This was Rudy Ricci at 17 when he got out of boot camp in 1944 and headed for the biggest battle in the Pacific during the Second World War. Photo provided
World War II was over. The Japanese had signed the surrender aboard the Battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay a few weeks earlier when Shipfitter 2nd-Class Rudy Ricci of Windmill Village, Punta Gorda, Fla. stepped into the limelight. He served aboard the USS St. Mary’s off Okinawa Island during a typhoon in Buckner Bay that nearly put the transport on the beach.
