Scan of copy of original photograph of Richard Ellers, Sampson, New York, August 11, 1945. Richard is the 6th man from the left in the top row. Most of the other men in this photograph are from New York.
Richard was born on August 22nd, 1927 in New Haven, Connecticut and attended Amsterdam High School in Amsterdam, New York. Richard enlisted the Navy in May of 1945 at the age of 17 as a Seaman Apprentice, and finished out his career as a Gunner's Mate 3rd Class. He served on small, wooden-hulled mine sweepers in the Pacific Ocean and East China Sea during and after World War II, and was part of the operation plotting the depths of the Bikini Atoll area with sonar prior to the nuclear testing that occurred after World War II. He received the Asiatic-Pacific Duty Campaign Medal and a Navy Occupation Service Medal. Richard married his wife Martha McLaughlin on August 29, 1956, had two children, Elizabeth and Andrew, and became a newspaper reporter.
