Blake Hall
Alex Rosetti, a Sharpsville, Pennsylvania resident, was in high school when he heard about the events at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.
“I heard about the Pearl Harbor bombing that day on our family radio along with my friends. As the weeks past, we saw the newsreels in the theater on what happened. To see all those battleships that got hit — it was unbelievable.”
Two years later, still in high school, he and his buddies decided it was time to join in.
So they enlisted in the United States Navy, despite being only a few months away from graduation.
“There was just no second thoughts about it. It was something you wanted to do,” he said to a reporter from the Sharon Herald out of Pennsylvania.
Soon thereafter he was a full-fledged Navy sailor, on a destroyer in the Pacific Ocean looking for Japanese subs and ships. He was trained in the operation of the vessel’s (at the time) state-of-the-art sonar.
During its time at sea, amidst the enemy, the destroyer with Rossetti on board saw intense action near Wake Island, Kwajalein, Saipan, Okinawa and even Guam.
“We were picking up American pilots all the time that had their planes downed by the Japanese. At one point we had seven pilots on our ship at the same time.”
While playing the hero role, Rossetti and his fellow sailors had more to worry about than just the firepower from Japan’s subs and warships. They had to contend with kamikaze attacks, too.
“They would fly over our little ship and head straight for the carriers.”
All these years later, despite living through war, and fighting in it, the proud Navy veteran is at peace with his experience. He’s even at peace with the enemies that sought to kill him, some 70 years ago.
“We never, ever, ever had any ill talks of the Japanese. We were just grateful to be alive.”
Below is a photograph of the USS Burns, the destroyer Rossetti served on in the late 1940s:
