Joseph Manno rarely spoke about his combat service as a U.S. Navy hospital corpsman in the Pacific Theater during World War II, but he did document his Naval training experiences before he shipped out.
Manno, who was laid to rest with his wife, Mary, at Arlington National Cemetery on July 20, 2026, kept a unique diary while at Sampson U.S. Naval Training Station in Romulus, New York, in the summer of 1943. He bought a humorous cartoon book titled, “Sailors in Boots,” which contained single-panel sketches of Navy boot camp life with space below for personal writings. Manno took full advantage of the book, writing about the six-week culture shock of transforming from civilian to sailor.