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Kamikaze planes hit the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Intrepid five times and the flames and smoke is an image seared into the memory of Morea.
“We were with the Intrepid when it got hit by a Kamikaze – the Kamikaze missed our ship – and four of them hit the Intrepid. I saw that that day and I thought the Intrepid was going down,” Morea said. “So many kids lost their lives on that.”
Morea was a young radio operator on the light cruiser, the USS Vincennes.
The 95-year-old World War II veteran now lives in Manhattan, not far from New York city's floating naval museum, which lives in the Intrepid.
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“Eerie, it was eerie to see that day when I was a youngster that all those planes crashing into the Intrepid and then coming back here to see it as a museum – that was something – unbelievable,” he tells WCBS 880.
Morea remembers when the war ended, the crew was happy, but they didn't celebrate. They still had a job to do.
However, he says emotions finally took over when he was able to reunite with his family in New York.
“First thing is they cried, I cried and we had pasta. My mother had pasta – I love pasta! She was a great cook,” Morea says.
