F. Lincoln Grahlfs was born in December 1922 in New Haven Connecticut. His father was a World War 1 veteran who had a temporary job working with disabled veterans at Yale University. He had become partially deaf during the war, which affected his job. The family moved to New York [Annotator's Note: New York City, New York] when his father was sent to journalism school. He then got a job with The New York Times. Grahlfs' father worked nights, so his mother became the primary care giver. His parents divorced when Grahlfs was ten years old. He grew up in Queens County, New York. He liked to people watch in the subway stations. He graduated from high school in 1940. He loved mathematics. On his father's suggestion, Grahlfs went to college and studied engineering. He did not like college, and dropped out at the end of his freshman year. He was conscious of the war because he read the news. He knew there was a draft. After dropping out of college, Grahlfs started working for Grumman Aircraft [Annotator's Note: Grumman Aircraft Corporation], thinking he would be deferred from the draft. Feeling like he would be drafted soon, Grahlfs decided to join the Navy. On 7 December 1941, Grahlfs was on his way to his father's house for his birthday. He heard about the attack on Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii] on the car radio. He was incredulous about the attack. He thought the war would be in Europe, not the Pacific. His father did not know about the attack, so they did not discuss it.

F. Lincoln Grahlfs enlisted into the Navy in the fall of 1942 and was inducted on 5 October 1942. At that time, the Japanese had attacked several more islands. Because the Navy was losing so many sailors, Grahlfs had a shortened boot camp. His father approved of him going into the Navy. All of his father's German friends were anti-Nazi and were happy at the thought of Grahlfs fighting them. His father did not talk about his World War 1 experience often, but he never went overseas. During boot camp, Grahlfs and the other recruits were focused on becoming sailors. His basic training was in Newport, Rhode Island. He did not know what was going to happen to him. Grahlfs was relieved when he was sent to quartermaster's school. In the Navy, the quartermaster is the senior enlisted man on the bridge of a ship. He became proficient at light and semaphore signals. He could read Morse code and ten or 12 words a minute. He was in quartermaster's school for four months. When he graduated, Grahlfs received a new rating of Petty Officer 3rd Class. It was very cold during the training. Grahlfs was sent to Pier 92 in New York [Annotator's Note: New York City, New York] and was assigned to serve on the East Coast. He was again scared because the station had a bad reputation. In the end, he was sent to barracks in Brooklyn [Annotator's Note: Brooklyn, New York]. He spent seven months there while his ship was being built. In the meantime, he cleaned and did watch duties, but had every other night off in New York.

When the ship arrived, F. Lincoln Grahlfs went out to sea for ten months. The ship was a patrol craft. After the shakedown [Annotator's Note: a new ship's test cruise], Grahlfs escorted convoys from Guantanamo Bay [Annotator's Note: Guantanamo Bay, Cuba] to Trinidad [Annotator's Note: Eastern Caribbean island]. After a few months in the Caribbean, Grahlfs' ship was transferred to the run between New York [Annotator's Note: New York, New York] and Guantanamo Bay. He liked this assignment because of the liberties [Annotator's Note: time away from ship duties]. There were three quartermasters on the ship. Grahlfs received a promotion to Petty Officer 2nd Class and was transferred to Miami, Florida, where he trained in small craft navigation. He spent five or six months training in Miami, then was assigned to a new sea going tug [Annotator's Note: tug boat]. The tug crew was trained in firefighting, cargo handling, and various other things. He was then sent to Orange, Texas to another ship being built. He boarded the ship at Port Arthur [Annotator's Note: Port Arthur, Texas]. Following the shakedown cruise, Grahlfs sailed to New Orleans [Annotator's Note: New Orleans, Louisiana] where he met up with and took charge of a convoy. Along with three civilian tugs, they moved a sectional dry dock. The convoy moved through the Panama Canal and all the way to the Philippines.

Despite being on another small ship, F. Lincoln Grahlfs was happy to be on an auxiliary ship and not a fighting vessel. He was happy to be at sea working, not manning a gun. The tug boat, having a round bottom, rolled more. Of his six years in the Navy, Grahlfs only got seasick twice, once from a hangover, and the other in the Mariana Islands. While moving a floating crane to Tinian, the tug went through choppy water then very still water, causing Grahlfs to get sick. He fell in love with the tug right away. He felt like he was a part of it. Grahlfs signed up for six years of service and at the end was a part of an atomic bomb test. During his voyage into the Pacific, Grahlfs and the three civilian tugs were pulling a dry dock. His boat was acting as a retriever. He ended his voyage in Leyte Gulf [Annotator's Note: Philippines]. When he arrived, the fighting had moved around Manila [Annotator's Note: Manila, Philippines]. Occasionally a Japanese plane would come by, but no ships. After assembling the dry dock, he moved across the western Pacific doing various jobs. During the preparations for the invasion of Iwo Jima [Annotator's Note: Iwo Jima, Japan], Grahlfs had to tow LSTs [Annotator's Note: Landing Ship, Tank] that were beached while loading up. When he first put the tug into commission, he was the chief quartermaster on the bridge. He became friends with the warrant officer on the tug, who taught him about being better at his job. By the time he went through the Panama Canal, the captain promoted him to petty officer 1st class. The tug towed a lot of war material around. During the summer of 1945, the headquarters of the service force was at Enewetok [Annotator's Note: Enewetok, Marshall Islands]. While there, he received orders to go to the Russell Islands near New Guinea. The tug was in charge of four tugs that towed eight barges full off pontoon bridges to Okinawa [Annotator's Note: Okinawa, Japan]. They arrived at Okinawa in July 1945. A Seabee [Annotator's Note: members of US naval construction battalions] came aboard and said he had enough pontoon bridges. Grahlfs believes our supply line is what won the war. For the next week, Grahlfs experienced kamikaze attacks. The small boats would make smokescreens during the attacks. He knew the Japanese would not waste their time on the small boats, but it was still scary. He became philosophical about the thought of not coming home. While in the Atlantic, occasionally he thought he saw torpedoes heading towards his patrol craft, when in reality they were porpoises.

After Okinawa [Annotator's Note: Okinawa, Japan], F. Lincoln Grahlfs received orders to tow away the USS Hugh W. Hadley (DD-774). During the battle, the Hadley was hit by three kamikazes, leaving her dead in the water. A couple other tugs towed her away and got her fixed up in a floating dry dock. Grahlfs was assigned to tow the Hadley back to San Francisco [Annotator's Note: San Francisco, California]. They left at the end of July 1945. On the third day at sea, a typhoon hit. Despite this, he did not lose the Hadley. After the typhoon, the line broke, but they were able to recover the ship. During the typhoon, Grahlfs lost the rest of the convoy. They made it to Saipan [Annotator's Note: Saipan, Mariana Islands], where they heard about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima [Annotator's Note: Hiroshima, Japan]. They knew it was a big bomb, which came across in the reports they received. They started getting more information after the bombing of Nagasaki [Annotator's Note: Nagasaki, Japan]. A fighting ship was attached to the convoy heading to San Francisco. During the trip, the tow line parted nine times. The crew was well experienced. A man on one of the dry docks was afflicted with appendicitis. He was transferred to the tug [Annotator's Note: USS ATA-199], then to the other dry dock which had a doctor and operating room. During this transfer, Grahlfs was at the wheel of the tug, which made him nervous. He was also at the wheel when they went through the Panama Canal. Grahls returned to the United States on 26 September 1945. By the time he had returned, the celebrations were over. The ship he was towing was scrapped. His captain received a commendation for returning the ship. Grahlfs had a wild time on liberty [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time]. While in San Francisco [Annotator's Note: San Francisco, California], only a third of the crew returned, the rest were all new sailors. He did not mind that he had to stay while other crewmen left. After his liberty, Grahlfs returned to Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii].

F. Lincoln Grahlfs transferred back to Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii]. The seven or eight tugs at Pearl Harbor would rotate emergency duties. During the day, a tug would patrol the south shore of Oahu [Annotator's Note: Oahu, Hawaii] and at night the boat would be on call. When ships arrived at Pearl Harbor from the Far East, the captains regularly said they were sea worthy for the trip back to the United States. Often, those ships would breakdown some miles out at sea and Grahlfs would have to tow them back to Pearl Harbor. He spent several months doing that and various other duties. In April [Annotator's Note: April 1946], Grahlfs was transferred to the USS Chowanoc (ATF-100), a big fleet tug. He took the place of a chief quartermaster, which was an upgrade. Not long after, he was transferred again, this time to the rescue tug ATR-40 going to Bikini [Annotator's Note: Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands] for Operation Crossroads [Annotator's Note: a pair of nuclear weapons tests conducted by the United States in July 1946 at Bikini Atoll].

F. Lincoln Grahlfs partially understood what Operation Crossroads [Annotator's Note: a pair of nuclear weapons tests conducted by the United States in July 1946 at Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands] was about. While in the United States, he heard about an atomic bomb test against ships. Grahlfs did not volunteer to be a part of the test. He was at Bikini from May to September [Annotator's Note: 1946]. Every day, the mail plane would arrive with the Honolulu Advertiser, which talked about the volunteer task force, which became a joke aboard the ship. During the operation, there were 95 target ships in the lagoon. Grahlfs helped tow the ships into position. After the first test, he performed salvage operations and got the area ready for the second test followed by more salvage operations. He put out fires, patched leaks, and beached some damaged ship for further investigations. On the morning of the tests, Grahlfs traveled ten nautical miles away from the atoll. He stayed in that area for four hours until ordered back to the lagoon. Before the tests, Grahlfs and the rest of the crew received no protective gear, and he insists whatever has been told about safety precautions is a lie. He did not receive any warnings about the duty. Before leaving Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii], he had to sign a form saying he would not discuss what he saw or heard. He did not think much about it at the time, but since then, Grahlfs has been horrified. He thinks the whole thing was an outrage and a lie. He could see a big pillar of smoke when the bomb went off. He was told to cover his eyes while steering the ship. [Annotator's Note: Grahlfs demonstrates how he covered his eyes.] He was worried he would float into another ship. The crew started calling themselves guinea pigs. Radioactive particles landed on his deck ten nautical miles away from the blast site. He had no protective gear and was being exposed to the radiation. He was second guessing the duty from the beginning. When they first arrived at Bikini, the ships cook would sit on deck looking out at the ocean. After several days, he was sent back to Pearl Harbor for psychological evaluation. He missed the atomic tests. Needing a new cook, an officer's cook was transferred from an aircraft carrier to the tug.

Besides the atomic tests, F. Lincoln Grahlfs found other work to do while at Bikini Atoll [Annotator's Note: Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands], including updating navigational charts. He watched movies every night. When he went aboard the USS ATR-40, the captain made him the mail orderly. When he would pick up the mail, he would also trade movies. The first atomic test was an air test and the second was an underwater test [Annotator's Note: Grahlfs is referring to the Abel and Baker atomic bomb tests during Operation Crossroads]. They detonated a bomb 60 feet below the surface. The first test looked like a big column of smoke. The second test looked like a large cylinder of water that made the ships look like they were standing. After the tests, there was an effort to decontaminate the target ships. Grahlfs has a lot of pictures thanks to his father's contacts in The New York Times. His ship used contaminated lagoon water to wash down the USS New York (BB-34). His ship was also running the lagoon water through the ship's evaporators to cook, bathe, wash clothes, and drink with. Grahlfs receives 600 dollars a month as compensation. No one thought about how dangerous that water was. There was supposed to be a third test, but it was cancelled. When he returned to the United States, his ship was put out of commission. A part of the deck was roped off because of contamination, despite people living on the ship for another six months. Visitors were not allowed on the ship. After the decommissioning, Grahlfs received 60 days leave. He was then assigned to shore duty in San Francisco [Annotator's Note: San Francisco, California]. After a few weeks, Grahlfs was sent back to sea. Before that, he developed an abscess on his face, requiring him to go to the naval hospital. After an examination, it was discovered that he had a high fever and high white blood cell count. He was given high doses of penicillin, which did not work. A whole host of doctors would come to see him. After two x-ray's, he discovered he had radiation sickness. After the x-rays, the abscess disappeared, but for six or seven months boils would appear around his body.

After doing shore duty for a couple weeks, Lincoln Grahlfs was transferred to Guam [Annotator’s Note: Northern Marianas Islands], where he served on a small cargo ship. He moved cargo through Micronesia [Annotator’s Note: a sub region of Oceania]. For the next year and a half, Grahlfs went to different islands, becoming familiar with the natives. He saw firsthand how the United States treated depended groups of people. As his time in the Navy was coming to an end, his captain offered his recommendation to Grahlfs, if he wanted to take the chief quartermaster test. Grahlfs declined the tempting offer because he was ready to leave the Navy. He had a difficult time adjusting to civilian life. He left the Navy in October of 1948 and went back to school in 1951. His experience in the islands led him to study social sciences. Despite the threat of court martial if he talked about his experience with the atomic bomb, Grahlfs told his friends and family about. He gradually realized he was suffering from illnesses from the tests. His children and grandchild have also been afflicted with diseases.

While teaching in Wausau, Wisconsin, F. Lincoln Grahlfs read about the National Association of Atomic Veterans and immediately joined. That is when he started identifying as an atomic veteran. In general, he has mixed feelings about his service. He does not think nuclear weapons should have been created and is a supporter of nuclear abolition. He thinks the spreading of atomic residue has caused a lot of sickness. He believes the scientists who were a part of the Manhattan Project [Annotator's Note: code name for the American-led effort to develop an atomic bomb] did not want the bombs used. He does not believe the bombs shortened the war. He believes Harry Truman's [Annotator's Note: Harry S. Truman, 33rd President of the United States] advisors convinced him to use the atomic bombs. Grahlfs was a pacifist before he went into the service. While in the military, his pacifism was reinforced. He believes the Navy helped shape him into the person he is. Going into the islands helped him find his life's calling. He ended up studying Far Eastern Affairs at Columbia University [Annotator's Note: New York, New York]. Operation Crossroads [Annotator's Note: a pair of nuclear weapons tests conducted by the United States in July 1946 at Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands] convinced him that we should try to eliminate nuclear weapons. He thinks people should know what the military is doing before they join. Grahlfs believes World War 1 was a mistake that caused the second war. He thinks the more we know about World War 2, the more will be spent on diplomacy.