After a long hiatus, I'm back and blogging again because at last, I have some fresh content. My Dad brought home a few more folders of papers I can scan through to add to my knowledge base.
To the new cadets who just came aboard, welcome to a virtual museum dedicated to a man who I barely knew when he was alive.
Grandpa lived the kind of epic life the rest of us can only read about in books. He was born in 1919, the year after the First World War ended. As a baby, he survived the first influenza pandemic. He kept himself busy during the Depression by teaching himself how to build radios from spare parts. In 1942, he enlisted in the Navy and went to war, overcoming his fear of confined spaces to be in the submarine service, about the most terrifying job imaginable. He became a radio crewman and radar operator on a diesel submarine named the USS Darter, where he had an experience that changed him forever.
The Darter story is a Navy legend. The night before the battle for Leyte Gulf, his submarine made a surprise attack on the entire Japanese fleet that could have turned the tide of the Pacific war. (They almost sunk an Admiral) Trying to escape, the sub went off course and plowed into a reef, and as the radio operator he sent a distress signal that rescued his crew from enemy capture. Thanks largely to him, all of his buddies made it home.
His military career spanned three decades and two wars. I wish I could have heard the stories he used to tell, but I was too young to understand. Hugh loved history, especially Navy history. He had quite a library of books about Navy ships and maritime subjects, dating back as far as the Civil War. He attended every crew reunion and helped to launch several boats. They say you never really get out of the Navy, you're in it for life.
I wanted to serve when I was the right age but my health never allowed it. But I think --I hope-- he'd have been proud of what I do. By attending WWII reenactments and volunteering on museum ships like the USS New Jersey, I try to keep his memory alive any way I can, because it brings him a little closer to me.
True, my grandfather is long gone, as are most of the people who knew him. There is an ocean of time that separates me from him. He's buried so far away I can't visit his grave. All his shipmates he served with are gone too. His old boat is a wreck on a coral reef on the other side of the world, and 80 years of weather has eroded it away to nothing. Only his memory remains.
If I don't remember him, who else will? He was a great man and he deserves to be remembered.
That is why we are here. Welcome aboard.
