"I knew all about the atomic bomb two months before it happened, but we didn't know what we knew." (Video Interview, 33:11)

Robert Llewellyn Balfour

Robert Balfour being awarded a medal by Admiral William Halsey, November 11, 1945. War: World War II, 1939-1946; Korean War, 1950-1955 Branch: Navy Unit: 3rd Fleet Service Location: Pacific Theater; also: Pacific Theater Rank: Lieutenant Commander; Lieutenant Commander Place of Birth: Wyocena, WI

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.