When I was at Saint Ann’s [in Cleveland Heights], I was head of the altar boys.
Midway through high school, I started to work at the University Club at 3813 Euclid Avenue. Anderson 10091 – I remember the telephone number.
I paid every penny of my way through John Carroll.
I was sitting at the switchboard [at the University Club]. On the radio, they broadcast the news of the attack on Pearl Harbor. One of the residents came running down from his room upstairs and shouted to me, “Bruce, did you hear the news?” “Yes,” I said, “you seem so excited about it. Will that affect you?” “I will probably be in my uniform in a week.” He was a graduate of the naval academy. Within a week, he was gone in his uniform.
We were young and brash and fearless and nobody thought of being killed or anything like that. Just do your duty.
We got on this navy seaplane, and there was a lot of anxiety for me since I had never been in an airplane in my life. We taxied down the water runway, and the plane couldn’t get up. Tried it two or three times. Finally, the pilot announced to us that we had to take some of the weight off the plane. I said, “Let us off!”
YMS-9 struck a mine in Corregidor and sank in 10 seconds. I saw it. It was right in front of us. YMS-9 was our companion ship.
All of a sudden, you hear the sound of artillery whistling past. I’m standing there with a seaman named Wayne Wright. “Where the hell did that go?” We continued on. Then Wright |
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came up, and he was holding a 5-inch shell in his arms. “Mr. Thompson, look at this.” “Where did you get that?” He said it was on the floor of the engine room. It was a dud.
We were terrified. Very much so.
Some years ago, when the political situation in the Philippines was very anti USA, I thought to myself, “You wouldn’t be alive. We saved you. Wrested you out of the hands of the Japanese.”
It’s a different world. Isn’t as friendly as it used to be. You have to be so defensive all of the time. Frankly, it scares me. It really does.
The happiest moment in my life? Oh, my word. Marrying my wife. She’s a wonderful wife. She’s a beautiful catch.
I can’t play golf anymore. Arthritis.
I’ve always been happy to be alive.
Father Frank Smith, SJ, was a professor in the English department for many years. [In the 1990s,] he had a private Mass every Saturday afternoon at 4:30 and Sunday morning at 10:15 in the chapel on the second floor of Rodman. He said, “I have this little Mass. If you’d like to come.” The first few times Mary Ruth and I went, we sat there, and I said, “Father, you need an altar boy.” He said, “Do you know anything about it?” I said, “I spent my life being an altar boy.” So he said, “OK, take over.” I was his altar boy for ten or twelve years, up through 2002. I vested him before Mass every Sunday. After Mass, I took care of the sacred vessels. I did everything so that he wouldn’t have to.
As told to Ken Kesegich |
