WOODROW WILSON HIGH SCHOOL Alumni
PORTLAND, OREGON
MILITARY SPOTLIGHT
ROBERT HANDY (1959)
US NavyRobert (Bob) Handy attended Wilson High School and was scheduled to graduate in 1959. Instead, he took the GED and joined the Navy. Bob served in the U.S. Navy from February 27, 1959 to April 1962. He was an Electrician Mate 2nd class upon discharge and served on three ships:
• the USS Aeolus (cable layer) out of Portsmouth New Hampshire;
• the USS Pecatonica, which he took from Norfolk, Virginia to Kaohsiung, Taiwan and turned the ship over to the Taiwan Navy. He spent 3 months in the Military Advisory Assistance Group, thereafter, training the Chinese crew; and
• the USS Staten Island, an icebreaker out of Seattle Washington and got the closest to the North Pole than any surface ship in history [1962].