WWII Started Veteran Sailor Couple's Love Story

Veteran couple enjoys long deployment together: 70 years and counting
San Diego Union Tribune
Lyndsay Winkley
July 11, 2017

Soon after, his friends and their new girlfriends invited him to take a trip to Big Bear, enticing him with the promise of a date. It was Anita

Anita and Melvin, both World War II veterans who live in a Chula Vista veteran's home, just celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary. (Courtesy of Mark Holt)

Melvin said the ship was about 100 yards from the starboard bow of the battleship Missouri, where Japan’s formal surrender took place. The sky was black with airplanes, he recalled, adding that they were loaded for bear in case the Japanese had planned an attack.

“I was on the flight deck watching the whole thing through binoculars,” he said.

One of his last assignments was to ferry women and children held captive in Japan to their freedom in Shanghai.

Meanwhile, Anita Holt’s considerable typing and shorthand skills helped propel her from a Seaman Apprentice to a Yoeman First Class.

“That was as high as you could go in enlisted rates,” Melvin said. “She was very smart.”
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