My father, Robert Lawrence Hess, was born on 29 September 1924 in Orange, New Jersey. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy.  He was in sea service during WWII.  Here are some details of his service in the Navy.

Robert Hess attended the V-12 (victory 12 Navy College Training) at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan. This quote is from the link below, “The purpose of the V-12 program was to generate a large number of officers for both the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps to meet the demands of World War II, far beyond that turned out annually by the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis and standing U.S. Naval Reserve Midshipmen’s School to that point.” program. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-12_Navy_College_Training_Program

In 1945, my father received 2 BSE degrees from the University of Michigan which he had earned in under 3 years time.  One degree was in Engineering Mechanics and the other one in Engineering Mathematics.

He went  on to officer training at Columbia University, New York.

He served as a Junior Division Officer, Main Engines Division, on a heavy cruiser called the USS Oregon City. His rank was Ensign.

Later, he served as an auxiliary Division officer on a pair of light escort carriers the USS Kula Gulf CVE-108 and the USS Manila Bay CVE-12

I believe that he received an American Theatre ribbon and a Victory Ribbon WWII.  As I understand it, the American Theatre described the Navy’s desire to secure the home land from the Axis powers.

Other military work:

In 1957 my father was given the title of Technical Director of Project Michigan.  He was instrumental in extending optical data processing to the field of automatic photo-interpretation.  He was able to apply his knowledge of physics and mathematics to research teams who represented them to general officers of the U.S. Army and the Department of Defense. The Department of the Army awarded him the Outstanding Civilian Service Award and Metal.

In 1964-1965 my father was the personal representative of the U.S. Army’s Chief of Staff for Intelligence and led teams of scientists through a comprehensive field review of the Army’s Combat Surveillance capabilities both in Europe and Korea.  The Army implemented over 70% of this technical recommendations for the Korea area.

My father would also become a civilian consultant to the Secretary of the Army, ASA (R&D), Chief of Staff, and the Chief of Research and Development to advise on scientific and related matters to the Army.