Veterans Voices: Carter Co. man is last World War II sailor from his LCI ship
ELIZABETHTON, Tenn. (WJHL) — Most people in Elizabethton know Bill Armstrong, Jr. as the principal of Harold McCormick Elementary School, but he’s also the last known World War II sailor from his landing craft infantry (LCI) ship.
“I was 17 years old. I had to get my parents to sign the paper to let me go in,” Armstrong said.
His stint in the military started by skipping class with his friends.
“Then the principal came out and caught us and he said, you fellas have got to go to school or go to the service,” Armstrong said. “So, we decided to see if we could get our parents to sign the papers to go to the service and we did.”
He joined the Navy and was assigned to an LCI that had rocket launchers on each side.
“We lined up out from the island and got ready to go into the island and fire our rockets and our guns on the beach so that the troops could go in and land and take the island,” he said.
He didn’t like seaman’s work so he became a signalman helping to decode and communicate messages.
“I was a signalman after I learned to do it during the morse code and the semaphore,” he said.
His ship was part of several invasions and experienced close calls.
“I looked over the side of the ship and there was a mine floating in it…a mine in the water,” he said. “So, I told the captain that there’s a mine down there.”
But he came out unscathed and his ship was never hit.
“It was a scary time. The kamikaze had come in the morning and in the evening and attacked ships,” he said. “They went for the big ships. They didn’t go for us small ships.”
Armstrong got out and went to school but stayed in touch with his shipmates through reunions.
“As the time went by, all of them died off except me,” he said.
He was even featured in an LCI magazine after painting his warship from memory.
“I didn’t know anything about ships. I’d never seen the ocean or anything,” he said. “I just decided the Navy would be the best thing to do.”
That time in the Navy also inspired him.
“I didn’t care much about school and then I got in the Navy and I kind of figured out I needed an education,” he said. “I needed something to do.”
He used the GI Bill to go to college and became a teacher. He was the principal of Harold McCormick Elementary School for 24 years.
“It’s a good job,” he said, “Best job in education.”
The Armstrong family has strong ties to the military. Bill’s father served in the Army in World War I and his son followed in his footsteps in the Navy.
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