Joe Gonzalez - Home Page Slide Show - Mickey Strand - Veterans Series

Roy A. Mosteller
United States Navy
Yeoman Typist First Class Petty Officer (CDR)
WorldWar II - Korean War

 Roy Allen Mosteller was born on May 25th, 1925, in Long Beach, California, and graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School in 1943. During World War II, Roy was certain he would serve. Living in a Navy town made his decision to join the Navy clear. He was turned down twice because of his eyesight, so he went to work for his uncle at a cattle ranch in Texas. After two months, he received a draft notice and reported for induction.

 Selected to serve in the Navy, he reported for boot camp on September 13th, 1943. He attended recruit training at Farragut Naval Training Station, the second-largest training center in the world after Naval Station Great Lakes. After graduating, Seaman Mosteller was stationed at the Office of Censorship in Washington, DC. For three years, he worked as a Yeoman Typist in the Office of Censorship, a civilian agency created during WWII to censor communications between the U.S. and foreign countries, where he screened and filed important messages.

 Roy was assigned to the night shift late in the war, and, expecting the announcement, he was in Lafayette Park across from the White House on August 14th when President Truman announced Japan's surrender. During the big celebration that night, Roy had to be at work. With his office closing, he volunteered to work in Japan with the postal censorship office. He rode the newly commissioned SS Ernie Pyle, a Type C4 troop transport ship, to Japan. He worked in Osaka, Japan, with the Naval Civil Censorship Unit #3 and was promoted to YNT1 on March 8th, 1946.

 YNT1 Mosteller returned to California and was honorably discharged from active duty on May 22, 1946. He attended UCLA for accounting and, after a year, enlisted in the Navy Reserve. He then transferred to Woodbury University, which offered a better accounting program, and graduated in 1950. He was reactivated from November 1950 to August 1953 during the Korean War, working at the Naval District Intelligence Office in San Diego. Afterward, he returned to the Naval Reserve for one year, serving as a research analyst and conducting background investigations at the Long Beach office. In 1953, Roy was hired by the Director of Naval Intelligence as a civilian research analyst, which commenced a long career working for the Navy as a civilian.

 Roy worked at the San Diego office on Broadway Pier until 1956, when the office became the Naval Investigative Service (later renamed NCIS), and he was made a special agent. He worked at the NIS offices in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and Camp Pendleton before returning to San Diego. He served with NCIS for 22 years and retired from active duty on July 28th, 1975. Roy remained active in the Naval Reserve, was commissioned as an LT(jg) on June 18th, 1958, and promoted to Commander on October 1st, 1969.