15-7  William R. Stewart

He was discharged in March of '46 and hired as a civilian (via the University of California) to go to Bikini to assist in fuzing the bomb for Operation Crossroads. following this he re-entered Northeastern University, got his degree in February '47 and went to work for IBM in Endicott, NY until he retired in 1984 (and stayed in Endicott).

He died this past August 24th (2003) and I've been going through his things since then (His wife died 17 years ago and he had no children). As for myself, I was also in ASTP but the ASTRP (Reserves); the ASTRP was for 17 year olds who were put in uniform and sent to college until they turned 18 and were then sent to Basic Training. I enlisted in April of '44, was put in uniform and sent to the University of Maine until July of 1945, then sent to Camp Blanding (near Stark, FL) for infantry basic. We had 4 battalions of former ASTRPs there, all qualified for OCS, but when they asked for OCS volunteers they only accepted 3 out of the many that applied; the rest of us were told that we were going to be used as infantry in the invasion of the Japanese home island. When the bombs were dropped and the war ended we wound up dismantling the camp for return to the civilian farmers. I then went to England with the Transportation Corps at a camp processing "GI Brides" (English wives of GIs) for shipment to the States. After this wound down I was stationed on Governor's Island in New York as an MP (Mostly patrolling Penn Station, the old Greyhound bus station and Grand Central), finally being discharged in May of '46.