By Zack Anchors
Staff writer
    Living right in the middle of Scarborough at the Maine Veteran’s home are dozens of men whose service for their country will be honored this week on Veteran’s Day. Residents at the home represent service in a range of different wars and a range of different branches of the military, but they share the common experience of having traveled to faraway countries in dangerous times, haven taken part in battles and events that most of us learn about only through textbooks and movies and having sacrificed a portion of their lives for their country. Donald Burgess, a veteran of World War II, has lived at the Maine Veteran’s Home for a year and a half and says he’s fortunate to have found a place where he can receive the high-quality care he has found at the home. Burgess, who served for four years in the Navy after he was drafted in 1942, says he does not know of any other men he served with who are still alive today.
    “I went around the world once and crossed the equator eight times,” said Burgess, who was born in Augusta and grew up in Portland.
    “I was drafted and I chose to go into the Navy, because I was already in the Merchant Marine,” Burgess said. “I liked the water.”
    Burgess was given the job of signalman, one of the oldest ratings in the Navy that was eventually eliminated in 2003. In WWII, a signalman, who could be identified by a symbol with two crossed semaphore flags on the left sleeve of their uniform, were responsible for transmitting and receiving signals to and from the boat they were assigned to.
    “The first ship I was on was headed to Corpus Christi, Texas,” said Burgess. “I was on a merchant ship, in what they called the Armed Guard.”
    One of the major challenges facing the United States during WWII was the logistics of moving men, supplies and weapons throughout the world, crossing waters and skies that were scattered with enemy crafts. The Armed Guard was given the task of protecting the ships that carried out that mission. On the trip to Texas, the boat Burgess worked on was tasked with bringing oil back to New Jersey. Even in waters so close to the United States, Burgess said the ships encountered danger.
    “Only once did we see an enemy ship,” Burgess said. “My ship didn’t receive a torpedo, but the one in front of me did. That was in the Gulf of Mexico. No men died, but the ship was damaged.”
    Soon, Burgess ventured into even more treacherous territory, working on a ship involved in the invasion of North Africa in Morocco. He then participated in the invasion of Italy and then the invasion of southern France.
    It was in Italy that Burgess experienced one of the most serious attacks on a ship he was assigned to.
    “We were bombed in Naples harbor,” he said. “We didn’t get hit, but they tried to. That night, the volcano threw up smoke and ash. When we woke the next morning the boat was covered in smoke and ash. But we were just lucky enough not to be hit by a bomb.”
    While some American troops were invading Normandy in the North of France, others entered the country through the south in the city of Marseilles, where Burgess’ ship was.
    “Before we landed, all you could see in the sky was bombers,” he said. “There were hundreds of them.”
    During the invasion, Burgess and the men on his ship would load supplies onto amphibious vehicles called “duck trucks” and soldiers would navigate the boats to land and then drive the truck to where the supplies needed to go.
    Burgess only got to get home to Maine once during the war to see his family and even then he only had a few days.
    “We came home to Norfolk for three or four days,” he said. “It took one day to travel up here to see them and another day to get back.”
    But Burgess did get to see one member of his family while overseas, when he tracked down his brother in North Africa.
    “I had four brothers who were in the service at the same time,” he said. “I had two in the Navy and two in the Army. It was illegal to do that, but we got drafted and there was nothing you could do. I was fortunate enough to see one of them in North Africa.”
    Burgess knew that his brother was serving in the Seabees, a unit of the Navy and he had heard that some Seabees were stationed near where he was in Morocco.
    “I went there and asked around and found him,” Burgess said. “We did the town that night…hit the beer joints.”
    One of the longest voyages Burgess took while in the Navy was a mission to deliver aircraft to Iran. The Suez Canal had been bombed by the British and as an alternative, Burgess’ ship had to travel from Virginia, through the Panama Canal and across the Pacific and Indian Oceans.
    “We had a load of airplanes which we took to Iran and that they were going to ship overland to Russia,” Burgess said. “I also went to Iraq to load up with oil, because our ship ran off oil. We went into Basra.”
    “One night a Tsunami hit us and near sunk the ship,” said Burgess. “It took every lifeboat off the ship. There was other damage too and we had to stop in Australia for repairs.”
    By the time Burgess’ ship was ready to head back, the Suez Canal had been repaired and they were able to cut more than three months off their trip by using it. Burgess appreciated that, because being out to sea could be a hard life, he said, with lots of hard work.
    “There was nothing to do (for fun) at sea except play cards,” he said. “We played poker and hearts, but you weren’t even allowed to have a radio.”
    “I was at sea when they announced that they had bombed Japan,” said Burgess. “So we went back to the states and we didn’t go out again. After I was discharged I went into the Merchant Marine and worked on tugboats in Portland Harbor.”
    After a few years on the tugboats, Burgess entered into a career in the sheet metal business, a trade one of his two sons eventually took up also.