Abraham S. Fried's Obituary
I was born on Good Friday in a hospital in Jersey City, New Jersey but had the good luck to leave before my first birthday when my family moved to Youngsville, New York. A small town in Sullivan County. I lived there on and off for ten years alternating with The Bronx, New York.
For the next few years i.e., ages five to eighteen, went to public school in New York and for a few weeks in the summer to a small school where the first eight grades were on the ground floor with each class in a single row. The high school was on the second floor. I left there from the 6th grade and continued my education in New York.
Upon graduation from DeWitt Clinton High School in January 1941, took radio/electronics training in the NYA (National Youth Administration) Program.
In December 1941 I obtained a commercial Radio Telegraphers Operators license and Radiotelephone license. Then on 2 January 1942, enrolled in the Maritime Service for training as a shipboard telegraph operator. The training school was at Gallups Island in Boston harbor. My first night was spent on the US Coast Guard Cutter Yeaton. It acted as the school’s liberty boat. At the end of March, I disenrolled and returned to New York. I could not copy code fast enough long enough to do the job.
In July 1942, enlisted in the US Navy as a S 1/c for training as an Electronics Technician. Was sent to Grove City College, PA for three months basic pre-electronic training. On graduation was rated RT 3/c (E4) and sent to the Naval air Technical Training Center at Ward Island, Corpus Christi, TX for six months training in aviation RADAR. Upon graduation was rated ART2/c (E5). Was then sent for duty to Carrier Aircraft Service Unit 5 (CASU 5) at Naval Air Station North Island, San Diego, CA.
After four months there, was transferred PCS to sea as ships company USS Prince William, CVE 31. We left that evening for Pearl Harbor and points west. Ultimately spent nine months in South Pacific, crossing the equator and its attendant festivities. Once is enough. We went to places as Espiritu Santos, New Caledonia, Efati, Canton Island, Samoa, and Townsville, Australia. At this point I was promoted to AETM 1/c (E6).
We then transited the Panama Canal and went to Key West for three months where the ship was used to qualify pilots in making carrier landings. The pilots were then sent to the fleet. We stayed out until all the war weary planes were cracked up and then went in to port for more and did it again. Made liberty in Havana, Cuba one time. From there we went to Quonset Point, RI for three months doing the same and then to the Chesapeake for more of the same out of NAS Norfolk, VA.
When the North Africa invasion, Torch, was to take place, the air department, including myself, was transferred TDY to NAS Norfolk and the ship used as a transport. Upon its return went back aboard for duty. In April 1945 was transferred PCS to CASU 13, NAS Norfolk where I remained in the RADAR shop until January 1946 when I was sent to Terminal Island San Pedro, CA for discharge. Three years, six months and nine days of service.
I returned home to Tucson, AZ on 15 January 1946 where my family had moved in December of 1942. I promply went to the University of Arizona and registered as a freshman under the GI Bill. Started classed on 30 January 1946 and graduated from the University of Arizona in May 1950. My degree was a Bachelor of Science in Education with a major in Chemistry and minors in Physics and Engineering.
While at the U of A, in September 1946, I reenlisted in the Naval Reserve. During the summer break in school I went on a two week cruise aboard the USS Rendova (CVE 114) in the Pacific Ocean. Returning to the U of A for the fall semester decided to take ROTC and get a commission. As a consequence had to get a General Discharge from the Navy and so ended my Navy career for the next several years until 1981. Was enrolled in AFROTC in 1947 and took the two year advanced course and was commissioned 2/LT 28 May 1949. Was then assigned to the 9428th VART (Volunteer Air Reserve Training) Squadron and was appointed Training officer in 1951. That meant I ran the training films and knew how to run the projector.
In April 1953 was transferred to Tucson, Detachment 17, 1st WIS (Wartime Information Security) Squadron as Technical Operations Officer in grade of 1st/Lt. I remained in that assignment for the next 21 years until the program was discontinued on 31 March 1973 and I was a Colonel and in Command.
Having still five years to go until retirement from the USAFR I found a position with the Arizona Wing of the Civil Air Patrol as Reserve Assistance Coordinator and held the position until retirement on 30 March 1979.
I was married on 27 March 1953 to Miss Mary Lakritz. We met for the first time in January 1946 just after registering for the U of A at a small dance at the De Molay Hall in downtown Tucson, being held for new freshman by the university’s Hillel Foundation. My wife tells me we danced together. She remembers because I was so thin, 135 lbs., and wore worn Navy dungarees. They were all the clothes I had except my blues and I couldn’t wear then then. Unfortunately I do not remember that meeting. However, we met again during the first summer session when I was taking a 0700 Plane Trigonometry class and there were two girls in the back of the room. She was the brunette, but is now very gray as I am also, what hair I have left that is. We did not meet again until 1952 when I went to Long Beach, California for a two-week training course for the 9428th VART Sq. We began a correspondence and when she returned to Tucson in September to work on her masters in Bacteriology and we were married in March 1953. My wife has ultimately obtained her Ph.D. in Immunology, also at the U of A.
We have two sons. The eldest graduated for the U of A as a Systems Engineer. He also was, for eleven years, a navigator in the US Air Force. My youngest son graduated from the U of A as a Chemical Engineer. Both now have their MBAs’. We have three grandchildren, two girls and a boy and one great-grandson. In 1951 I went to work for then Hughes Aircraft Company for twelve years.
Leaving there in 1963 I returned to the U of A and obtained a MEd in Secondary Education and then a position with TUSD at Wakefield JHS teaching mathematics and science. In 1968 transferred to Santa Rita High School in the mathematics department where I remained until retirement from TUSD in 1985. I was also teaching nights at Pima Community College, East Campus and was there for 14 years. In 1970 I obtained an MST in Physics through the National Science Foundation.
Upon retirement I became a volunteer with the RAO and went into the pharmacy as a prepacker and have been there ever since, some 17+ years. Am also on the RAO staff as pharmacy coordinator.
In 1981 I went out to sea with the Navy as a PACE professor in the summertime, between semesters for several weeks, teaching mathematics to active duty sailors while at sea. My first ship was the guided missile cruiser USS Josephus Daniels (CG27) going out of Norfolk to the Mediterranean Sea. Was present during the Bay of Sidra episode with Libya. Made port calls at Rota, Benedorm, Barcelone, Spain and Marseilles, France before returning home via Cadiz, Madrid, and Frankfort.
The following summer of 1982 went out again on the ASW Frigate Moinester (FF1097) again to the Mediterranean Sea. I flow out to her via DeGaul Airport, Paris and Marseilles where she was in port. Made port calls at Majorca and then into the Black Sea through the Dardanelles. At the end of the cruise I helicoptered to the Destroyer Radford and dropped off at Istanbul, Turkey, and flow home via Frankfort.
My final cruise was in 1984 when I caught the Samuel Gompers at Pearl Harbor and went to Yokuska, Japan, and finally to Subic Bay in the Phillippines and flew back to the US by way of Okinawa by 47 Flying Tiger Airlines. It was all great fun. An ocean cruise and getting paid for it too.
About the only special incidents I can recall were the three times I was nearly killed while in WWII. The first was when I fell off of the flight deck during night operations. Fortunately I fell into a 40 mm gun sponson after which I went back up to the deck and fixed the problem we were having with an F6F’s electrical system (The master switch was off). The second was when again we were having night operation and I was taking a nap in the 3rd bunk up in a stack of 4 just under the flight deck next to the electronics shop. An F4F, making a bad landing, had its prop punch through the flight deck into the bunk just above where I was sleeping. Sure ruined my nap and composure for a while. The last incident was in the North Atlantic Ocean. We were having some rough weather, and I was sleeping on the deck in the electrons shop. The ship rolled rather strongly, and a clock fell onto the deck. The noise obviously awakened me, and I found two long slivers of glass, one on each side of my throat. Either one hitting me and it was all over. I then left the shop and returned to the berthing compartment with torpedoes loaded with tropex above and 250 lb bombs stored below. What more could happen?
(Signed)
Abraham S. Fried
Colonel USAF Retired
What’s your fondest memory of Abraham?
What’s a lesson you learned from Abraham?
Share a story where Abraham's kindness touched your heart.
Describe a day with Abraham you’ll never forget.
How did Abraham make you smile?
