Yogi Berra is a former Major League baseball catcher, manager and coach, and generally considered to be one of the best catchers to ever play the game. His entire nineteen year career was spend playing for the New York Yankees He is one of only four players to be named MVP three times, and one of only seven managers to lead both an American League and National League team to the World Series. All totaled, as a player, coach, and manager, Berra appeared in twenty-one World Series, winning thirteen of them. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1972.
At the age of eighteen, Berra put his baseball career on hold by joining the Navy in 1943. He was trained as a gunner’s mate, and also worked on a rocket launching boat. He served in such a capacity on D-Day in Normandy, France. For twelve days his boat was given the job of shooting down enemy aircraft over Normandy, and he also served in the second assault on France where he received a medal from the French government. Sixty years later he received the Lone Sailor Award from the U.S. Navy Memorial. When the war ended, he resumed his baseball career and the rest, as they say, is history.
We hope you found that brief biography interesting, and we invite you to return next week when we will once again highlight a famous American who served during the war. We also invite you twice a week to read our “This Day in World War 2,” a short synopsis of what happened during particular days in that war. We think you will enjoy it.
And we know you will enjoy Aces High once you give it a try. Strap on your helmet and fly the skies with Aces High.
