Interviewees

Description:
Dr. Sam Agron was born in Lugansk, Ukraine on November 27, 1920.  His father was a barber and served in the Russian Army for six years.  The family immigrated to Brooklyn in 1926.  Prior to his service, Dr. Agron worked as a shipfitter and loftsman in Oakland, California.  He enlisted in the United States Navy on December 12, 1942, attended Midshipman School at Notre Dame University (Indiana), Officer Training School, and minesweeping school in Little Creek, Virginia.  From there he was assigned to the USS Merganser, a YMS-1 Class minesweeper, conducting convoy work and minesweeping operations in the Atlantic and Pacific Theaters.  While on leave, Agron married his wife Beatrice in Norfolk, Virginia.  For his service, Dr. Agron earned American Campaign and Asiatic-Pacific Campaign medals and the World War II Victory Medal.  Following the war, Dr. Agron attended graduate school on the G.I. Bill and earned his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University.  Later, he was a Professor of Geology at Brown University in Rhode Island and Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey.