Thomas Amico was born in June 1926, the fourth of four children of Italian immigrants who settled into an area called Cabbage Hill in Lancaster [Annotator's Note: Lancaster, Pennsylvania]. His mother died when he was six. When Pearl Harbor was attacked, Amico was too young to do anything about it. He attended parochial school until he was a sophomore in high school, when he joined the armed forces in 1943 at the age of 17. Amico always liked the water, and wanted to get away from home, so he went to the local post office and enlisted in the Navy. He endured the cold of Great Lakes for his basic training, emerging as Seaman Second Class. He mustered through California and was dropped off at Noumea, New Caledonia, a place he never before new existed, for duty on a PT boat [Annotator's Note: Patrol Torpedo boat]. He had no training on PT boats before arriving at his destination.

Thomas Amico was assigned to PT-155, which was one boat in a squadron of 12. The crew was friendly, in spite of being stationed on what Amico described as a miserable, bug-ridden island. The hospital there, caring for survivors from Guadalcanal, was first class, but everybody else was lodged in tents, and there was no recreation. Amico started as an apprentice gunner, and after a month or two, he could operate all the guns, tear them down and put them back together again. He took care of all the armor on the ship. He got all his training at sea, and all on PT-155. The mission was to keep the Japanese military from supplying their troops on Guadalcanal. The enemy's barges were easy targets: clumsy and slow, with only a 30mm gun on the bow, and quick to go down. The Air Force took care of them during the day, and the PT boats patrolled at night, with three guys on watch in three hour shifts from six at night until six in the morning. The barges were usually picked up on radar, then the general alarm would sound and everyone would go to guns. The officer on duty would decide how they were going to run on the barge, and the PT boat would start slow, then hit three speeds ahead and make a sweep with all guns bearing. During Amico's time on the boat, PT-155 never fired a torpedo. Throughout Amico's tenure, the crew depended entirely on the deck guns: a 40mm on the stern, a 37mm and a 20mm on the bow, and two sets of twin .50 caliber machine guns. It was a lot fire power. As a gunner's mate, Amico manned twin .50s. The PTs were essentially gun boats, when one made a pass, everything was gone. Every morning, PT-155 returned to base. The sailors put a tarp over the deck, and used their life jackets as a pillow, and their ponchos as a blanket, to get what sleep they could. The officers had it a little better, and Amico mentioned that his skipper, Lt(j.g.) Malcolm Toon, went on to be the Ambassador to Moscow.

Thomas Amico's vessel [Annotator's Note: PT-155, Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron 9 (MTBRon 9)] was moving "up the line" all the time, all the way to the Philippines. He went ashore every chance he had, to see what was going on. On one occasion, he saw a performance by Bob Hope in an open amphitheater on Treasure Island. It was good entertainment. While ashore, the sailors could put up a tent to sleep. PT-155 was not a comfortable resting place. Below deck was too hot and the boat would roll. Not much of a writer, Amico would occasionally fold a V-letter in half and mail it. There was good harmony among the crew, a must in close quarters. He usually stuck with two other buddies, and didn't spend much money; he sent half his pay home. Ships parties were frequent and free. Once, when the PT boat was being overhauled, he had R&R [Annotator's Note: Rest and Recuperation] for two weeks in a hotel in Australia. The sailors also attended movies, and Amico liked to play a peg board game [Annotator's Note: Amico is likely referring to the game cribbage] with his skipper [Annotator's Note: Lt(j.g.) Malcolm Toon]. The crew patrolled almost every night, depending on the situation. Sometimes they transported six man raiding parties to or from shore, and it could be daunting to get so close. A couple of those drops were at dry docks occupied by the Japanese. Amigo didn't think about it in the heat of battle, but after the fact he would know he could have lost his life. Nevertheless, they left those docks in shambles. [Annotator's Note: Amico laughs.]

Thomas Amico island-hopped for a year; the war was winding down; the big naval battles were over. Amico doesn't remember where he was, but recalls that it was his skipper who told him the war had ended. PT boats didn't get Stars and Stripes newsletters; they were rather independent units that relied on shore mess halls for their food. PT-155's last mission took place just before they reached the Philippine Islands. At Samar, the crew was ordered ashore, and all the PT boats were burned. Amico was sad to see his vessel go, and was angry that he didn't get a good souvenir before it was destroyed. The crew thought they would be reassigned, but everybody got a 30-day leave, and without farewells of any kind, they split up. Amico went home, and at the end of his leave, traveled to Boston, then California, and was shipped back to the Philippines to an ammunition depot for rest of his Navy days.

Thomas Amico thinks his four-year Naval career made him smarter. He learned a lot, gained confidence and became somebody. He remembers his final experience working with the natives when he went back to the Philippine Islands, as the Navy scuttled equipment that was too expensive to send back. When he got home he went to trade school and learned to be a maintenance machinist, but there were not many jobs around. Amico went to work for the fire department, and stayed there 27 years, until a back injury forced him into retirement. Retrospectively, he believes that although he didn't get into service until late in the war, he did his share.