Every Day is Navy Day

About the Book

"Every Day Is Navy Day" tells the story in anecdotal form of a young man whose boyhood goal, frustrated at every turn, was to attend Annapolis and become a naval officer. As a result of this frustration, he leaps at the opportunity to earn a commission in the naval reserve. Fewer than three months after receiving the single gold stripe of an ensign at age twenty, he is in the midst of Japanese bombs falling during the attack on Pearl Harbor. Interactions with superior officers, shipmates and occasionally with civilians during brief excursions ashore are interwoven with battle experiences, a mutinous assembly reminiscent of "The Caine Mutiny," the "Marianas Turkey Shoot," the slaughter at Pelilieu and many humorous shipboard incidents.

Between wars, a cruise in the "China station," is followed by participation in three atomic bomb tests at Eniwetok. Incidental reunions with high school and college classmates in remote regions of the Pacific defy all odds. Following the atomic tests, the author was ordered to flight training and received his "Wings of Gold" just in time to deploy as a pilot with a naval aviation squadron to Iwakuni, Japan for participation in the Korean War.

A two-year tour ashore as the assistant professor of Naval Science at the University of Minnesota piques his interest in teaching, while interaction with his growing family generates some frustration with his chosen career as a seagoing officer and leads to changes in his plans for the rest of his life.

A projected third volume of these memoirs, covering his years on the staff of the high school from which he graduated, will be titled "It's not School I Hate; It's the Principal of the Thing," while the fourth volume is tentatively titled "Paradise Revisited."

About the Author

Fritz Bertsch was born in Chicago in 1920, but shortly thereafter, moved with his family to his father's hometown of Holland, Michigan, where he was educated in a two-room country school, Holland High School and Hope College, from which he graduated in 1941.

He enlisted in the U.S. Naval Reserve during his junior year in college and spent the following summer vacation as an unpaid sailor aboard an ancient battleship. Toward the end of his senior year, he was recalled to active duty, beginning a thirty-three year navy career that included the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Pacific War at sea in destroyers, participation in atomic bomb tests and flying in the Korean War. He rose in naval rank from apprentice seaman to captain, received thirteen campaign medals and was decorated several times.

After his naval career, he was associated with famed Bill Lear in aviation for several challenging years, followed by another challenging change of course when he returned to school at Western Michigan University, earned a master's degree, and entered the field of education both as a teacher and principal at the high school from which three generations of the Bertsch family had graduated. Four children, some entrepreneurial activities, a spate of yachting and an active social life provided plenty of excitement during those years.

Following the tragic death of his wife of fifty-five years, renewal was found when he married a widow whose enthusiasm and shared interests sparked new life and adventure to end years of depression and frustration. The "newly weds", now married for ten years, speak of themselves as "two of the world's oldest teenagers," and have extended their honeymoon annually by traveling to Europe, Hawaii, Costa Rica, the Canadian Rockies and other destinations. Captain Bertsch and his wife, Dorothy live in Palm City, Florida and are slowing only gradually as they speed through their eighties.