Teen-Agers in War
* I noted with great interest the Feb. 24 letter from Stuart M. Bundy, chancellor of the San Bernardino Community College District, about the “boys brigades” of World War II.
Bundy is perhaps not aware there were a few of us, not many, who served in the war as 16-year-old merchant seamen. With an official legal waiver on my age, as a 16 year old I served as a merchant seaman aboard hazardous-duty oil tankers in both Atlantic and Pacific War convoys. I ended the war a few days past my seventeenth birthday in Okinawan waters, happy to be alive.
I very frankly think that the atomic bombs on the country of my birth, Japan, saved my life, so I quite agree with Bundy’s view that President Truman made the right decision in authorizing the bombings.
CHRISTOPHER W. MAGEE
Los Angeles
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
