Page 56 - Senior Link Magazine Winter 2021- Online Magazine

Robert Shaw
y his own admission,
Robert N. Shaw of
BLubbock had a difficult
and challenging upbringing,
especially early in life. He
was born to Jack and Cora Lee
Shaw on February 14, 1929, in
Naples, Texas, but, “My dad
left us when I was one year
old. The Depression made it
even harder for my mother and
older sister, Joyce, to keep the
family together.” Things were so
challenging that “it seemed like
we moved every day.”
56 Lubbock Senior Link
“The Navy Was a Blast!”
by Larry Williams
The small the recruiter said, ‘We paid for
family you to get up here, but we’re not
eventually paying to send you back!’” They
migrated to hitchhiked home.
El Dorado,
Arkansas. After the treaty was signed by
Robert found Japan in August of 1945, most
school difficult branches of the service drastically
to attend. reduced their ranks. At the end
“I probably of the war, there were over 12
missed as million men and women serving,
many days as I with over seven million of them
attended, and located overseas. Millions of
I was always military personnel were returned
into mischief.” during Operation Carpet Ride.
His formal But all those guys coming home
schooling didn’t change Robert’s mind. He
came to an end still wanted to serve.
in the ninth In December 1945, Shaw forged
grade. He did his mother’s signature and
do what he enlisted for the second time.
could to help He was 17, and he chose the
his mother, Navy because, “It was the only
but he needed one (branch of service) I could
direction. get in.” The war was over,
Then WWII but Robert’s journey was just
broke out after beginning.
the attack on He was inducted on January
Pearl Harbor 12, 1946. After basic training in
in December 1941, and many San Diego, Robert was shipped
young men volunteered to serve out to Hawaii. “We stayed
their country. In 1944, when there a while. I went out with
Robert was only 16, he and a the Merchant Marines on YO-
buddy contacted the draft board 12, a Yard Oiler cement ship.
in Little Rock, who responded We would go out in the Pacific
by sending the teenagers two carrying diesel and refuel ships."
bus tickets from El Dorado to
Little Rock. “When we got there, In early 1946, “they asked for
they told us we were too young volunteers for atomic bomb
and couldn’t sign up. We didn’t testing, and I signed up for it. We
have a nickel between us. We were assigned to the USS Creon
were flat broke. I asked about a (ARL-11)”. (Creon was one of the
return bus ticket back home and Achelous class of mobile repair