A Boatswain's Story

About the Book

About the Author

Born in 1917, Gordon D. Perkins enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1937. A native of Volney, Virginia, Perkins served his country as a sailor for 24 years, including active duty in World War II and the Korean conflict. As a Boatswain on the aircraft carrier USS Hornet CV-8, Perkins participated in the famous Doolittle Raid, the secret attack on Tokyo and other Japanese cities ordered by President Roosevelt in response to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. After serving on numerous ships on duty assignments that took him around the world, Mr. Perkins retired from the Navy in 1961 at the rank of WO-4. After his naval career, he lived and worked in Florida for a number of years. One of his favorite and most memorable jobs during the early 1960s was working as a welder on the construction of the Hall of Presidents, an attraction at a fledgling amusement park in central Florida, named Disney World. Perkins eventually made his way back to old Virginia, where he now lives with his wife Sharon in the city of Bristol, less than 75 miles from the mountain valley where we was born and raised.