Stanley G Craig

Stanley (Budd) Lived on a farm by Mindoro Wi, went to school through 8th grade. Wanted very badly to go to High School but unable to go as his father had him working on the farm. At 14 Budd went to work for a neighbor as his Dad had the boys working for nothing. When he was 18 Budd left to work in Chicago, he once told me he was sick all the time so he joined the navy I guess for the healthcare. Budd enjoyed the navy until WWII started. He was on a mine sweeper the USS Hamilton, this ship was old. Many mine sweepers didn’t come back from the war, and now lay at the bottom of the ocean somewhere. Budd was in all 4 theaters, for one full year he never got off the ship. The ship he was on would go in and blow up the mines so the battleships could safely get close enough to fire on the enemy. Budd was an engineer and worked on keeping the ships engine working. The engine room was at the bottom of the ship so the air quality was not quite bad, so every few hours the men working that far bellow deck would be relieved. Besides having to worry about a mine blowing them up planes would fly overhead trying to stop the ship from blowing up the enemies mines. There were times when ships would go down, the water would be on fire from the fuel leaking from the destroyed ship, men would be in the water. The men on the ship Budd was on would take grappling hooks to pull the men from the water, some of the men would be screaming from pain and asking for their mothers, a lot of these men died from the burns after a few horrific days of suffering.