Yogi Berra - Hall of Fame MLB player and US Navy Seaman - MLB 10 World Championship rings, 3 MVPs, 15 years All Star - US Navy
As 19-year-old Second Class Seaman Lawrence P. Berra, he played a significant part in one of the war's most important campaigns, the Normandy Invasion (better known as D-Day).
"I sit and I thank the good lord I was in the Navy. We ate good, clean clothes, clean bed. You see some of these Army men, what they went through, that's the one I felt for."
Son of Italian immigrants Pietro and Paolina Berra, Lawrence Peter Berra grew up in St. Louis in an Italian neighborhood called "The Hill." His parents didn't know anything about baseball, but the local American Legion league set him on a path that would take him to the Hall of Fame. It was during his years in the American Legion that he earned the nickname Yogi when his friend, Bobby Hofman, said he looked like a Hindu yogi because of the way he sat with his arms and legs crossed when waiting to bat.
When Yogi turned 18, he put his baseball career on pause and joined the Navy in 1943. Trained as a gunner's mate, Yogi worked on a rocket launching boat and served on D-Day. He said about the invasion that "Being a young guy, you didn?t think nothing of it until you got in it. And so we went off 300 yards off beach. We protect the troops." For the next twelve days his boat was ordered to shoot down enemy aircraft...He went on to serve in a second assault on France for which he received a medal from the French government.
Sixty years later, he received the Lone Sailor award from the U.S. Navy... The president and Navy Memorial CEO said, "Our honorees are living examples of how service to country changes lives and helps develop leaders."
As 19-year-old Second Class Seaman Lawrence P. Berra, he played a significant part in one of the war's most important campaigns, the Normandy Invasion (better known as D-Day).
"I sit and I thank the good lord I was in the Navy. We ate good, clean clothes, clean bed. You see some of these Army men, what they went through, that's the one I felt for."
Son of Italian immigrants Pietro and Paolina Berra, Lawrence Peter Berra grew up in St. Louis in an Italian neighborhood called "The Hill." His parents didn't know anything about baseball, but the local American Legion league set him on a path that would take him to the Hall of Fame. It was during his years in the American Legion that he earned the nickname Yogi when his friend, Bobby Hofman, said he looked like a Hindu yogi because of the way he sat with his arms and legs crossed when waiting to bat.
When Yogi turned 18, he put his baseball career on pause and joined the Navy in 1943. Trained as a gunner's mate, Yogi worked on a rocket launching boat and served on D-Day. He said about the invasion that "Being a young guy, you didn?t think nothing of it until you got in it. And so we went off 300 yards off beach. We protect the troops." For the next twelve days his boat was ordered to shoot down enemy aircraft...He went on to serve in a second assault on France for which he received a medal from the French government.
Sixty years later, he received the Lone Sailor award from the U.S. Navy... The president and Navy Memorial CEO said, "Our honorees are living examples of how service to country changes lives and helps develop leaders."
