Have you shaved a man's head?

I have. I shaved the head of Tommy Gates the night before we landed on Angaur in the Palau Islands. We were on a troop ship. The next morning, September 17, 1944, we were to make a combat landing on the Japanese held island of Angaur.

Tommy and I were two nineteen year old boys from Los Angeles county. Tommy was from Long Beach and I was from Pomona. We were packed in with many soldiers in the hold of the ship. We knew that we were going to go ashore the next day.  We did not know what we were going to face when the front of our LSVP dropped.

Tommy and I made a deal. I would shave his head and he would shave mine. We would look tough for battle. Tommy went under the blade first. I did not have clippers. I cut his hair as short as I could with scissors. Then I started the long hazardous process of shaving off the stubble left by the scissors. It did not go well. After a long and arduous process I finally got the job done. Tommy looked terrible.

I turned chicken and declined to let Tommy shave my head.