UPTOWN — Dr. Herbert Sohn wasn't in the thick of any big battles in World War II, but still he can trace his career and aspirations, which have included congressional and mayoral runs, back to his time in the service.
The urologist at Weiss Memorial Hospital, 4646 N. Marine Dr., began his journey in 1945 at just 17 years old. That's when Sohn, a pre-law student at the University of Virginia, enlisted in the Navy.
"Everybody was leaving for the service and I got kind of lonely. I’d have a roommate then he’d be out of there. I figured if they’re going to go I might as well go," said Sohn, the father of Doug "Hot Doug" Sohn.
"It was like 3-4 years after Pearl Harbor, they didn’t have too much personnel and we had to train people very fast. We had nobody. We weren’t ready for war."
Sohn's time in the military led to him being featured in the documentary "Heroes on Deck: World War II On Lake Michigan," which aired on WTTW May 26 and May 29. The film "sheds light on a little-known training operation by the U.S. Navy on Lake Michigan" following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, according to the synopsis for the film.
After enlisting, he took the Eddy test, "which allowed you to go to radio technician school," and was stationed at Great Lakes. After becoming a radio technician, he took an oath to begin working with the United State's secret weapon at the time — radar, he said.
"At that time [when] radar came out, no one had ever heard of it. I hadn’t heard of it. It was a complete secret," he said. "We had to number all our notes at the end of the day and turn them in. If we didn’t have all the pages, we’d have to stay the rest of the day looking for them."
Radio technicians working with radar technology were stationed at Navy Pier instead of Great Lakes, which wasn't secure enough. On the other hand, Navy Pier had "real guards" and was "very secure," he said.
The documentary focuses on "training our fighter pilots" with landing and taking off from aircraft carriers, Sohn said adding "they needed the aircraft carriers because this was the main offense against the Japanese. [The pilots] actually won the war."
More than 15,000 pilots, including 41st President George H.W. Bush, were trained on makeshift carriers Seeandbee and Greater Buffalo.
"They took two cruise ships that were going up and down the lake, took away the top and put a flat top on top. It was shorter than the regular aircraft carriers and because of that these guys really trained well," he said. "It was shorter than a regular aircraft carrier so a lot of the planes went into the water."
More than 100 WWII fighters and dive bombers fell into Lake Michigan.
"Also, it was very dangerous for the people on the aircraft carriers, because the propellers were so close it chopped heads off. Wires were snapped and severed their heads. It was a very dangerous place to work," Sohn said.
Navy Pier also lacked air conditioning and heat, said Sohn, who came down with a cold, was sent to the sick bay and was given medicine that made him even sicker.
"We didn’t know what was wrong... they couldn’t take care of me. I got real high fevers and things like that, so they shipped me to Passavant Hospital (Northwestern Hospital)," he said, adding the Navy had taken over about four floors of the hospital.
After doctors told him they "had a theory" about what was wrong with him, he got upset and contacted his father, a politician in New York, who had a specialist see Sohn. The specialist was able to determine the sickness was a sulfur reaction.
"They had given me sulfur for my sore throat, so the sicker I got the more sulfur they gave me. They figured if a little didn’t work maybe more would work. It was new at that time... once they took the sulfur away I was fine," said Sohn adding that "they don’t let you back into the service unless you’re perfectly fine," so he hung around the hospital.
"I had the whole place to myself. I used to walk around and talk to the doctors, I got very intrigued with medicine... after they made that mistake of not knowing what was wrong with me, I figured they needed more doctors than lawyers," he said.
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