Abraham Rosenzweig was born in Chicago, Illinois in January 1924 and grew up there. He had three sisters named Shirley, Sylvia and Esther. He had a good family. His father, Samuel, was a baker. Rosenzweig’s mother, Anna, helped in the bakery and was a wonderful cook. Meals were good. Growing up in the Depression [Annotator's Note: the Great Depression was a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1939 in the United States], Rosenzweig played baseball in the streets and sold newspapers. His aunt also paid him an allowance every week that he used to buy a hot dog with french fries and a Coke. He used the rest of that money to go to the movies. Swimming in public pools was very popular at the time. Rosenzweig helped in the family bakery. He had no trouble being Jewish as a youngster until later when Italians attacked him and a buddy. The two would ride their bicycles everywhere. They were accosted by five Italians who sucker punched Rosenzweig. Rosenzweig held off the attackers until he could escape. He damaged his new pants during the escape. The Italians ganged up on the boys just because they were Jewish. Rosenzweig was a big fellow so they did not attack him very much. During high school, Rosenzweig worked part-time for a department store. His class was the last one to graduate prior to the war. He and his buddy, Jack Michaels, signed up for government classes that were offered because the war was pending. The two went to one of the universities in Chicago. Michaels was selected quickly for admittance, but Rosenzweig was not. The delay was likely due to his Jewish name. When Rosenzweig signed up again as Arthur Rowig, he was quickly accepted into the school. He started school in June [Annotator’s Note: of 1942] and after 420 hours of course work, he graduated. He studied testing airplane engines. Upon graduation, Rosenzweig gave the administration his correct name. Rosenzweig got temporary jobs, but when the work got too boring, he quit even though jobs were scarce at the time. He decided to head to Los Angeles [Annotator’s Note: Los Angeles, California] to join the Marines. En route, there was a long line of vehicles awaiting entry into a brand-new aircraft factory with the drivers seeking employment. A cowboy town was being built nearby to accommodate workers for the new plant. When he reached Los Angeles, his funds were limited so he could not stay long. He was not allowed to enlist because he was younger than 18 years of age. He was told to get his father’s authorization prior to becoming a Marine. As a result, Rosenzweig had to return home.

Abraham Rosenzweig returned home [Annotator’s Note: to Chicago, Illinois from Los Angeles, California where he had attempted to enlist in the Marines. Rosenzweig needed his father’s approval to enlist because he was not yet 18 years old]. He discovered a card ordering him to report for work at a nearby airplane plant. His buddy never received a card [Annotator’s Note: Rosenzweig and his buddy, Jack Michaels, had both attended and graduated government classes for aircraft engine testing]. Rosenzweig worked all of 1942 testing aircraft engines. The Museum [Annotator's Note: The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana] has a Pratt and Whitney twin row radial engine like the ones he tested in 1942. That engine was used in 95 percent of the airplanes at the time. He could have been deferred [Annotator’s Note: because of the critical nature of his work to war production], but he was not. He earned good wages for his work. He invested in defense bonds with his salary [Annotator's Note: defense or war bonds were debt securities issued by a government to finance military operations and other expenditure in times of war]. Although Rosenzweig wanted to join the military, his job was good and he was going steady with a girl and had a 1938 Dodge automobile at the time. He loved his work. His calculations had to be verified through the use of a large six-by-four foot machine. [Annotator’s Note: He smiles.] Rosenzweig had to aid the new shop floor workers who did not know how to assemble the engines. Both Air Force and Buick inspectors frequently checked his work. After 1942, Rosenzweig went to downtown Chicago and attempted to enlist in the Marines again. There were complications related to his draft card. Once again, his enlistment attempt was delayed. Rosenzweig was so angered at the Marines that he went across the hall and joined the Coast Guard. Later, when he saw what the Marines had to do, he was glad that it worked out that he became a Coast Guardsman.

Abraham Rosenzweig joined the US Coast Guard in October [Annotator’s Note: of 1942] and left in January 1943. His father had refused to authorize his son’s enlistment into the Marines. When Rosenzweig left home, he did not want his mother to see him off because of her emotions. He was sent to New York for training. The military personnel were treated very well. The Pepsi Cola Canteen was a favorite spot. The hamburgers and Pepsi soft drinks were free. Beds were free upstairs if they were needed. You could shave and shower. It was wonderful and the girls were fantastic. He did boot camp in Manhattan Beach, New York [Annotator’s Note: near the borough of Brooklyn in New York City]. The training was wonderful except that Rosenzweig did not have a chance to train with weapons. He had to learn that on the island. He found a hometown buddy he bonded with on liberty in New York. The camp was quarantined due to a recruit dying of spinal meningitis. The graduates were split up afterwards and some went north and others, like Rosenzweig, were shipped to a Marine base at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. He trained with the Marines using landing craft on New River, North Carolina. He trained in Morse code and semaphore [Annotator’s Note: a type of signaling usually using flags]. After five months, he had become a seaman first class and was ready to move on. He successfully tested to become a coxswain or petty officer third class which is equivalent to a sergeant. He then became a landing craft instructor. He took Marines into his landing craft using cargo nets off the mother ship. Others were being shipped out and then finally it became Rosenzweig’s turn in November 1943. In Virginia, he and 23 other coxswains picked up new landing craft and went along the river as people cheered. They transited Chesapeake Bay where a brand-new ship awaited their arrival. The landing craft were hoisted aboard the ships. The skipper was angry because the operation took too long. It had to be repeated. After training there for a period, the ship traveled to Pearl Harbor [Annotator’s Note: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii], arriving on Christmas 1943. More training followed there.

Abraham Rosenzweig picked up troops [Annotator’s Note: at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii] and headed for the invasion of Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands in January [Annotator’s Note: of 1944]. He was assigned to the USS Centaurus (KA-17). His landing craft was nested inside an LCT, or Landing Craft, Tank. He observed the shelling of the island by friendly battleships as it neared time to invade the lagoon. Rosenzweig’s boat was hoisted up and lowered down early in the morning to take on troops who boarded via cargo nets. There was no circling around [Annotator’s Note: landing craft normally circled the mother ship until a full wave of loaded boats was released to assault the objective]. Instead, the boats went directly to the beach. He made trips back and forth bringing wounded to the ship. At dusk, Rosenzweig’s boat broke down. He and his crew decided to go inland, but the fighting was so intense that a soldier told the Coast Guardsmen to return to the safety of their landing craft. The soldiers were putting the dead in body bags. That was Rosenzweig’s first experience with death. After getting back to the boat, the crewmen were armed with a machine gun on the landing craft, a Tommy gun [Annotator’s Note: .45 caliber Thompson submachine gun], and a rifle. Another boat with six or seven enemy soldiers aboard approached. It was already midnight. The enemy fired first toward shore, then Rosenzweig and his crew opened up with their weapons on the Japanese. The enemy troops were decimated. The Americans slept through the rest of the night and restarted their ferrying duties back and forth the next day. Rosenzweig was then assigned to stay on the shore with his crew. He thought for a moment that someone perhaps did not like Jews, and that was why he received the assignment. He was glad to get off the ship and stay on the island for about five months. He had more experiences there than during any other part of the war. They were clearing out the island of Japanese. That included stacking enemy bodies and spraying them to remove the odor. He also collected unexploded shells on the island. He brought the unexpended ordnance to his boat and dumped them into the ocean. One of his men later died performing that duty. His boat operated shuttle service between the shore and the ship. He slept on the beach in an eight-man tent. The aircraft blew so much dust that he had to sleep in the boat. He had to check about 16 islands between Roi Namur and Kwajalein. He transported men from the 7th Division [Annotator’s Note: 7th Infantry Division] in his boat during that time. He followed an LCI [Annotator’s Note: landing craft, infantry] which was his base for food and support. His boat was used to drop troops on one side of an island and pick them up on the opposite shore. On one of the islands, a group of Japanese were all shot in the head and their captain had committed hara-kiri [Annotator’s Note: ritualistic Japanese suicide through disembowelment]. During one difficult retraction event, enemy fire plus heavy wave action forced Rosenzweig to perform a risky rescue of troops. During another action, his boat had to traverse through coral reefs. As a safeguard, a native lay prone on the deployed ramp and signaled Rosenzweig safe passage of the LCVP [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft Vehicle, Personnel or LCVP; also known as the Higgins boat] in its rendezvous with a submarine chaser. The crew were served some of the best food in the world afterward. They managed a nice shower and some restful sleep. The crew next made their way to an island with natives where they remained for three days. Rosenzweig stayed with a young girl, but did not touch her because of the risk of disease. While on the islands, Rosenzweig heard of a hungry enemy soldier captured while in the American chow line. He later threw a hand grenade at a cave where a Japanese soldier had taken refuge. It took a flamethrower [Annotator's Note: ranged incendiary device that projects a controllable jet of fire] to dispatch the enemy, but not before Rosenzweig heard the man screaming. Before the Seabees [Annotator's Note: members of US naval construction battalions] set up facilities on the islands, he was dependent on the Army for food. He had to beg, borrow or steal from the ships that came. The Merchant Marine ships that came later had the best food in the world. During the course of being in the islands, three men died of dysentery. There was only one air raid. When American bombers returned from their missions, if they had remaining ordnance, they were to drop it on Truk, the arsenal of the Pacific [Annotator’s Note: Truk Atoll was a Japanese stronghold].

Abraham Rosenzweig had no commander for four and a half months on the island [Annotator’s Note: He was part of the effort to capture and secure the island of Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands in January 1944, and remained there for nearly five months.]. He was bored, so he hitchhiked on a Navy ship back to Pearl Harbor [Annotator’s Note: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii]. He was forced to work aboard the ship during the ten-day voyage to Pearl. The skipper was a bitter man because he had yet to see action during the war. He took his animosity out on Rosenzweig. At Pearl Harbor, an LST [Annotator’s Note: landing ship, tank] caught fire and blew up causing a conflagration. Rosenzweig served on a bucket brigade during the event. He slept on a lanai in Honolulu [Annotator’s Note: Honolulu is near Pearl Harbor] waiting for another ship. He had nothing to do until assigned to the USS Leonard Wood (PA-12). It had served in multiple invasions in the Pacific and Europe. No one was receiving promotions at the time. With his rank, Rosenzweig was able to do guard duty and serve on the bridge. The ship sailed to New Guinea and Guadalcanal [Annotator's Note: Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands] with the mail never seeming to catch up. Sometimes it took four months for the mail to reach the ship. Rosenzweig boarded the battleship New Jersey [Annotator’s Note: USS New Jersey (BB-62)] to obtain food for his crew. The crew on the battleship was very tight with their food and allocated very little to Rosenzweig. He did manage to meet up with someone from Chicago [Annotator’s Note: Chicago, Illinois, Rosenzweig’s home town]. Some of the men wanted souvenirs from the island [Annotator’s Note: Kwajalein]. While on the island, most of Rosenzweig’s duty involved ferrying and offloading supplies from ship to shore and back [Annotator's Note: he was a US Coast Guard coxswain aboard a Landing Craft Vehicle, Personnel or LCVP, also known as the Higgins boat]. One crate contained liquor destined for the officers who never received it. Another time, Rosenzweig opened a large crate which contained an aircraft engine with his name on it [Annotator’s Note: Before induction, he had tested aircraft engines for approval.]. He was surprised to see his engine had coincidentally arrived to his boat for transport. It made him happy. He saw it loaded on a PBM Mariner [Annotator’s Note: Martin PBM Mariner patrol bomber] and said to the crew that it would be the best engine they ever had. [Annotator’s Note: He laughs.] The experience was a thrill. He returned to Pearl Harbor and was assigned to a brand-new ship in preparation for the next invasion in New Guinea. Next, was the island of Mog Mog in Ulithi [Annotator’s Note: Ulithi, Caroline Islands]. Liquor and beer were available there. Guys went crazy drinking. Rosenzweig nearly got sick. The next invasion was Peleliu [Annotator's Note: The Battle of Peleliu, codenamed Operation Stalemate II; 15 September to 27 November 1944; Peleliu, Palau]. It was a tough landing on a narrow beach with intense shelling. It was night, but the island was on fire and everything could be seen. He had to rush to return to his ship which was scheduled to pull away from the island before it got dark. After a prolonged period of unsuccessfully trying to be taken aboard the moving mother ship, Rosenzweig opted to return to the island. He anchored off the island and observed the terrible shelling that ensued. All night long, the sound was horrible. There were no air raids and the boat finally managed to return to its ship. The next invasion was Leyte in the Philippines [Annotator’s Note: the Battle of Leyte, 17 October to 26 December 1944]. Prior to the start, the skipper said the invasion was going to be very big. Rosenzweig thought it might be an assault on Japan. It was October 1944. The landings went easily because the fighting was further inland. There were frequent air raids. Japanese aimed at the Allied ships all night. Sleep was impossible. Night fighters were shooting down the enemy planes. The Leonard Wood was called the USS Lucky because it was not hit even though it was a big ship. After leaving Leyte, in January [Annotator’s Note: of 1945], landings on Luzon [Annotator’s Note: Luzon, the Philippines] started. Japanese bodies and boxes were floating in the water. Suicide swimmers had attempted to attach dynamite to American ships so the boxes had to be shot. Some of the bodies had to be picked up because there were so many in the water. Returning to the ship, three Japanese planes dove on Rosenzweig’s LCVP. He jumped in the gun mount, but before he could swing the gun around, the enemy gunfire was striking his boat near his location. The planes continued on and flew into some ships further on. Until then, Rosenzweig thought it was his time to go and was ready. That was his last experience with it.

Abraham Rosenzweig suffered from a punctured eardrum when an explosion occurred near his boat near the island [Annotator's Note: he was a US Coast Guard coxswain aboard a Landing Craft Vehicle, Personnel or LCVP; also known as the Higgins boat, when he participated in the invasion of Kwajalein in January 1944]. It did not bother him until after the invasion of Luzon [Annotator’s Note: Luzon, the Philippines was assaulted in January 1945]. Part of it was that he did not want to go home until then. After Luzon, any ship that could make at least 15 knots anchored off Mindoro [Annotator’s Note: an island in the Philippines]. His ship [Annotator’s Note: USS Leonard Wood (APA-12)] had blown a boiler and could not make more than 14 knots. It had to return to Pearl Harbor [Annotator’s Note: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii]. Passing Mindoro, Rosenzweig observed hundreds of airplanes and ships lined up for another invasion. It was January 1945. The next invasion turned out to be Iwo Jima in February [Annotator's Note: Battle of Iwo Jima; 19 February to 26 March 1945; Iwo Jima, Japan] and then Okinawa [Annotator’s Note: the Battle of Okinawa, codenamed Operation Iceberg; 1 April to 22 June 1945; Okinawa, Japan] came afterward. He reached the United States when Roosevelt [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States] died in April 1945. After a month in hospital at Treasure Island [Annotator’s Note: Treasure Island, California], he received his medical discharge in St. Louis, Missouri. He returned to a party at home in Chicago [Annotator’s Note: Chicago, Illinois]. Tested for his aptitude, his mechanical skills were high. He did not want to go back to school, so he entered the bakery business ultimately opening his own bakery. He used the G.I. Bill [Annotator's Note: the G.I. Bill, or Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, was enacted by the United States Congress to aid United States veterans of World War 2 in transitioning back to civilian life and included financial aid for education, mortgages, business starts and unemployment] to go to baking school. The teaching was fantastic. His final rating in the Coast Guard was coxswain or petty officer third class. He probably would not have stayed in the military even if he had not received the medical discharge. He was ready to return home. Many people cheated on the G.I. Bill. He worked part-time during school. He married and worked in a German bakery which was wonderful. He loved the products. They sold quality merchandise using old fashioned recipes. He went on to build his own bakery, The Oakton Pastry Shop. He opened in 1955 and kept it for 29 years. He bought his own home. He raised a family of four children. He retired in 1986 and sold his bakery. He moved to Boca Raton, Florida and then to a beach location. His parents and sister moved there. He sold his home in Skokie [Annotator’s Note: Skokie, Illinois] and moved to Florida for ten years and then relocated to California where his son and daughter lived. His daughter found a place with a large home and a cottage behind it. Rosenzweig sold his home in Florida and bought two homes with the proceeds. It all worked out well.

Abraham Rosenzweig is proud of his years of service in the Coast Guard. That feeling has grown over the years. World War 2 is not a topic well known by students today. Vietnam [Annotator's Note: Vietnam War, or Second Indochina War, 1 November 1955 to 30 April 1975] veterans are getting better recognition today than in the past. That is largely due to veterans returning from tours of duty in Afghanistan or Iraq. Trips to Washington and New Orleans have helped honor the World War 2 veterans [Annotator’s Note: veterans are flown to Washington, D.C. for the World War 2 Memorial and to New Orleans, Louisiana for The National WWII Museum]. Rosenzweig thinks about the airplanes attacking him more now than in the past [Annotator's Note: he was a US Coast Guard coxswain aboard a Landing Craft Vehicle, Personnel or LCVP; also known as the Higgins boat, when he participated in the invasion of Luzon, the Philippines in January 1945. Three Japanese airplanes attacked his Higgins boat and enemy fire came perilously close to him]. Swimming underwater with flames above are memorable also. His recommendations to young people today and in the future are to keep straight, be nice to people, and serve your country.