"We began to appreciate the enormity of what was going on…"(Memoir, page 2)

Donald Patrick Finn

Graduating Class 13-29 Aviation Mechanics School, N.T.S. Norfolk, VA Nov. 1940. [detail] War: World War, 1939-1945 Branch: Navy Unit: VP-22 (Patrol Squadron), Pacific Fleet Service Location: Pacific Theater; Ford Island, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii Rank: Aviation Chief Machinist's Mate Place of Birth: **

By the end of World War II, Donald Patrick Finn, who served in the Navy in the Pacific Theater, could say he nearly saw it all. He was stationed in Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. He would serve as an aviation machinist and a gunner in Australia, Bali, the Dutch East Indies, and in the Aleutian Islands. He kept a diary and wrote letters to his sister in which he recorded detailed descriptions of his travels as well as pointed comments about military life, his comrades, and servicemen from other countries.