Veterans Day 2019

We can never say it enough.

Darter Day - 75 Years - Toured a Real WWII Submarine

In memory of the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Leyte Gulf (10/24/44) I went to the Independence Seaport Museum on October 24, 2019 with my GoPro to tour their WWII submarine, the USS Becuna.  The music I chose to accompany this video is the Victory At Sea suite, composed in 1952 by Richard Rodgers.  (of Rodgers & Hammerstein fame) Victory at Sea was one of his favorite TV programs, because he knew many of the men who served aboard the boats mentioned in the show.

For newcomers to this page, here's a brief summary. My Grandfather was in a similar submarine (but not the same), his was a Gato-class boat and the Becuna is a Balao-class. But his sub (the USS Darter) actually fired the first shot of Leyte Gulf when it sank the Japanese cruiser Atago, around midnight Pacific Time on October 24th, 1944.

The Darter was trying to leave the area after their successful surprise attack without detection by the Japanese fleet. The sub drifted off course due to unpredictable ocean currents, and it crashed into a coral reef and outcropping of rocks off the coast of Mindanao shortly after midnight.

The crew was stranded there for most of the night, as they tried to dismantle and burn the ship to prevent its capture, until around 4:00 in the morning when their sister sub USS Dace answered their distress call.

My Grandfather, Hugh N. Siegel was the one who sent the signal. The entire crew of Darter was rescued but the submarine was left on the reef, where it was visible until 1998. To this day, Darter is marked on Google Earth as a documented shipwreck.

Grandpa went on Eternal Patrol in 1995, but 2019 would have been his 100th birthday. I made this special trip to Philadelphia to spend some time inside a submarine in memory of him and what he survived. He was born and raised in Philadelphia and enlisted at the Navy Yard in 1942.

Darter Day - October 23

The date: October 23rd, 1944.

The place: Palawan Passage in the Balabac Strait, somewhere off the coast of Mindanao, Philippines.

The ship: Gato-class Submarine SS-227, The USS Darter

The situation: Eve of the largest sea battle of World War II

The man: Hugh N. Siegel, Radio Technician 1st Class, USN

The date that would change my grandfather's life forever.

Can I really tell you what he was like? A war veteran who departed this world when I was 11? ...Not really. He didn't talk to me much when he was alive and I never got to hear any of his stories.

But thanks largely to his own research, I can tell you nearly down to the minute what he experienced, what he saw and what he survived during those 48 hours in late October of '44 that he would never forget. If he hadn't made it off that ship, I would not be here today. My family owes him everything.

After 75 years, his story deserves to be told.

Grandpa always celebrated October 23rd as "Darter Day."  I intend to do the same from now on.