Angelo Roman sits at the kitchen table in the house he was born in 89 years ago. Smiling, he lightly touches a gray plastic model of a ship, the USS Fletcher, glued together by his son, Paul, when the boy was nine years old.

He lightly taps the model to show visitors the part of the ship that was his general quarters when he served as a radar operator as World War II was ending in 1945.The USS Fletcher, DD-445, launched in 1942, was the lead ship of the most famous class of destroyers in United States history, according to the 2010 USS Fletcher Reunion Group.Roman, who was born and raised on his parents' dairy farm just outside Weatherly, served two years in the U.S. Navy, the last aboard the USS Fletcher. He had been deferred for two years because he was needed on the family farm. But one day, "I went down into Jim Thorpe and said 'I want my classification changed'," he says. "and I went in."In 1945, Roman traveled on the ship from Luzon Island to Manila, in the Philippines. Luzon is the largest, most northern Philippine island. The Japanese needed the Philippines during the war for overseas access to oil and food. They captured Luzon in 1942, and by 1943-44, had stationed about 430,000 troops there. Because control of the islands would have strengthened Japan, the United States and her allies fought hard to take it back.The USS Fletcher figured prominently in the battle.The USS Fletcher, Roman says, "was considered one of the luckiest ships around." He explains that the ship's hull number, 445, "totals 13. This ship was in 13 battles, and they knocked down 13 planes. Not when i was on, though."Petty Officer 3rd Class Roman served as a range-finder on the ship. "My GQ (general quarters) station was up on the director," he says with pride. "I went to radar school. I was a radar operator."The director was the gun control radar."They had really good food, and we used to play cards at night," he recalls. "It was really nice. Everybody liked that ship. We would go into port, and fellas on the sister ships would come over. They loved to eat on our ship."What do his taste buds remember the most fondly? "They used to have cherry pie, for one thing," he says.His oddest experience on the destroyer came early one morning."When I first got on this ship, I had to sleep down in the galley. That morning, when I woke up, I heard a rooster hollering," he says. "One of the sailors traded for a rooster and he put it on the ship. I first woke up and thought, 'am I dreaming or what?' It was crowing."Most of Roman's mementos of his service days aren't handy. But he gently pulls a small, faded and yellowed photograph from his wallet. The picture shows five sailors standing on the USS Fletcher: Roman, and four buddies Edward Joseph Barrett, Jr., from Newark; Dewitt Nelson Ackerman, from Mass.; Bernard Charles Robier, from Baltimore and a sailor whose last name was Smith, from LaGrange, Georgia.Although Roman's tour of duty on the destroyer went without incident, the ship had earned its share of battle scars, among them damages from Japanese artillery fire in Manila Bay on Valentine's Day, 1945.In the summer of 1945, the ship was overhauled in San Diego. "They took two five-inch guns off and replaced them with 40-quad mm because of the planes. We used to have five five-inch guns," Roman says, pointing out the guns on the model.After the war ended, he returned to Weatherly, where he became a machine operator. He met Margaret, his wife of 58 years. "Her brother married my sister," Roman says.Roman didn't talk much about his days in the service. "He had said he was in the Navy, and that was it," says Margaret.In fact, it wasn't until after the couple's son, Paul, then 9, bought a scale model of the USS Fletcher that his family learned he had served on the destroyer."They went shopping up in Wilkes-Barre," Roman said of his wife and son. "One day I came home and here they had this model," he said. "I was surprised, being that they didn't know. He (Paul) was proud."Paul Roman, now 54, of Poughkeepsie, New York, is still astounded."That was in 1965," he said. "Then I didn't think much of it. Being nine, to me it was just another model to put together. But as I got older, I was amazed on what are the odds of me picking that ship out of all the other model ships that were available. Then to have it be the one that he served on ... that blows me away."Eight years later, in 1973, the Roman's attended a USS Fletcher reunion held in Nashville, Tenn. They attended the most recent gathering, held at Split Rock Resort in Lake Harmony earlier this week."It was really nice," Roman said. "That Joanne really did a good job."