Robert Llewellyn Balfour |
![Image of Robert Llewellyn Balfour](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/eot2008/20090114130407im_/http://lcweb2.loc.gov/natlib/afc2001001/service/02531/ph0012001i.jpg)
Robert Balfour being awarded a medal by Admiral William Halsey, November 11, 1945. | World War II, 1939-1946; Korean War, 1950-1955
Navy
3rd Fleet
Pacific Theater; also: Pacific Theater
Lieutenant Commander; Lieutenant Commander
Wyocena, WI
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![](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/eot2008/20090114130407im_/http://lcweb2.loc.gov/natlib/afc2001001/vhp-stories/web/images/ex-war-card-bottom.gif) |
He might have been found unfit for service when he enlisted in the wake of Pearl Harbor.
But a determined Robert Balfour memorized the eye chart in his first Naval exam room
and then managed to disguise a bum knee when he applied to become a Naval officer. He
spent his first four months of duty in the Pacific on an LST that MacArthur would later
use for his return to the Philippines, and Balfour spent much of the rest of the war
working under Admiral Bull Halsey as a communications officer. He was on the deck of
the Missouri when the surrender was signed--bad eyes, bad knee, and all.
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