09/05/2026
Long before Yogi Berra became famous for World Series championships and phrases like “It ain’t over till it’s over,” he was a teenage sailor firing rockets at German positions off the beaches of Normandy.
Lawrence Peter Berra was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on May 12, 1925, the son of Italian immigrants. He left school after the eighth grade to help support his family and developed into a promising baseball player. The St. Louis Cardinals passed on him, but the New York Yankees signed the 17-year-old Berra in 1942 for a $500 bonus. He spent the 1943 season with the Yankees’ minor-league Norfolk Tars before World War II put his baseball career on hold.
Berra entered the U.S. Navy in 1943 at age 18. After basic training at Bainbridge, Maryland, and amphibious training in Norfolk, Virginia, he volunteered for a mission so secret that he was initially told little about what he would be doing. He was trained as a gunner aboard a 36-foot Landing Craft Support Small, or LCSS, one of a group of heavily armed rocket boats assigned to the attack transport USS Bayfield (APA-33). Each carried a crew of six and was equipped with rockets and machine guns intended to suppress enemy positions ahead of troops coming ashore.
On June 6, 1944, 19-year-old Berra went into combat during the D-Day invasion of Normandy. Bayfield was the flagship of Assault Force U, supporting the U.S. 4th Infantry Division's landing at Utah Beach. Berra's small craft operated only a few hundred yards offshore, firing rockets and machine guns against German defenses as American troops approached the beach. He later remembered being so fascinated by the enormous spectacle around him that an officer had to warn him to keep his head down.
Accounts of Berra's D-Day service sometimes identify Omaha Beach rather than Utah, including some baseball sources. However, the U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command places Berra aboard Bayfield with Assault Force U at Utah Beach, and the U.S. Navy Memorial likewise describes his rocket boat operating there. Berra remained aboard the small craft for days off Normandy as the invasion continued.
Normandy was not his only amphibious assault. Berra subsequently participated in Operation Dragoon, the Allied invasion of southern France in August 1944, again providing fire support from a landing craft. The Department of Veterans Affairs reports that he was struck in the left hand by enemy fire during the operation and qualified for a Purple Heart, although he apparently never actually received the medal. He later served in Tunisia before returning to the United States in January 1945.
Assigned to the Naval Submarine Base at New London, Connecticut, Berra finally got an opportunity to play baseball while still in uniform. He was honorably discharged in May 1946 as a seaman second class and resumed the professional baseball career that had been interrupted nearly three years earlier.
Berra reached the Yankees that September. Over the next 18 seasons in New York, the short, unconventional-looking catcher became one of the greatest players in baseball history. He won three American League Most Valuable Player awards, was selected to 18 All-Star Games and helped the Yankees win 10 World Series championships, still the most won by any player. He finished his major-league career with a .285 batting average, 358 home runs and 1,430 RBI. Perhaps his most famous moment behind the plate came in the 1956 World Series, when he caught Don Larsen's perfect game, the only perfect game ever pitched in World Series history.
After his playing career, Berra became a successful manager and coach. He managed the Yankees to the American League pennant in 1964 and the New York Mets to the National League pennant in 1973, making him one of the rare managers to take teams from both leagues to the World Series. His long baseball career ultimately produced 13 World Series championship rings, 10 as a player and three as a coach. He was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1972.
Yet Berra became almost as famous outside baseball for his seemingly contradictory observations that came to be known as “Yogi-isms.” Beneath the humorous public persona, however, was a man who had gone to war before most Americans had ever heard his name. Decades later, he continued to regard his wartime service as one of the most important experiences of his life.
Yogi Berra died at his home in New Jersey on September 22, 2015, at age 90, of natural causes.
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