR II
We were at home in Ridgebury, “Apple Hill Farm,” Connecticut that Sunday of December 7, 1941 when the Japanese naval airplanes struck Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. Our guests were Vi and Whitey Wilson as we played ping-pong. The momentous interruption by radio flashed the news that the United States was going into global war.
At the ping-pong table my mental reflex was that this news must be a hoax or practical joke like that unforgettable one when Orson Welles dramatized an imaginary invasion from Mars. Above our Connecticut place we heard airplanes from the nearby Danbury airport. The coincidence scared us.
Sinking of the battleship Arizona with all its crew and the awful wreckage from Japanese bombs stirred me to react to the event as doubly unconscionable because, at that moment, a special Japanese imperial envoy was at the White House with President Roosevelt as a decoy to conceal the sneak attack.
With America now in it, my preference for service was the Army Air Force. The urgency was tremendous to create a massive American air power. I went to Washington and, being a Sheffield Scientific School graduate of Yale, I was commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant. Initial orders were to report to Wright Field at Dayton, Ohio, the great Air Force materiel and training base on the site of the Wright Brothers epochal historied invention of engine powered flight by man.
Page 90: (photo of Carlo M. Paterno) Caption: Captain in the U.S. Air Force in 1943.
Page 91: Helen followed to Dayton with the children. Mother-in-law Ida Cotillo (Mrs. Salvatore A. Cotillo) felt that Helen and the little girls needed the care of Anny Stoll who had been 14 years in her Cotillo service – in truth, since a girl of 16. When Helen arrived she was accompanied by two little daughters, two dogs, two birds, a cook and Anny Stoll as companion.
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As this is written in 1979 Anny Stoll is still, at age 72, with us at 23 Sixth Avenue North here in Naples.
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On the Dayton Country Club grounds was a large house which we rented with another lieutenant Gene Patterson, who used the apartment over the garage. We sent to Connecticut for the kitchen refrigerator, only to be embarrassed later that Frigidaires were manufactured right there in Dayton!
I was station at Wright Field from 1942 to 1945, when I was discharged as a captain. Mother had passed away and Dad’s health was waning.
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During readjustment to civilian life, we were invited to the island of Cat Cay in the Bahamas. Having so much fun caused us to join the Cat Cay Club which, at that time, was mostly owned by Lew Wasey (one of the leading advertising executives of his day from New York City).
The beautiful island 45 minutes by air from Miami had guest cottages and houses along with its…
Page 92: …(photo) Caption: Anna M. Stoll, known to most of us as “Anny” and as “Puff” to my three daughters, sitting in our sun room in Naples with our beautiful bromeliad which had twenty-three spike blossoms.
Page 93: …handsome amenities of a nine-hole golf course and a casino for gambling. Living style was casual, except for formal evening dress.
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I Catch The Big One
Deep sea fishing between Cat Cay and Bimini had a delightful appeal. In 1949, in company with Captain Eddie Moore on his boat Panda, I hooked and fought a blue marlin for 48 strenuous minutes. Finally I got him. The big 11-foot fish weight in a 328-1/4 pounds. This went into official record as the largest blue marlin catch of that year. In the exuberance of personal pride I had the monster fish mounted by Pflueger. As a result our house in North Salem required an added room to display my piscatorial triumph.
(Photo) Caption: Proof of my winning the catch at Cat Cay with Eddie Moore, Captain of the “Panda” on the right.
NEXT: CHAPTER XIII • BEING A GOOD CITIZEN
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