The Wartime Memories Project - The Second War

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205415 Jnr Lt. Stephen Emerson Whicher United States Navy USS Saratoga from:Amherst, Wrentham, MA My father, Stephen Whicer, served as "night operations" officer (I do not know the correct term) on the Saratoga from shortly after the US entered the war until the end of the war. The nature of his service is taken from his obituary, based on information supplied by the Navy. He would never willingly speak of his experiences. Once, as a young child, I found his box containing ribbons, medals and copies of the shipboard newsletter. I saw his byline on the newspapers. This would make sense as he was earning his PhD in English at the time war was declared and would become a professor after the war. He ordered me to put it all away and never touch it again. Mother said he then burned the lot. I have a studio portrait of my father in uniform and there survives a photograph from the Boston paper of the Saratoga with her superstructure on fire. I asked about it and my mother repeated his statement about that incident. He said he was on board, and had "just gone below decks" or would otherwise have been killed. He suffered from what we now understand to be PTSD, and died by his own hand in November, 1961, when he believed the world was inexorably heading for another world-wide conflict. We, his children, would like to understand more about the nature of his service. Ms. S. W. Whicher Add to this record.  Related Content: USS Saratoga USS Saratoga Can you help us to add to our records? Add a record to our website. The names and stories on this website have been submitted by their relatives and friends. If your relations are not listed please add their names so that others can read about them Did you or your relatives live through the Second World War? Do you have any photos, newspaper clippings, postcards or letters from that period? Have you researched the names on your local or war memorial? Were you or your relative evacuated? Did an air raid affect your area? If so please let us know. Help us to build a database of information on those who served both at home and abroad so that future generations may learn of their sacrifice. Contact us. Celebrate your own Family History Celebrate by honouring members of your family who served in the Secomd World War both in the forces and at home. We love to hear about the soldiers, but also remember the many who served in support roles, nurses, doctors, land army, muntions workers etc. Please use our Family History resources to find out more about your relatives. Then please send in a short article, with a photo if possible, so that they can be remembered on these pages.

The free section of the Wartime Memories Project website is run by volunteers. We have been helping people find out more about their relatives wartime experiences since 1999 by recording and preserving recollections, documents, photographs and small items. The website is paid for out of our own pockets, library subscriptions and from donations made by visitors. The popularity of the site means that it is far exceeding available resources and we currently have a huge backlog of submissions. If you are enjoying the site, please consider making a donation, however small to help with the costs of keeping the site running. Hosted by: The Wartime Memories Project Website is archived for preservation by the British Library Copyright MCMXCIX - MMXXIV - All Rights Reserved We do not permit the use of any content from this website for the training of LLMs or for use in Generative AI, it also may not be scraped for the purpose of creating other websites.