This is the first story of an occasional series which will feature local World War II veterans.

John Kukol has a scrapbook he keeps close at hand. Inside its aging pages, Kukol keeps fading photographs from another time.

"This man, his name was Lambert," he said, pointing to a black-and-white picture of himself and another man, taken when they were on leave in Mozambique. "He got a 'Dear John' letter while we were there."

Kukol, Sharon, has a story attached to each of the pictures in his album. Some are of him and his World War II shipmates, sitting atop the giant guns they fired; others are taken during their leaves on shore, smiling and laughing in bar rooms and in European towns.

Kukol served as gunner's mate, third class, in the Navy for more than two years, before being discharged in 1946.

"I shot guns aboard the ship," he said, pointing to one gun he fired that had a range of three to five miles. Another gun was so large it required three men to operate: one to swivel it back and forth, a second to raise and lower the barrel, and a third to fire it. Kukol was the man who fired the gun.

Kukol's home port was in Oron, Algeria. He said they held operations in the Mediterranean Sea, and later, as war was grinding down, were shuttling from the north coast of Africa to Italy.

"We would take American personnel to Italy, and bring German prisoners back to North Africa," he said.

Kukol was drafted into the Navy in 1944, along with other young men from his hometown of Farrell.

"Uncle Sam sent me a letter," he said. "They took 40 from Farrell. A week later, we went to Erie to get examined, and seven days after that, we were in training."

Kukol was not happy at first about being drafted, he said.

"I had a good job at Sharon Steel, building parts for Sherman tanks. It teed me off when I got that letter, because you had no choice. If they said you were going, you had to go."

Kukol spent eight weeks at a training camp, and later sailed to New York aboard a brand new ship built in Kaiser shipyards.

The Atlantic crossing from New York City to Manchester, England, was rough for Kukol's shipmates and those on 180 other ships that made the crossing together.

"We must have hit a hurricane," he said. "The seas were so rough. I never took my lifejacket off for the 13 days it took to get there."

"On that first trip to Manchester, I was scared to death. With the rough seas, you didn't dare go from the bridge in the middle of the ship to the front. Every so often, the front of the ship would just bury itself in the water. "

Kukol made two voyages, and was stationed in the European Theater during that time.

"The second voyage was the most exciting," he said. "As we were going through the straights of Gibraltar, I was listening to the radio, and I heard Axis Ellie. She said, 'We've got some new people coming in, and we're going to send in a reception committee.' "

"Axis Ellie" was a radio announcer who spread propaganda for the Axis powers of Germany, Japan and Italy.

"That night, the destroyers laid down thick smoke. We couldn't see the planes because of the smoke, but we could hear them flying over head. They didn't drop bombs on us, but they dropped bombs on the American installations in North Africa."

Kukol was discharged in 1946. The navy gave him $240 in discharge money, he said, and he had to buy his own bus ticket from Sampson, New York to get home.

"When they took me in, I was uptight about it. But after I got used to the Navy, I had some good times."

His "good times" are chronicled in his album. Page after page shows him smiling and laughing with his war-time friends. He has pictures of them together in Mozambique, India, Brazil, England, Cuba and The Cape of Good Hope.

"It was a great experience," he said.

After returning home from the war, Kukol took a job with Westinghouse, retiring in 1984. He currently serves as quartermaster of the Hermitage Veterans of Foreign Wars post.