Aaron G. Donlay

Aaron G. Donlay

Navy

AARON
G.
DONLAY

SOLDIER DETAILS

DIVISION:
Navy
THEATER OF OPERATION:
Pacific
SERVED: Aug 17, 1944 -
Apr 19, 1946
HONORED BY: Children of Aaron Gearlo Donlay, Nancy, Dale, Lydia, Susan, Bryan

BIOGRAPHY

Aaron remembers having Scarlett fever along with several other men. They were taken off the ship to a hospital, but he didn't remember where. He remembers a nurse or someone came in and told them that the ship that they had gotten off of had been torpedoed and went down with no survivors. He said that when he got back on a ship, he and some of the guys were playing around and since he was a good swimmer, he decided he would jump off the ship to cool off and just get back on (DAH). He almost drowned from just the waves from the ship. The guys threw him a lifesaver and pulled him to safety. He does remember being shot at in Japan, after the war, when they were cleaning up. WWII was a hard time for the family. Aaron was in the Navy and his brothers Paul and Harold were in the Army. His brother Paul died at the Battle of the Bulge. When Aaron was in Japan he was notified that his younger brother Richard was killed in a car accident. When he got back 3 months later for the memorial, the family had taken him to the bus stop and left, but before the bus left the police came to pick him up and advised him that his brother Glen and his niece were killed in a car accident. Also his father and mother were seriously injured along with 2 others (one a sister who was pregnant at the time). So he was sent to Norman, Oklahoma and received an honorable discharge.