Benjamin Troemel was born in Brooklyn, New York. His mother died when he was three years old, and it was joked that his father remarried to save him from being put in an orphan home. A graduate of the Merchant Marine Academy, Troemel decided to go into the Navy in 1938 because he wanted to fly. He said he got the bug when Lindbergh [Annotator's Note: Charles Lindbergh] crossed the Atlantic. Troemel took an elimination flight course at Floyd Bennett Field. He went from there to Pensacola, and was assigned to the three year old Enterprise [Annotator's Note: USS Enterprise (CV-6)], on which he served for over two years.

Benjamin Troemel started training on seaplanes, and said he knew more about the sea than he did about planes in the beginning. He was flying Yellow Perils [Annotator’s Note: Naval Aircraft Factory N3N primary trainer aircraft] and Stearmans. He moved around in the training command to get as much flight time as possible in multi-engine aircraft. When he graduated, he was given three choices and asked for seaplane duty, but he didn't get it. Because he always wanted to go to Hawaii, he asked for carrier duty. He was in Hawaii the day Pearl Harbor was attacked, but wasn't in on the raid. Troemel admits it is hard to remember exactly, but he said when the planes took off for Pearl Harbor, he was scheduled on the board [Annotator's Note: scheduled to fly to Pearl Harbor], so a lot of people thought he went there. He did get there later in the day after the raid was over, and said there was still a lot of flight activity because of suspicion that there was still a Japanese carrier out in the ocean. He also speaks at length about his education at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana after the war.

After the war, Benjamin Troemel was sent down to the Panama Canal Zone, and from there he was sent to Bermuda as commander of FASRON, the Fleet Air Service Squadron. Going back to Pearl Harbor, he said the Japanese must have had some good intelligence. They shot up the Utah [Annotator's Note: USS Utah (BB-31) had been converted into a training target vessel by the time of the Pearl Harbor attack] but thought they had gotten the Enterprise [Annotator's Note: USS Enterprise (CV-6)]. Admiral Halsey [Annotator's Note: US Navy Fleet Admiral William F. Halsey] had his flag on board the Enterprise at the time. On 6 December [Annotator's Note: 6 December 1941] the weather was lousy, and only a few combat fighters went up, on general policy, in case of an attack. Halsey decided he would wait until the following morning to go into Pearl Harbor. The ship was supposed to go on to Bremerton for overhaul, but in the end it got turned around and went back into the Pacific again. On 7 December, the schedule called for sending the A Group to Pearl Harbor, and Troemel was scheduled to take off, but when his turn came to launch, his new SBD's [Annotator's Note: Douglas SBD Dauntless dive bomber] spark plugs fouled up, and a spare plane took his place. The raid was over before Troemel's plane was ready to leave the deck, and he was part of a patrol sent out to try to locate the Japanese fleet or carrier from which the attack had originated. They never found a thing. Troemel couldn't get back to the Enterprise, and had to land at Kaneohe.

When Benjamin Troemel came into Kaneohe, there were obstacles on the runway, and he was greeted by a chief with a flashlight who asked him what the hell he was doing there. After the necessary explanations, he was brought to the bachelor's quarters for the night. The day after the Pearl Harbor attack, he returned to the Enterprise [Annotator's Note: USS Enterprise (CV-6)], which had come into Pearl Harbor. Troemel said he knew then that we were at war. Troemel was asked to inventory the personal effects of one of the other pilots because he was thought to be missing in action, but the pilot showed up from somewhere. The Enterprise then headed for the Japanese Islands. Troemel said the first "offensive defense" was a raid on a runway under construction. [Annotator's Note: Troemel doesn't remember which island.] Troemel recalled that his wife was on a Navy transport going back to the United States when she got word that the Enterprise had been sunk in the raid. She later learned, to her relief, that the Utah [Annotator’s Note: the USS Utah (BB-31) was a Florida-class dreadnaught battleship that had been converted into a target ship by the time of the Pearl Harbor attack] had taken the berth meant for the Enterprise, and it was the Utah that had been hit, not the Enterprise.

Benjamin Troemel recalls an occasion when he was supposed to get leave at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, but he was disappointed to find out it was just another Navy place. He said they got some booze and had fun trying to forget their problems. Troemel said some things that didn't sit well with his superior, and didn’t go back out on the Enterprise [Annotator's Note: USS Enterprise (CV-6)] when it left. He doesn't remember what was said, and laments that he can't give a straight story. Like most of the senior members of his group, Troemel was assigned to the training command because he had combat experience, and that had value. Troemel was sent to Miami, Florida for about a year and a half, and trained pilots from Great Britain.