Today’s veteran: Frank Vande Linde, 99
Born: Nellis, W.V.
Residence: Brunswick
Service: Navy, 3 years
Duties: Gunner
Rank: Petty officer 3rd class
Recognitions: World War II Victory Medal; Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal; European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal
Duty stations: England, Germany, Great Lakes Naval Station, and aboard SS Bernard Carter and oil tankers in the Pacific theater
His story: World War II didn’t end for Frank Vande Linde when the Germans surrendered.
He was a gunner aboard a Liberty Ship, SS Bernard Carter, participating in convoys across the Atlantic Ocean to deliver supplies to the troops fighting the war in Europe.
Instead, he was sent to serve in the Pacific theater off the coast of Okinawa as the military was preparing to invade Japan.
Vande Linde was in high school when the war started. He tried to enlist before his graduation, but he was told to stay in until he turned 18 and got out of school.
“My buddies were all getting killed,” he said. “It was terrible. I was going to save the world.”
After six weeks of training, Vande Linde was assigned to the crew of a Liberty Ship, where he served as a gunner in convoys across the Atlantic. He was part of the largest convoy to cross the ocean during the war.
“We were chased across the Atlantic by submarines,” he said. “They sunk a bunch of our ships.”
What was especially nerve-wracking was when the cargo was ammunition that took 13 days to load onto his ship and a day and a half to unload in Italy. One torpedo hit by a German U-boat would have destroyed his ship and others nearby.
His ship was anchored off the coast of Normandy, France for 18 days during the D-Day invasion.
“They were firing over our heads,” he said Navy ships bombing the coast. “The concussion was so bad it broke our dishes. That’s when I lost my hearing.”
He was in England when the Germans surrendered.
On the return voyage, he said his ship was loaded with defective ammunition. The ship hit a hurricane on the way home and the crippled ship made it to New York but wasn’t allowed to come into the port because of the volatile cargo.
The crew was taken off the ship, which was towed to Mobile, Ala.
After a 30-day leave, Vande Linde was sent to Panama, where he stayed several days until he was assigned to the crew of a merchant marine ship that didn’t even stop while he boarded the vessel. Instead, he boarded a boat that got along side of the ship. The crew hauled up his sea bag, and he climbed aboard the ship on a rope ladder.
He served in the Pacific theater 15 months, making three trips to and from South America as the war was still ongoing.
After learning the news of the Japanese surrender, Vande Linde said everyone was celebrating, but still wary at the same time.
“It was still dangerous because some Japanese didn’t know the war was over,” he said.
He returned to New York, where he waited six weeks for his discharge.
“They tried to get me to stay in the Navy,” he said. “But my dad needed me to help on his farm.”
He later went to the University of West Virginia, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in forest management. He earned a scholarship to Duke University, where he got his master’s degree.
He accepted a job in 1951 at the Brunswick Pulp and Land Co., where he worked for 38 years before retiring in 1989.
He credits military service for much of the success he has had in his life.
“It teaches you discipline, cooperation,” he said. “You had to work as a team. It did a lot of good for you.”
He said he wouldn’t change a thing about his military service.
“If I had to do it over, I’d do it again,” Vande Linde said. “Defending your country is something every man should do.”
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