Nelsyn Ernest Brooks Wade was born in Nacogdoches, Texas, but was raised around San Augustine [Annotator's Note: San Augustine, Texas]. He grew up in the Great Depression on a farm. His father had eight siblings who lived on the farm. Both his parents were overachievers. His father was raised on a farm and liked to raise cattle. He also thought of himself as a cowboy and served as a mounted policeman in San Antonio [Annotator's Note: San Antonio, Texas] during World War 1. His aunts and uncles got jobs around Beaumont [Annotator's Note: Beaumont, Texas] and Port Arthur [Annotator's Note: Port Arthur, Texas] during World War 2. His father bought them out of their share of the farm. Wade's father did not want him to be spoiled. Wade was made to work on the farm. His mother taught school in the rural towns. As World War 1 ended, Wade's father bought a house and a cafe in San Augustine. One of his uncles bought a movie house, and his father bought him out. His mother worked as a postmaster and would help server customers at the cafe during her lunch break. She would sell tickets in the movie house as well. One time, she served a traveling salesman at the post office. Later in the day, she rented him a room above the cafe and then served him a meal. He asked if she ran the whole town. When Wade graduated high school in 1939, his parents took him to look at Baylor University [Annotator's Note: in Waco, Texas] and A&M [Annotator's Note: Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas]. During the Depression [Annotator's Note: Great Depression; a global economic depression that lasted through the 1930s], they shut down the football team in San Augustine. Wade loved playing football. While he attended Baylor, he tried out for the football team. Wade was not very good in the classroom, so he had to stop playing football to focus on his studies. He enjoyed being in the drama department. Wade was a junior when the attack at Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941] happened. Many of his friends joined the service immediately. Wade completed college and was told he could go through an accelerated program in the Navy to become an officer. He finished school and took some courses that would help in the Navy.

Nelsyn Ernest Brooks Wade went to Chicago [Annotator's Note: Chicago, Illinois] to join an accelerated Navy officer training program. After four months, Wade was awarded his commission. He was given a ten day leave [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] before being given his orders. The Navy flew him to Shreveport, Louisiana. He was picked up by his parents and taken home to San Augustine [Annotator's Note: San Augustine, Texas]. Afterwards, he was sent to amphibious training school. Wade heard about the attack at Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941] after dark. He listened to Roosevelt [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States] talk about the attack on the radio. Many of his friends started volunteering for the service, but Wade decided to stay in school until he graduated. Everyone went wild knowing the war was coming on. People threw toilet paper in the air. After graduating, he was sent to a 90 day program in Chicago. Chicago was a good town to have liberty [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] in because there were not as many military men. The people were good to the servicemen. The recreation officer would be told about where parties would be held. Wade enjoyed meeting the girls. Sometimes he would be given tickets to movies and plays. Buses were free for servicemen. If a civilian got into Wade's cab, they would pay the fair. He went home for Christmas, then received orders to go to PT Boat [Annotator's Note: patrol torpedo boat] school in Rhode Island [Annotator's Note: Motor Torpedo Boat Squadrons Training Center in Melville, Rhode Island]. By that time, the Japanese had radar and would blow up the PT Boats. His orders were canceled, and he was sent to amphibious school, where he learned about LCVPs [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft Vehicle, Personnel or LCVP]. He trained other people on how to operate the vehicle after he became an expert. It was very cold in Norfolk, Virginia. Servicemen were not treated well in Norfolk because of how many of them were there. Wade was taught how to operate his vehicle, which was gasoline powered at the time. Wade taught crews how to drive the LCVP. The vehicle had a four man crew. January in Chicago was very cold. He was sent to Florida, which had better weather. He trained at Fort Pierce, Florida. One night, Wade was doing an operation and one of the boats got beached when the tide went down. He was taught how to pull it back out to deep water. One night, the tide was so far down, he had to wait for the tide to roll back in. Wade was ten miles from his base. He had to float in the water for some time.

Nelsyn Ernest Brooks Wade went to Norfolk, Virginia, where he picked up his ship. The ship held four LCMs [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft, Mechanized] plus 100 men. The ship was called the USS Aldebaran (AF-10). He sailed it down to Mobile, Alabama, where it had guns attached around the ship. After graduating from boat training, Wade was put in charge of a crew he trained. They received new diesel boats, which were less dangerous than the old gasoline ship. The troopship was loaded with beer. He did not want to write about it, because he was a church going man. Wade thought he would be sent to invade Europe. The ship held several LCVPS [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft Vehicle, Personnel or LCVP] and LCMs [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft, Mechanized]. He then sailed through the Panama Canal [Annotator's Note: in Panama] in a convoy. Wade's ship sailed through Torpedo Alley [Annotator's Note: also called Torpedo Junction, area of the Atlantic Ocean with high numbers of German submarine attacks] but did not have any problem. He spent the night in Guantanamo Bay [Annotator's Note: Guantanamo Bay, Cuba], which he enjoyed. The next day, Wade traveled through the Panama Canal. On the Pacific side of the canal, the executive officer [Annotator's Note: also referred to as XO; the second in command of a unit or ship] told all the officers they would need training on how to buy whiskey to trade on the islands. Wade bought four bottles and was able to trade them later. Wade traveled to 160 ports, some of them multiple times. He would have to run each landing craft to keep the engines good. Wade was not afraid going through the canal. Sometime later, he experienced air raids, but his ship was never used in an invasion because it was so slow. He usually was in the rear of a fleet. Wade visited Noumea, New Caledonia [Annotator's Note: Nouméa, New Caledonia, Overseas France] several times. He also went to Guadalcanal [Annotator's Note: Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands]. At Tulagi [Annotator's Note: Tulagi, Solomon Islands], Wade's boats gathered provisions. [Annotator's Note: Wade starts singing a Navy tune about Tulagi.] The doctor and the supply officer on his ship did not have to pull watch duties. They were both characters and enjoyed themselves. The supply officer would get alcohol and the doctor would mix it with peppermint. One time, the doctor and the supply officer started discussing what they would do in the event of a torpedo attack. One of them tried to see if they could fit through a porthole, but he got stuck. The man had to be greased up to get unstuck. Another man heard the story, tried to get through the porthole, and also got stuck. The supply officer was an entertaining man. While in the Russell Islands [Annotator's Note: Russell Islands, Solomon Islands], the Navy had a medical base similar to the television show MASH [Annotator's Note: Mobile Army Surgical Hospital; a television show about a medical team during the Korean War that ran from 1972 to 1983]. Around New Year's Eve, the doctor visited the islands medical unit and got an invitation to their party. Wade attended the party and met a nurse who was from Waco, Texas where he went to college. The skipper of the unit was trying to court that nurse, so he made Wade leave the party. His friends would come out to check on him throughout the night.

Nelsyn Ernest Brooks Wade was sent to Iwo Jima [Annotator's Note: Iwo Jima, Japan]. By this time, it was near the end of the battle. His ship took 1,100 marines off the island. Wade was not on the first LCVP [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft Vehicle, Personnel or LCVP] that went ashore. There were wrecks on the beach. The beach was different from other beaches he had seen. It was deeper and waves would crash high. The first boat to go ashore was hit by one of the waves and it washed all the relief troops out of the boat. The skipper did not want to lose a boat, so Wade was sent to see if it could be salvaged. In the meantime, a LST [Annotator's Note: Landing Ship, Tank] was used to get troops ashore. Wade tied his LCVP to the LST and asked the beach master about salvaging the busted boat's engine. They used a crane to lift the engine and put it onto his boat. The engine was rebuilt. Those Marines were the most exhausted people Wade had ever seen. They were supposed to climb up a rope to get aboard the ship. The sailors would have to help them up. The marines would lay on the deck because they were so tired. One of Wade's crewmen asked him if he could trade his whiskey for a carbine [Annotator's Note: .30 caliber M1 semi-automatic carbine]. Wade made the trade and still owns the gun. He used it to shoot pests around the farm in San Augustine [Annotator's Note: San Augustine, Texas]. Wade's son told a Marine in Waco [Annotator's Note: Waco, Texas] about the gun and the Marine wanted to see it. The Marine verified that every piece of the gun was authentic and served on Iwo Jima. The Marine wanted to buy it, but Wade did not want to sell it. He could tell the Marines had fought a hard fight. They laid around and did not play any games. They only moved for food. They were brought to Guam [Annotator's Note: Guam, Mariana Islands].

Many men on Nelsyn Ernest Brooks Wade's ship [Annotator's Note: USS Aldebaran (AF-10)] gambled. The officers tried to keep men from gambling. Wade was not a gambler. When he was working at him parent's cafe, a traveling salesman tried to gamble in the venue. His father chewed the man out. His father loved cattle. When the war ended, Wade wanted to return to Baylor [Annotator's Note: Baylor University], in Waco [Annotator's Note: Waco, Texas]. Before he went into the Navy, he received a business administrator degree. His roommate was a teacher in the drama department. Wade loved the drama department, which is where he met his wife. They had four children. During the war, Wade visited Espiritu Santo, in the New Hebrides [Annotator's Note: now Vanuatu], several times. The port was one of the first to have a large stock of beer. There was an officer's club on the island. One day while at the club, Wade met a man from San Augustine [Annotator's Note: San Augustine, Texas] who was in the Air Force. They had been in Sunday school together. After the war, they would shoot armadillos. His friend's unit was on Espiritu Santo. He got permission to bring Wade up in his airplane. They flew around the island and Wade enjoyed the ride. He wrote letters to his parents often. His mother was the postmaster and liked to write letters. When he would write to his mother, his letters would be censored. As an officer, Wade had to censor other men's letters. Some of the yeomen [Annotator's Note: enlisted member who does clerical or administrative work] wrote the history of the ship and Wade received a copy of it. The food was pretty good. There was not much transportation on the islands. The supply officer traded a case of eggs for a jeep. The crew was good at loading and unloading cargo. Wade and some officers used the jeep on Noumea, New Caledonia [Annotator's Note: Noumea, New Caledonia, Overseas France]. While driving around, they found some women and tried to talk to them. The women threw rocks at them. They ran into some Seabees [Annotator's Note: members of US naval construction battalions] who gave them two new jeeps. The war ended and the ship went into San Francisco [Annotator's Note: San Francisco, California]. While there, they gave the supply officer one of the jeeps, since he lived nearby. He ended up returning it to the nearby Air Force base. A couple of years later, Wade saw that the supply officer had become an executive of the Ford Motor Company. After the war, Wade went over to his house for a party. He enjoyed being with his Navy friends again. They attended reunions together. Ford Motor Company sent a plane down to pick up his daughter after a bad accident. The supply officer enjoyed drinking and telling stories.

While on watch duty [Annotator's Note: aboard the USS Aldebaran (AF-10)], Nelsyn Ernest Brooks Wade studied the stars. During the night watch, he would work four hours and have eight hours off. The weather was beautiful. He rarely saw bad weather. While in convoy, the ships were all spread out. The convoy sailed into a typhoon. The weather was rough, and it was difficult to rest. The men with hammocks had an easier time resting, but Wade lived in a room with another officer with bunk beds. They had loaded two six by six trucks and a bulldozer in their biggest hold. The bulldozer was not guided well and did not have its brakes on. When the ship rolled side to side, the bulldozer would shift around, destroying the two trucks. Eventually, a sailor managed to get the brakes set. On the top deck, another piece of equipment was not set right, and it would roll around. Wade tried to put books around his mattress to keep him from rolling out of his bunk. The convoy was totally scattered after the storm. Wade was supposed to help wherever he was needed during air raids. After the war ended, Wade's ship took a load into San Francisco [Annotator's Note: San Francisco, California] to be refurbished, then he was sent to Shanghai, China to pick up the 14th Air Force. It was formed by Claire Chennault [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces Major General Claire Lee Chennault] and would fly the Hump [Annotator's Note: aerial supply route over the Himalayan Mountains between India and China]. On the way, Wade's ship brought fresh troops to the Philippines. When the boat anchored, small vessels started floating around his ship selling trinkets. At night, some boats came out with prostitutes. There was only a skeleton crew on the ship, and Wade tried to keep the smaller vessels away. There were not enough men on the ship to cover the whole ship. He turned on the lights and decided to shoot his .45 pistol [Annotator's Note: .45 caliber M1911 semi-automatic pistol] into the air. Suddenly he heard someone ask him to stop firing. The ship loaded up and went to China to pick up the 14th Air Force. His ship carried over 1,000 of the Flying Tigers [Annotator's Note: Flying Tigers was the nickname of the First American Volunteer Group or AVG of the Chinese Air Force; the groups assigned to the United States 14th Air Force in China, following the disbanding of the AVG, also used that nickname]. The men had to be quartered anywhere they could fit. Wade became the executive officer [Annotator's Note: also referred to as XO; the second in command of a unit or ship]. In China, his roommate was on deck duty when a Chinese-American soldier asked if he could bring a young boy aboard. The deck officer would not allow the boy aboard out of fear of court martial [Annotator's Note: military trial]. The boy was snuck aboard anyway. The ship's crew helped hide the child. Eventually the kid was found. The crew treated the kid well and the Air Force soldiers made him a uniform. A war correspondent came aboard the ship.

While off the coast of Washington state, there were large logs floating in the water. Nelsyn Ernest Brooks Wade tried hard to avoid the logs. The skipper asked why the ship [Annotator's Note: USS Aldebaran (AF-10)] was changing course so much. He was told to keep a straight course and the logs would float away. Wade's ship docked in Tacoma [Annotator's Note: Tacoma, Washington]. A large crowd came out to greet the ship. Some of the men jumped off the ship onto the pier, but nobody got hurt. Wade felt good being back in the United States. Everyone was happy. Just before leaving Shanghai [Annotator's Note: Shanghai, China], a war correspondent joined the crew of the ship. Wade had a room to himself. The correspondent stayed in the same room as the Chinese-American soldier. That soldier was afraid of being court martialed for bringing a stowaway aboard. In Tacoma, the crew told the immigration people, who then took the kid and his benefactor. The boy made it in the newspapers. The soldier's parents adopted the boy. After some time, the boy grew up, became a preacher and had a family. He would go to the ship's reunions. Wade keeps in contact with him.

Nelsyn Ernest Brooks Wade does not know how World War 2 changed him. After he left the service, he wanted to go back to Baylor [Annotator's Note: Baylor University] in Waco [Annotator's Note: Waco, Texas]. He used the G.I. Bill to return to school. He went to the Baylor, where he met his future wife. Wade thinks it is important for kids to study World War 2 history. His father wanted him to come back to San Augustine [Annotator's Note: San Augustine, Texas]. He offered Wade the first 50 calves born to get him to come home. He helped run the movie house. It took two years for the 50 cows to be born. Wade ended up working on the farm. He had four children after the war. Wade would like future generations to worship God and ask him to take care of them like he was taken care of. He wanted people to do what they can for their country when it is in danger. [Annotator's Note: Wade sings some of his ship's songs]. He is thankful for making it through the war, his family, his wife, that the United States survived all of its wars, and he is thankful for God. He operated a successful furniture store. He feels blessed.