Ralph R. Hopkins was born in 1926 in New Orleans. The Great Depression made times difficult, but growing up was not bad for Hopkins. He had clothes passed down to him that he passed on after he outgrew them. His neighborhood near Lake Pontchartrain was integrated and had no race problems. The children made their own toys and knew how to entertain themselves. Near Hopkins' neighborhood was Higgins Industries [Annotator's Note: owned by Andrew Jackson Higgins] where the landing barges were built. He saw the boats as they were completed. Higgins originally built the Eureka for the oil industry to use in the swamps. It had a rounded nose and could run up on the bank. The Navy selected that boat, and it was later redesigned to have a ramp on the front. PT boats [Annotator's Note: patrol torpedo boats] were also built and tested by Higgins near Hopkins' home. Hopkins had a sailboat so he was often on the lake. He could observe the Higgins boats being tested. The Eureka was run up the concrete seawall and then withdrawn. It was a tough boat. Hopkins heard about the attack on Pearl Harbor while he was gathering mistletoe to decorate the house for Christmas. His father worked for a newspaper which was a good job. He knew about the Japanese aggression in Asia and China. He had a map that he used to trace events. Hopkins and his father used the map to discuss the war. Hopkins' father was drafted in World War 1 and thought it would happen again. It worried him because he was supporting other family members who did not have jobs during the tough times of the Depression. Hopkins was 15 years old at the time of the attack. He wanted to join the Navy or Air Force. Many neighbors and friends went into the service. Hopkins helped with their previous jobs. Women joined the workforce to compensate for the men going into the service.

Ralph Hopkins wanted to join the Navy at 17 years of age, but his father refused. Hopkins could have gotten a job deferment but declined it. His father agreed shortly thereafter to sign his enlistment papers even though his son was still 17. Some men on Hopkins' ship [Annotator's Note: USS Louisville (CA-28)] joined as young as 15 or 16 years of age by lying about their age. His mother fretted but Hopkins was no baby. Boot camp was rough. Obstacle courses and other tough training exercises were performed in conjunction with the Marines. Some men would lie in bed and cry at night. Hopkins had no problems because he had prepared his body for that in his youth. After boot camp, Hopkins trained on LCVPs, the landing crafts [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft Vehicle, Personnel, also referred to as Higgins Boats]. The propeller is halfway into the hull on the boat. In rough weather, the boat can be unstable. Each crewman on the landing boat was cross-trained in case another man was injured. The boats were intended to cycle new troops and cargo to the beach and return to the ships with wounded. While the boat was being loaded on the beach, it was subject to enemy attack. After the landing craft training, Hopkins went to Shoemaker in California [Annotator's Note: Camp Shoemaker was in the San Francisco Bay area near what is now Dublin, California]. It was a dispersing area. Hopkins ended up in a hospital for three days. During that time, his group was deployed. Hopkins' seabag and his personal items went along with his former group. Hopkins became a straggler and was assigned to the heavy cruiser USS Louisville (CA-28).

Ralph Hopkins ended up on a cruiser [Annotator's Note: USS Louisville (CA-28)] which was luxurious compared to a landing craft. Food and accommodations were far superior to other branches of the service. Danger existed anywhere. Eight cruisers were sunk and many more damaged during the war. Hopkins qualified to work on the bridge in navigation. He qualified to be a quartermaster striker. A striker meant he had no rate but was working toward it. His civilian navigation experience would have benefited him. He ultimately chose instead to be a seaman second class in the deck force. He would reach seaman first class but then drop back to 2 class when it was to his advantage. Most of his shipboard time, he stood gun watch. His general quarters, or GQ, station was in the magazine handling gunpowder. The ship had nine eight inch guns in three turrets. Two turrets were forward and one was aft. A shell was about 380 pounds and required two bags of powder to blow it out of the gun. Hopkins handled the powder. The powder magazine was surrounded by thick armored plating. The powder came in silk bags so ladies no longer had the silk stockings back on the homefront. Most of Hopkins time involved lookout for enemy aircraft for the 40mm gun crew. Those guns were manned at all times. Supply ships were protected by picket ships that surrounded them. At Okinawa, 35 of those picket destroyers and smaller defensive ships were lost. The primary target for kamikazes was aircraft carriers, but they went after the transports, too. Cruisers would escort and protect the larger ships. Attacking kamikazes came in fast. They were piloted by inexperienced airmen. Eight or ten might come in at a time with 15 ships firing on them. Each ship claimed shooting down multiple enemy aircraft and often the same ones. The thought of the situation is worse than the reality. A plane might be approaching a ship with its pilot already dead from gunfire. The men got to joking about the situation. Hopkins and his relief man would do four hours on watch and four hours off. Daylight was the usual time for the suicide planes to come in because they would come out of the sun. Sunset was also a dangerous time. The Louisville would occasionally go to the transport area and rest. The crew could get one or two nights of sleep. The Louisville, along with other cruisers and battleships, would be used to destroy Japanese resistance in the city of Naha on Okinawa. The large ships leveled the city to eliminate enemy snipers who had been firing on the Marines. Nothing was left standing after the ships completed their assignment. Today, Naha is totally rebuilt and modern city.

Ralph Hopkins had a relief man named Ronald Lucas. They worked well with each other. They alternated watches to best facilitate the other man getting to the mess hall. Food was good but disappeared fast so it was beneficial to get there early. Lucas and Hopkins had a system worked out to facilitate each man alternating an early arrival at the mess hall when the chow was plentiful. Payday usually resulted in gambling that ended up with men running out of funds. Hopkins was not often lucky. On 5 June [Annotator's Note: 5 June 1945] off Okinawa, Hopkins was on a winning streak. He seemingly could not lose no matter how he bet. He delayed relieving Lucas because of his streak. He finally went to his locker with his winnings and was getting ready to relieve Lucas. An explosion occurred. Hopkins left his locker open with his 700 dollar winnings and two apples he had planned to have on his late shift. The ship filled with smoke and the chaos of men rushing to fight the damages. A Japanese suicide plane had crashed next to the gun where Ronald Lucas was standing. It took 16 men to operate a 40mm quad mount with its four barrels. All 16 were killed. When the fire and ordnance dangers subsided and were under control, Hopkins returned to his locker. The money had not been taken but the two apples were gone. Likewise, his relief man was gone, too. He would be assigned another man the next day. The Louisville [Annotator's Note: USS Louisville (CA-28)] returned to the transport area. A smaller vessel pulled alongside to remove the 19 dead men from the attack. The bodies were placed in body bags and put on a pallet to be lowered to the smaller vessel. Since each kamikaze carried a 500 pound or larger bomb, the bodies had largely disintegrated. When Hopkins reached the kamikaze impact point on the Louisville, there was twisted steel, blood and bodies. It was gruesome. It took three days to clean up. Parts of the Japanese plane were evident. One of the radio shacks nearby had two men killed instantly. Another man was in the gear locker suffering from shock. Hopkins removed him from the locker. The man was helpless. It took days for the man to come out of the shock.

Ralph Hopkins participated in the battle of Okinawa [Annotator's Note: while aboard the USS Louisville (CA-28)]. It was a larger operation than the invasion of Normandy. The overall plan for the war in the Pacific was made by President Roosevelt, Admiral King and General Marshall [Annotator's Note: President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Fleet Admiral and Chief of Naval Operations Ernest J. King and US Army General and Chief of Staff of the US Army George C. Marshall]. It was envisioned to draw a line between Guadalcanal and Tokyo and capture the islands along that line. Bombers would then be positioned on those bases to attack the industrial complexes of Japan. The Philippines was planned to be bypassed because it was not on that line. Guadalcanal therefore became a prime objective. While Hopkins and the Louisville were bombarding Okinawa, they ran out of ammunition. The ship had to replenish its supplies by returning to the transport area. When the ship was hit by a kamikaze, it was out of action for four days and lost some of its eight boilers. Top speed was not possible but the cruiser could still guard aircraft carriers. The ship was sent back to Pearl Harbor for repairs. No one had heard of the atomic bomb. The crew had heard of the 7,000 kamikazes that would be defending the home islands and knew what that would mean. It took five weeks to repair the ship and its boilers. Voyaging west after repair, the ship learned of the dropping of the first atomic bomb. The crew was relieved. They thought they would return home by Christmas. That did not happen. The ship was diverted to Manchuria to pick up General Wainwright [Annotator's Note: US Army General Jonathan Wainwright commanded American forces in the Philippines prior to its surrender to the Japanese in May 1942] from prison camp. MacArthur [Annotator's Note: US Army General Douglas MacArthur] had required that Wainwright participate in the Japanese surrender. A hospital ship was sent to aid the abused and sick prisoners of war. With Wainwright safely on a plane to Japan as MacArthur desired, the Louisville was then sent to Tsingtao to accept the surrender of five Japanese naval vessels. The crew was concerned whether the enemy would actually surrender, so boarding vessels were first sent to the Japanese ships to confirm their weapons were disabled. The weapons were disarmed so the ceremonial surrender was held in the picturesque harbor. Meanwhile, each morning ship's company would exchange food for American liquor with the local population. The locals came up to the ship in their sampans. The liquor had been stolen from the black market and was traded for clothes or food. Though the sailors did not get drunk, they maintained a good supply of booze in their lockers. The skipper eventually used fire hoses to drive away the sampans. Leaving Tsingtao, Louisville traveled to another Chinese port to accept more enemy surrenders. The crew was awarded by a local dignitary with two bottles of sake for each man. There were 1,200 men on Louisville and an escorting destroyer had about 300 men so that represented a lot of sake. There were seagoing Marines guarding the stored liquor. Each cruiser had a contingent of seagoing Marines that guarded the captain or admiral if he was aboard ship. They were a different lot than the mud Marines who assaulted the islands. There were about 50 Marines aboard. They were assigned watch on a particular gun on the ship. The Navy crew referred to them as "seagoing bellhops" and an easy-going rivalry developed between men of the two services. Meanwhile, the captain kept the sake stores away from the crew.

Ralph Hopkins and his ship [Annotator's Note: the USS Louisville (CA-28)] passed through minefields along the Chinese coast. Their escort by the USS Herndon (DD-638) was beneficial since the larger ship had no submarine detection equipment while the smaller warship did. With the surrender of the Japanese, the Chinese Nationalists and Communists had restarted their civil war. The Louisville made sure to identify itself as being American so as not to be fired upon. The cruiser used its anti-mine equipment as it passed through the minefields. Drifting mines were a particular problem as they floated aimlessly. Lookouts watched for them and mines were shot at to destroy them. Antiaircraft guns were also manned in case some Japanese pilot decided not to surrender. The ritual onboard each day at noon was for Hopkins and others to sweep the well deck. On one occasion, the lookouts missed seeing a drifting mine that was 60 feet from the ship. It was too close to target because of potential shrapnel injury to the crew. An inexperienced officer called for it to be destroyed but the gun crew purposely missed the target because they realized that shrapnel would injure some of the crew. Meanwhile, that officer turned the ship in harm's way and the mine was sucked under her and through the propellers. It was amazing that it did not explode. Hopkins, seeing all this, had moved quicker to get to cover than he thought he could. [Annotator's Note: Hopkins laughs.] Had it exploded, the rear of the ship would have been heavily damaged with casualties resulting. The men in the engine room were at risk with the mines where they had felt relatively safe against the kamikazes. Some were so tense that they could not work. They could not concentrate on engine room maintenance.

Ralph Hopkins and his ship [Annotator's Note: the USS Louisville (CA-28)] continued along the Chinese coast to accept Japanese surrenders. The ship made its way to Tientsin [Annotator's Note: Tianjin, China]. There were starving and dead people everywhere. Food was available if a person had money to buy it. The Chinese warlords controlled the food. Hopkins and other crewmen distributed rice and other food to the young people. Hopkins had a difficult time eating during that time. The Russians who were there did not care. They were cruel. Hopkins had traveled to the city by LCVP [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft Vehicle, Personnel, or Higgins Boat] landing craft. He returned to the ship by PT boat [Annotator's Note: patrol torpedo boat]. He traveled about 15 miles upriver where the scene was terrible. Dead were everywhere. The warlord system in China resulted in famines through hundreds of years. Only the smart people managed to survive the hardships during those years. The Japanese were superior fighters who fought to the death. The mud Marines [Annotator's Note: Marine ground troops not assigned to shipboard duty] had a difficult time with them. The women on the main islands of Japan had been trained to attack the invading forces. Women and children would have been killed in an invasion of the home islands. After Tientsin, the Louisville and Herndon [Annotator's Note: USS Herndon (DD-638) acted as an escort for the Louisville] continued down minefields without a detection system. They reached Chefoo [Annotator's Note: Yantai, China] to accept the surrender of 30,000 Japanese troops. Afterward, the crew was rotated to an island in the bay to consume their two bottles of sake [Annotator's Note: a Chinese dignitary had previously given two bottles to each Louisville crewman in celebration of the Japanese surrender]. Hopkins could barely walk after having three quarters of one bottle. Some men drank so much they passed out. He had to have help getting in the return boat. Some drunken sailors had to be dragged up the steps. The commanding officers had a great laugh looking at the inebriated seamen. [Annotator's Note: Hopkins laughs.] After that, the crews who rotated to the celebratory island were only allowed one bottle of sake for each man. The men were given Japanese weapons as souvenirs before leaving China. About 100 miles offshore, the remaining liquor stocks were all dumped overboard.

Ralph Hopkins and his ship [Annotator's Note: the USS Louisville (CA-28)] left China for Okinawa. From there, the ship carried about 1,800 passengers to Long Beach, California as part of the "Magic Carpet" program to return veterans to the United States from the Pacific. They were met with bands and dignitaries and welcome home signs. Red Cross volunteers served donuts and coffee. After all the passengers were ashore, half the crew was allowed shore leave. Hopkins met a young Red Cross worker and had a date with her that night. Louisville made three Magic Carpet runs with returning veterans. Each trip back, the same young lady waited on the pier for Hopkins. After Magic Carpet, Louisville was assigned to go through the Panama Canal to the Philadelphia Navy Yard for decommissioning ceremony. The young lady from Long Beach wanted to meet Hopkins in Philadelphia and get married. He declined even though she was lovely. He had a girlfriend back home. The girl from home would have heart problems and die when she was just 22 years of age. Hopkins had planned to stay in the Navy and even attend Annapolis. First came the mothballing or preservation of the ship for potential future service. That was to take about eight weeks. The ship arrived in the shipyard during freezing weather. A near miss with a sheared cable almost killed or severely injured Hopkins and several other sailors. Another potential incident with crew improper uniform of the day resulted in Hopkins saving the day for eight or ten sailors. He would get free drinks from them as a result. Hopkins went on to meet some new girls with his friend from Louisiana. East coast women were not as plentiful as those on the west coast where large numbers were involved in aircraft production and plant management. In Philadelphia, the way to meet a girl was to go to a USO show because there was so many military personnel in the city. Hopkins and his friend met some telephone operators from Harrisburg. When the sailors went there, they managed to get invited into a different family's home for dinner. There, they met two more young ladies who he and his friend took out on a date subsidized by the man who invited them to dinner. Hopkins learned how to make his way through life. [Annotator's Note: Hopkins laughs.]

Ralph Hopkins felt indestructible during the war because he acted by impulse. He did not feel fear. Things happened so quickly. Decades later, the fear would come along as panic attacks. When discussing this with his shipmates, they felt fear later. There were no bad dreams, but he felt edgy when he first left the Navy. His reaction was to go get a job. He did not get married because his girlfriend was sick. He was discharged in 1946. Hopkins obtained a good job, a new car and a sailboat, but he did not marry the girl he had originally intended to marry. He married another woman in 1954 after eight years of bachelorhood. He has some regrets about not marrying a few of the women he dated. All his friends seemed to get married so he was motivated to do the same. He married lady who died from lung disease at 77 years of age. For Hopkins, he served in the Navy because he had to do it. His generation grew up in the Depression and were lucky to have food and shelter. America is a great place to live and yet not all citizens appreciate this country. Today's civilians are different from those of Hopkins' era.

Ralph Hopkins felt people thought that World War 1 was the war to end all wars. Yet, there will always be someone like Adolf Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler] or Mussolini [Annotator's Note: Italian dictator Benito Mussolini]. We have too much dependence on technology and should have more warships in our fleet. Carriers, not battleships, turned out to be a major factor in winning World War 2. World War 2 stays in focus because of the millions of Jews who died, as well as, the huge number of civilians lost in Russia and China. Additionally, half a million Germans were murdered when they attempted to return to their homeland after the war. It is important to have institutions like The National WWII Museum and have schools teach civics and history. For all the problems with Trump [Annotator's Note: President Donald Trump], he is a good businessman. Young people should be taught about the war.