WESTPORT — World War II veteran Joe Schachter, as grand marshal of the town’s Memorial Day parade Monday, will lead the salute to the armed forces’ men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice in service to the nation.

Hit hard by the Great Depression, Schachter’s father, Max, who owned gas stations in Norwalk, was forced into bankruptcy. He sold the family car and took a job working in a hat factory. Although times were tough, Schachter, now 90, said that the family was resilient and got by.

On Dec 7, 1941, the day Pearl Harbor was attacked by the Japanese, Schachter remembers walking home from the Palace Theater to his house, where he found his parents listening intently to the radio. His mother, Jennie, was weeping; her brother had served in the World War I and suffered from being gassed. Looking back, Schachter said he understood that she was crying for fear that her two sons would be called to fight in the new war.

After graduating Norwalk High School at the age of 17, Schachter, who as a youngster spent a lot of time fishing with his father and as a Sea Scout (a marine division of the Boy Scouts of America), chose to enlist in the Navy rather than wait to be drafted.

On July 1, 1943, with the war already raging, Schachter reported for duty, trained and took classes at midshipmen’s school at Trinity College, followed by midshipmen’s school at Cornell University (both institutions served as makeshift naval training sites). After commissioning, he was selected to attend Advanced Line Officer Training School in Miami.

Schachter was assigned to the Wilkes Barre, a 606-foot ship with a contingent of more than 600 men. He boarded in Eniwetok in the Pacific’s Marshall Islands and the ship made its way to Tokyo Bay. Shortly after arriving there, the ship was deployed to China’s Upper Yellow Sea in response to the Nationalist government’s request for U.S. military presence in order to help stop Communists approaching from Manchuria.

After three and a half years’ active duty service in the Navy, and 17 years total, Schachter left the service with the rank of lieutenant junior grade. He then went back to Trinity and graduated in 1948. He went on to a 30-year advertising career, during which he played an instrumental role in successful ad campaigns for Ray-Ban sunglasses, Ford and the American Red Cross, among others.

Frustrated by weekday rail commutes from Westport to his New York City office that could take up to three hours, Schachter in 1970 helped to organize the Commuters Action Committee, which lobbied public officials to address the region’s railroad problems and distributed information about the issues to more than 18,000 commuters.

Shortly before Westport’s Memorial Day ceremonies, in which he will play a large role as parade grand marshal, Schachter sat down to talk with the Westport News.

Westport News: What were your thoughts when you enlisted as a 17-year-old?

Joe Schachter: Before I went in, I was interviewed and given an opportunity to get into a naval officer’s program. So when I went in, I immediately jumped into an officer training program.

There was a great degree of naiveté as most of us have at that age — you don’t put it all together. Current events are something that happen sort of in the other world, which you really aren’t into as a kid. I knew there was a war on, I knew it was terrible and, of course, I wanted to do my part. I didn’t, for a minute, think that I should shirk my responsibility. All my buddies who were older had gone in and it was not only the thing to do, but it was the thing you wanted to do. No, I didn’t hesitate one moment. I was anxious to get in there.

WN: What was training like at Advanced Line Officer Training School?

Schachter: One of the things they trained us in was damage control. They would tie up a regular vessel on the docks and put us down below in sneakers and old clothes. They would close the hatch and seal it and then they would start flooding it with the lights out and we would use our training to stop the inflow of water, and if we didn’t, the water would get up pretty high before they would open the hatch. So we learned to take mattresses and tie them around pipes that were leaking.

There was a four-story hotel that stuck out over the water and we had to learn how to jump off of that, simulating a jump from an aircraft carrier. They found that a lot of the guys who jumped in the water had broken necks because the cork in the life preservers, if you didn’t have it on tight, would come up and break their necks.

WN: You braved enemy fire to get one of your men back to the ship safely. Talk about that experience.

Schachter: In late 1945 one of our guys went ashore and was put in a prison in Ching Wang Tao. The Communists were getting pretty close so there was a need to get the guy back so I took the Jeep that was on the dock and drove 15 miles into town — I could hear the firing going. After I picked him up, when I headed back, the Nationalists had started moving their emplacements up against the road — they didn’t want to lose the road.

I heard the Communists coming closer and the firing started and I maneuvered in and out of the ditches on both sides of the road to stay underneath the bullets. The seaman (who Schachter picked up) curled down and climbed almost underneath the dashboard to get out of the way. It was a little hairy there for a while.

WN: What was your reaction when you found out you were named grand marshal of the parade?

Schachter: I was overwhelmed, truly overwhelmed. I knew five or six of the guys who were grand marshals. Every one of them were just outstanding men … having followed in their footsteps is quite humbling for a kid from Norwalk who lived through the Depression … never expecting to go to college, but by a fluke, was able to go through the Navy and all the stuff that went with it.

WN: What does Memorial Day mean to you?

Schachter: Memorial Day tends to have lost its meaning — for most of us is a parade with kids marching, having fun and seeing the flag go by. But the real meaning is it’s dedicated as a memorial to those who went off to war and didn’t make it. They did what they had to do to protect this country — all those bronze plaques that we have in our communities with the names of those who were in service and then a special plaque of those who didn’t come back.

WN: What does the flag mean to you?

Schachter: (When saluting the flag) I say amen because to me it’s almost a religious prayer, our Pledge of Allegiance. I knew some of the guys that didn’t come back. And knowing what’s happened to the country from the time Franklin D. Roosevelt pulled into Norwalk on the green, three hours late, but still, hundreds of us waited to see him because the war was on and getting the feeling of seeing this man and the vitality of this country and what it has become since I have been on this earth has been overwhelming positive.

WN: What makes Westport special for you?

Schachter: The town of Westport, which is called unique by so many people — unique is not the word. Somehow it has managed to provide more for our citizens than is provided by most other communities in the entire state, let alone the entire country.

There’s so many things we can do at the senior center — the Y’s men, that I belong to, presents opportunities for retired men to become active.

Who else, when he turned 90 (Schachter recently celebrated his 90th birthday), would see the first selectman come in the door, Jim Marpe came in our front door on a Saturday afternoon and read a commendation, which he officially signed and put the seal on, complimented me on a few things I did for the town. That’s typical of the town we live in and the kind of people we are.

@chrismmarquette / cmarquette@bcnnew.com

https://www.westport-news.com/news/article/Q-A-Parade-grand-marshal-Joe-Schachter-reflects-7948882.php

Joe Schachter WWII vet, who served in the Navy, will be the grand marshal of this year's Memorial Day parade (2016).Chris Marquette Hearst Connecticut Media

Joseph Schachter, the WWII vet who is this year's Memorial Day parade grand marshal, photographed as a 19-year-old in the Navy aboard the Wilkes Barre. Contributed photo

Joseph Schachter (1925)