I received a letter in May of 2011 from 91 year old Robert Morse Wood, a 1938 graduate from Hackensack High School.  He filled out a veteran form on his cousin, Alan Wood Richenaker.  He was anxious to see his cousin’s name put on the website because he is the only ‘survivor’, as he put it, from the era.  Robert Morse Wood had contacted family members, but could find little information. 

   On the form Robert Morse Wood sent us, it stated that
Alan Wood Richenaker was deceased when he sent the form in May 2011, but does not tell us when he passed away. 

Alan Wood Richenaker had gone to Hackensack High School in the early 1940’s graduating in 1944. 

He had served in the Pacific Theater and according to a conversation I had with Robert Wood on June 20, 2011, he stated that Alan Wood Richenaker was an ‘Ordinary Seaman’ as he termed it, and he was in service at the very end of the war, and even after war's end probably did not see major hostilities, but could not be absolutely sure of that.  

After his service, Alan Wood Richenaker went to Amherst College in 1947 and graduated in 1951 according to the conversation I had with
Robert Morse Wood in June of 2011.

Written by:
Bob Meli
June 21, 2011

Background image of Navy Logo during World War II obtained from:

http://www.supplyroom.com/us-military/navy/patches/