Thank you for sharing. My grandfather (who raised me) was a Navy WWII vet also. I remeber being absolutely enraptured by his stories, even as a young child. I tease my dh all the time by saying my grandfather would have loved him if he weren't a Jarhead.
Thanks again for sharing your father's precious memories.
You'll like this one.
Thanks for the Thread.
Never been in the military, and now I am too old to be drafted unless the Muzzies blow up Washington, D.C. But I've played a LOT of Call to Honor (is that it? There are so many like it now.) And in advance of today's anniversary, I was thinking last night before bed of the cut scenes in Call to Honor Pacific of the Pearl Harbor assignment.
Your character's POV is in a Jeep as your new superior officer shows you around Pearl. Nurses walking to work in the beautiful weather, off-duty sailors eyeing the nurses, the long curve past the front of the Officers' Club...normalcy. Your CO talking about how the Pacific was the aft end of Hitler's War, about what a quiet posting it would be...and then the first zero goes overhead with the "meatball" on the wing, strafing. The insane drive down to the docks, the bloody work of gunnery from the rocking PT boat, the narrow escapes running like rats inside the sinking Arizona's listing and dead hull; that game brings home the experience I hope I will never undergo, and makes real what those who went before endured.
I sit in my padded recliner and watch the war news from a pivotal conflict that was lost the day the Democrats got voted in by disaffected "independent" idiots who, made fat on Bush's Recovery, got snookered by the Lies of the Left. We cannot do enough for these brave fighters, but I fear that I know how it will end. The last helicopter out of Vietnam plays over and over in my mind.
A salute to the remaining grizzled vets who were part of the age when we knew what elemental evil looked like.
The ship was torpedoed and sunk by a U-Boat, on 4 November 1942, at Latitude 71 degrees 05 minutes North, Longitude 13 degrees twenty minutes West, near Jan Mayen Island in the Greenland Sea. Not exactly warm waters in November. This is an account of the sinking:
After the heavy losses of convoys PQ17 and PQ18, it was decided to try to sneak some ships through unescorted. The Liberty ships Hugh Williamson, John H. B. Latrobe, John Walker, Richard B. Alvey, and William Clarke were dispatched from Iceland in this fashion in October and November of 1942.
The William Clark, with a cargo of planes, tanks, auto tires, ammunition, and a crew of 71 men, was an easy mark for a waiting U-boat shortly after noon on 4 November. The sky was overcast, with a moderate sea running. Visibility was seven miles. The first torpedo hit amidships, flooding the engine room. The order was given to abandon ship, and after the lifeboats pulled away, two more torpedoes broke the vessel in two and sent her to the bottom. The St. Elstan and the Cape Pallister picked up the 41 survivors. One of those survivors was of course my uncle, who lost a couple of toes to frostbit.
After discovering all this, I corresponded with a former Brit Naval Officer who had served on the St. Elstan, although sometime after this incident.
My maternal uncle served on a US Navy Seagoing Tug in the Pacific theater. He spoke of helping put out burning ships, towing them in, and of a bad typhoon that did more damage than the Kamikazes had. He spoke to me of all this, although aparently the had never spoken to my mother or grandparents about his experiences. That occurred at a birthday party for my grandfather, the last time I saw him in fact. Grandpa was about 97 or 98 then, he was 99 when he died.
My paternal Uncle died a couple of decades ago, but the maternal one is hanging on. And in fact I saw and spoke with him, along with his wife and four kids, just a week ago today, at my sister-in-law's funeral.
lightman--thank you so very much for sharing your Dad's handwritten memoirs of his WWII service. Everyone's service played a part in the mosaic of over ten million people in service that contributed to the victory, and to the postwar prosperity.
Never is there is sense of whining or hardship--your Dad was just doing his part, as they saw it. How I wish we were as united in this present conflict as we were then.
Thank you for this glimpse to the past, as over 60 years rolls away, and we witness those actions unrecorded by history--present only in the minds of those who lived them.
This Christmas will be hard, but remember your Dad with pride. You are his legacy, and he is undoubtedly proud of you.
BTTT, Pearl Harbor Day, A.D. 2007
Thanks for sharing it.
BTTT Pearl Harbor Day / Commemoration of St. Ambrose A.D. 2014
lightman, I remember this thread.
In fact, my comment is number 15 up-thread, eight years ago!!
Hope all is well with you.
I would encourage anyone related to a WW2 vet to get them to tell you their recollections and to write them down or record them.
The Greatest Generation is passing into history.
Bookmark
“So there you have it. The wartime saga of one young kid. I really had a hard time of it. I never missed a meal, I slept in a bed with sheets except for a few nights while I waiting for the Arided....I used a folding cot for those few days.”
I have all of the letters my dad wrote during the war. He was on a mine sweeper in the Pacific. One letter he writes about a brother of one of his mates that came to visit the night. He was a Marine, and just came into port.
“Boy - you guys aren’t fighting a war - you’re on a luxury cruise!”
My dad wrote something like “He left early in the morning back to his ship - off to put the Japs on their heals, you’ll hear about it soon enough. And he’s right - we have it real easy, not like those Marines.”
From the date of the letter I figured out it was a famous battle that went REALLY bad for our guys. Of course never knowing what happened to the young marine.
Bump for the 75th Anniversary of the “Day of Infamy”; December 7, A.D. 2016.
Also the 10th Anniversary of this thread.
We lost my hubby’s 91 yr old WW2 USN Plank owner of the 2nd USS LEXINGTON AKA LADY LEX this spring. My dad has been gone over 20 yrs, cancer. Put the Colors back up on Corrigador when Gen. Mac retook ‘yhe ROCK’ on a telegraph pole with PFC Clyde Bates, under sniper fire. 503rd Airborne.
You have to be mighty proud of you dad, like I am mine.
Bump for Pearl Harbor Day, A.D. 2018.
In my youth and young adulthood I did could not comprehend why this day had such solemn meaning for many in Dad’s generation.
On September 11, 2001, I finally understood.
bttt
Bump for Pearl Harbor Day, A.D. 2023.
Every day of infamy is ultimately displaced by another day of terror.
December 7, 1941 was displaced by September 11, 2001...and now both are sliding to the background behind our middle eastern ally’s October 7, 2023.
Kyrie eleison.
P.