''Anchored in Majuro. Received mail. I received one letter. It was from My Darling Wife. I received the news of the birth of our baby. I was a very happy man,'' Mr. Johnson wrote in his diary March 5, 1944.

World War II veteran Howard Lee Johnson looks through memorabilia and the diaries he kept during the war. He compiled three journals covering his years at sea during the war. CHRIS THELEN/STAFF

His four years in the U.S. Navy during World War II are chronicled on yellowed pages with small cursive script across faded blue lines. The words, in blue and black fountain pen ink, tell the story of a young sailor surviving life at sea during World War II.

''People I talk to now say, 'Man I wish I thought to do that,''' said the 79-year-old North Augustan, who laterretired as a switchman from CSX railroad. ''There's stuff in there I don't remember happened, but it's there.''

Mr. Johnson's ship, the USS Wichita, first saw action in Iceland in 1941 before the United States entered the war. Mr. Johnson enlisted Feb. 27, 1940, a week after his 18th birthday. He soon began keeping a diary.

Stories from his life during 1942 are preserved in a pocket-size calendar, a week on each side of the page and only four lines each day to record the weather, visitors to the ship and enemy encounters.

''Had a taste of battle. One German bomber which we fired upon. Passed many icebergs,'' Mr. Johnson wrote June 17, 1942, about 10 days after King George VI of England inspected the Wichita in Scotland.

Mr. Johnson said he began keeping track of his daily activities in a diary as a child. It was only natural for him to continue the practice as a sailor, he said.

During the war, he compiled three diaries, encompassing 1942, 1944 and 1945, and a brief summary of 1943. The second and third diaries are slightly larger and aren't divided by day, so Mr. Johnson sometimes wrote a few lines and other times filled several pages.

''In between the battles, I would have time to write,'' Mr. Johnson said.

He stored the diaries in his locker, carrying them with him when he transferred ships or was stationed on land.

After the war, Mr. Johnson saved the three volumes and tucked them into a drawer when he returned to Augusta. He moved to North Augusta in 1955. When he retired in 1983, Mr. Johnson learned one of his ships would be having a reunion, so he dug out his paraphernalia and became a World War II aficionado.

Mr. Johnson enlisted in the Navy in 1940, a week after his 18th birthday. SPECIAL

''I had never even seen the ocean before I joined the Navy,'' said Mr. Johnson, who moved to Augusta from Virginia when he was 7 or 8 years old and enlisted just before finishing his senior year of high school at Academy of Richmond County.

The first significant action Mr. Johnson saw was near Casablanca when American forces invaded North Africa, he said.

He was a young, single man and was not afraid of the deadly shrapnel, torpedoes or huge waves, he said. He didn't know enough to be scared.

But that changed in 1944, when Mr. Johnson was aboard the USS Cogswell, a destroyer.

''I was scared to death,'' he said. ''I was married now and had a child and had a little more of a taste of what battle was like.''

Mr. Johnson's battle station on the destroyer was in an upper area where he would hoist 5-inch shells to other men firing the guns. He could hear everything that was happening outside but couldn't see it, he said.

During one battle, Mr. Johnson said, he could tell it was progressively getting worse as he heard the 40 mm shells being fired, and then the 20 mm shells.

''I couldn't see what was going on, and all of the sudden, the 20 millimeters started firing, and I knew they had to be close to fire those,'' Mr. Johnson said, flipping through his diary, not really needing it to recall the information.

When the second atomic bomb was dropped, on Nagasaki, Mr. Johnson and his shipmates heard the blast.

''It sounded like one of our ships had been hit,'' Mr. Johnson said. ''I don't know how long it was before we knew what happened.''

Because Mr. Johnson's ship was a destroyer, it led the Pacific fleet into Tokyo Bay after Japan surrendered in August 1945.

Mr. Johnson was ready to go home to his wife and daughter when the war ended, he said, and was sent home on the USS Colorado to finish his six-year enlistment period.

It was because of the Navy that he met his wife, Kate - while on leave in New York after transferring off the Wichita. He courted the Brooklyn native during the time he was stationed in New York, and the two married in 1943. They were married for 55 years until her death in 1998.

During the time they were separated by the war, they exchanged numerous letters, sometimes batches of 10 or 15 arriving at once.

He said he left the Navy with experiences he never would have had if not for the war - many he doesn't want to remember. But the most positive memories he has are those of the places he got to visit.

''They said join the Navy and see the world, and they were right,'' Mr. Johnson said.

Reach Teresa Wood at (706) 823-3765.