Louis Andriano was born in Long Island City, Queens, New York [Annotator's Note: New York, New York] in February 1926. He was the third child. His father was an immigrant at age 13. His mother was born in Italy but came over when she was two. His father was self-educated. His parents spoke English to the children, while speaking Italian to each other. His father's friends were all from the same village in Italy and they all lived in Long Island City together. There were five children. His brother was in World War 2 as well. [Annotator's Note: Andriano goes into detail on the births and marriages of his siblings.] Andriano's brother-in-law was with Ernie Pyle [Annotator's Note: Ernest Taylor Pyle, American journalist and war correspondent, killed in action on 18 April 1945] when he was killed on Ie Shima [Annotator's Note: Ie Shima, Japan]. One day, Andriano got to see him while on liberty [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time]. During the Great Depression, his father was a migrant worker who followed the crops. His father was too young for World War 1. His parents married in 1920. His father was born in 1898. Andriano grew up in Queens and never moved. He got married in 1962 at age 36. His father was a garage attendant after he was married. He eventually became the manager and worked there until he retired around 1964. Andriano was 16 when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. He and his kid brother would go to Times Square [Annotator's Note: in New York, New York] on Sunday to the movies. They were going to the subway and the kids were selling newspapers and that is how he heard about it. He graduated in January 1944. He was not involved in world politics and did not know much about it. His older brother's friends were not able to work so they did work with the CCC [Annotator's Note: Civilian Conservation Corps] and most of them went right into the service. [Annotator's Note: There is some confusion regarding his age and school graduation date.]

Louis Andriano graduated high school at 17 [Annotator's Note: January 1944]. His father wanted him to work but he could not find a job. Jobs were available but the employers knew he would likely be drafted and did not hire him. He heard guys talking about going in the Army, but he did not want that. He wanted to go into the Air Force. He had taken courses toward that. He went to the draft board and signed up. He then went to the Navy recruiting office. They told him to come back when he was 18. He did and was told he was eliminated from being drafted if he signed up. He entered the Navy on 1 May 1944. He had a problem with his eyes and was considered a hold-over. He was upset that he had to go home again. Being 4F [Annotator's Note: Selective Service classification for an individual who is not fit for military service] was not a nice thing. Finally, he found a soft-hearted guy who helped him. He went to Sampson Naval Base [Annotator's Note: United States Naval Training Station Sampson in Seneca Lake, New York] in New York and did his boot camp there. He did very well no matter where he went. Of the classes, he had the best mark of the graduating class with radio. He thought he would get to do that and told them so. Because he had bad eyesight, he could not serve topside. After boot camp, he went on leave [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] and then ended up in the Navy Yard [Annotator's Note: New York Navy Yard, now Brooklyn Navy Yard in Brooklyn, New York, New York]. While there, they opened up an amphibious training camp in Lido Beach [Annotator's Note: Lido Beach, Town of Hempstead, New York]. They did 20 mile marches and swimming. Andriano was a lifeguard and he jumped into burning water for training. He got reassigned to the Navy Yard and was loading supplies as a pre-commissioning detail for ships. From Lido Beach he went to California and trained more in amphibious work. He was on LCVPs [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft Vehicle, Personnel or LCVP] at the time. He became ship's company on an APA [Annotator's Note: attack transport ship] that he went overseas on. They would go down the cargo nets in full gear. He was fortunate because he was a swimmer, so they put him in the boat to help men who fell off. They went all over the Marianas [Annotator's Note: Mariana Islands] and Marshall Islands. He ended up on Okinawa [Annotator's Note: Okinawa, Japan].

Louis Andriano's DD-214 [Annotator’s Note: Certificate of Release or Discharge from Active Duty] states that he was on CUB-17 [Annotator's Note: Cubs were secondary fleet bases], but he does not know what that was and neither does anyone he asks. [Annotator's Note: Andriano asks the interviewer to assist in figuring it out.] They went to Okinawa [Annotator's Note: Okinawa, Japan] to bring in supplies and personnel. They went in LCVPs [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft Vehicle, Personnel or LCVP] and LCMs [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft, Mechanized] to go ashore. He worked on LCVPs at first and LCMs later. He does not recall the dates when he shipped out of the United States. [Annotator's Note: Andriano and the interviewer talk about Andriano's DD-214 and he pulls out some other papers.] He is not considered a combat veteran. He was told his records became more private. He tried to get them and had to pay for them. None of them have dates. He was discharged in Lido Beach [Annotator's Note: Lido Beach, Town of Hempstead, New York]. He left Okinawa on an ARD, or Auxiliary Repair Drydock, the USS ARD-28. He was a Seaman 1st Class. He was eligible to be coxswain [Annotator's Note: person in charge of a small boat]. He was told he could not be a coxswain unless he signed up again for another tour of nine months to get the rating. He did not sign up. He went on the USS Hermitage (LSD-34) to Guam [Annotator's Note: Guam, Mariana Islands] and then the United States. Lido Beach was just a bicycle ride to his house. His buddies were there to meet him. At his discharge, they gave him a Victory Medal [Annotator's Note: World War II Victory Medal] but he should have gotten some others. He found out he could get a Good Conduct award. [Annotator's Note: Andriano lists some other medals.] If he had been able to talk to the lieutenant who was discharging him, he could have asked him some things. He was in a hurry to get out though.

Louis Andriano was on Okinawa [Annotator's Note: Okinawa, Japan] when the war ended. There were no newspapers aboard ship [Annotator's Note: USS ARD-28]. There was a ship newsletter and on that, there was a paragraph that said the atomic bomb [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, 6 and 9 August 1945] had been dropped. All the time he was on Okinawa, they kept training guys and he found out that the CUB-17 [Annotator's Note: unable to identify] he was on was made up of undertakers. That meant they were getting ready to invade Japan. At the time, he did not know what was going on. Andriano was on an LCVP [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft Vehicle, Personnel or LCVP] and on an LCM [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft, Mechanized]. LCMs had two engines. They were doing amphibious training. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks what he thought about that.] He did not care; he was 18 and did not know any different. They had not gotten to training what he calls "Part B". They were doing only "Part A", which was training the men to get on and off the ships. He spent time on Okinawa. They slept in tents there. Okinawa was in shambles; it was leveled. Across from them was Ie Shima [Annotator's Note: Ie Shima, Japan] where Ernie Pyle [Annotator's Note: Ernest Taylor Pyle, American journalist and war correspondent] died. He does not recall how long he was on the island when the war ended. If the invasion of Japan had occurred, Andriano says he would have been dead. There was one ship that ended up on the reef in the bay that was loaded with beer. The guys on the LCVPs would go get the beer. He was more involved with that. Talking about the war in Japan was non-existent. The officers did not talk to them. He practiced making fenders [Annotator's Note: bumper that absorbs energy of a boat against a dock or other vessel] with ropes and got really good at it. He would have been better off as a radio man. There was no village on Okinawa. If you went to Naha [Annotator's Note: capital city of Okinawa], it was a big thing. There were skirmishes going on there, so they would take supplies and go back. There were no houses. His ARD [Annotator's Note: USS ARD-28] was hit by a kamikaze. Andriano did not even know about it. His grandson found out about it online. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer says that his research shows Andriano going aboard USS ARD-28 on 16 January 1946. Andriano does not recall it.] He was on Guam [Annotator's Note: Guam, Mariana Islands] in 1946 before going back to the United States. He had been on Okinawa for at least five months. [Annotator's Note: Andriano talks about taxes.] His days on the ARD were his best days.

Louis Andriano does not remember celebrating the war ending. They were always the last to know and it made no difference to them. They got up in the morning and they got an assignment. He hung out with guys the same age. You could not get liberty [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] as there was nowhere to go. You had to be 21 to drink so he could not have a beer. You stole anything you could and there was a lot to steal. He met a half-dozen friends from his hometown [Annotator's Note: Queens, New York] while on Okinawa [Annotator's Note: Okinawa, Japan]. To get a good meal they had to go to the Army. They had a bad hurricane [Annotator's Note: Typhoon Louise, 9 October 1945]. He thinks that was why he got assigned to the USS ARD-28 [Annotator's Note: Auxiliary Repair Drydock]; there was a lot of damage to repair. Andriano was a boatswain's mate on the ARD. He was good with lines [Annotator's Note: ropes]. He was a small guy. They made their own lassos with monkey fists [Annotator's Note: type of knot] to send messages onto the ship. He practiced it. The ship was 60 feet wide and he practiced with the heaving lines on the life rings. They took USS ARD-28 to Guam [Annotator's Note: Guam, Mariana Islands]. They did the same thing there. He got R&R [Annotator's Note: rest and recuperation] and would go to the Japanese caves. A couple of times a crazy Japanese would run out on the beach and would die from getting beaten up. They were told not go in the caves, so they naturally did to get souvenirs. Andriano brought a couple of knives back, Camillus knives. He still has one. The poor guy [Annotator's Note: Japanese soldier] that Andriano saw come running out must have been starving. They were playing baseball and one guy clubbed him with the bat. Andriano wishes he had another chance [Annotator's Note: at his military career]. No matter what anybody tells you, growing up in the Great Depression, most people had no showers or hot water. He slept in a bed with two other brothers. His sister got married and had a baby and came home when her husband went in the service. He got killed. Andriano's older brother got drafted so they slept two to the bed. Then Adriano got drafted and his kid brother had his own bed.

Louis Andriano was discharged from the Navy in June 1946. He took advantage of the G.I. Bill to an extent. He went to a diesel training but it was not his thing. He got a job as a bricklayer apprentice. One day he was at a union meeting and someone asked what he was doing. He told him he would never be a bricklayer because his father had not been a bricklayer. So he took a job with the New York City Department of Sanitation [Annotator's Note: New York, New York] and stayed there for 36 years. He was Assistant Chief when he retired. His division had five tugboats. He loved that work. His most memorable experience of the war was meeting nice people. He wishes he was older while in because he would have made better time of it. He was always good at school. He went back to college and graduated cum laude [Annotator's Note: Latin for "with praise" or "with honor" used for academic achievement] and he had kids at the time. He was 18 in the service and did not make good use of the time. He says it does not mean anything to others that he worked in sanitation. He was just a garbage man, but he worked with a bunch of nice people. If you go in the service at 20, you are more knowledgeable. If you were an electrician's mate in the Navy, you would have gotten a job as an electrician. He liked working with the boatswains. A captain and he used to bring captain's launches [Annotator's Note: small boats] aboard and refinish them. If he had gotten the boatswain's mate rating, he would have stayed in. Life changes in the service; you are independent. He could not drink because he was 18. The guys he hung out with were 20. He does not even like beer. His group of 12 guys were all born and raised a couple of blocks from each other. One friend was a yeoman [Annotator's Note: enlisted member who does clerical or administrative work] and became an accountant right away. Another friend was on a submarine as a radio man and he went right into that work. He had good times. He missed home. He had friends that he grew up and they were his friends. Most of the guys he was in the service with were from the Midwest. His guys were from the New York City area.

Louis Andriano served during World War 2 because he does not think he had a choice. His father said he had to either get working or get in the service. He had to do it. He wanted to pick the service he was going into. If he had known more, he would have gone in the Coast Guard. He knew he could not do the things necessary to be a submariner. The war changed his life because it made him grow up. Growing up in the Great Depression, they did not even have a bathroom in the house. In the service, he had a shower every night, shaved every day, had a locker full of clothes, shoes and nice things. He enjoyed his time, and he grew up with that mentality. He can still tie a lot of knots. He is very proud of his service; he accomplished something in his life. When he walked into the movie [Annotator's Note: Beyond all Boundaries at The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana] and they announced his presence, everyone applauded, and he got a tear in his eye. One cannot imagine what it means that he has such a magnificent family and ten grandchildren. All of his kids got free educations and are highly intelligent. He has a son going to go to West Point [Annotator's Note: United States Military Academy in West Point, New York]. It makes him feel super. The recognition from his children is hard to describe. His daughter gave him his trip [Annotator's Note: to The National WWII Museum] for his birthday.