ARDMORE - Orville Lavern Steele was born October 24, 1925 in the small town of Moorewood, Oklahoma to Georgia Tanner Barten Steele and Elmer Ezra Steele. When Orville was eight years old, his father died of Tuberculosis. He quit school at the end of the eighth grade to go to work and help support the family. He entered the Navy on February 5, 1944, and after boot camp at NTC San Diego was assigned to the escort carrier USS Fanshaw Bay (CVE-70) in the southern Pacific Ocean. While onboard, he manned an anti-aircraft gun, defending against Japanese attack. The day after turning 19, his task group,“Taffy 3,” composed of flagship Fanshaw Bay, five additional escort carriers, and an accompanying screen of three destroyers and four destroyer escorts, outfought, outwitted and outmaneuvered a powerful Japanese task force of battleships, cruisers and destroyers, known as the “Battle off Samar.” In recalling the incident, Orville said, “I thought I was going to die that day.”