Remembering the War Hero

A photo of Hugh Siegel as I remember him. He only wore that vest with the patches at reunions. The hat with the feather was a special thing only WWII vets who served in Australia wore. Next are some reunion photos with his shipmates, from the 1980s & one from the '90s. The last photo is of him inside his "radio shack" where he spent a few hours every day.

Dace-Darter reunion in 1986

A reunion reception at his house. I think 1993.

My grandfather is the one who deserves all the credit for preserving the story behind the Darter-Dace incident. He did the research himself, and he did it all in the pre-internet days before Wikipedia or Google.

He sent his typewritten letters to the Navy history archives, he spent hours on long distance phone calls, he kept an up to date mailing list for his shipmates, he wrote in to Navy publications and newsletters, he stayed active in his VFW. He was the one who organized the first WWII Sub Vets reunions for the state of New York.

I often feel jealous of friends with living relatives who fought in the war that they can still talk to. I lost my grandpa when I was very young, barely eleven years old.  And he rarely ever spoke to me when he was alive. He had a stroke when I was 9, and he pretty much lost the ability to speak after that. I remember him as a kind, gentle but taciturn man. He didn't or couldn't say very much. Sometimes we heard him struggling to say something to us he thought was important, and it was difficult to watch.

But I do remember one party held at his house after a reunion sometime in the early '90s, with a bunch of WWII veterans seated around the kitchen table as they swapped war stories. What a time to be alive.

Hughie, as Grandma called him, was a licensed ham radio operator and he stayed in contact with most of them via radio in the days before cell phones. He even would message his buddies in Morse code to keep his skills sharp. Grandpa could tap code at 30 words per minute and he could listen even faster. His radio buddies used to have a virtual meeting on the radio every weeknight, Grandma called it "the Net" where they would share the local news and check up on each other, find out how things were going at the farm, etc. while we all listened to the voices intently on the scanner downstairs. I wish he had recorded some of the radio talks with his shipmates.

I still have vivid memories of the nights I stayed up late in his radio room with headphones on, listening to those guys talk on the air.  Sometimes he let me tune around on the airwaves myself and see what I could pick up. (You could talk on the radio without a license as long as the licensed operator was present) I talked to someone in Italy once and another guy he knew in Australia. One time he was even talking to a radioman on a ship in the middle of the Atlantic ocean as a submarine explored the wreck of the Titanic. They were trying to raise a piece of the ship, right when it almost got to the surface, the cables broke.

He knew I was interested in the Navy stuff even at that age, we watched his videotapes of Victory At Sea together. He appreciated anything that had to do with Navy ships or submarines. But I never knew the younger version of him that could tell the detailed stories from his viewpoint.

When Grandpa died of leukemia at only 76 I was devastated. He was buried with full military honors on a blistering hot afternoon in June 1995. My cousins were all there and we were all little at the time, I was the only one who saluted. I never cried though. Grandma said I talked about him for a long time as if he were still with us, and I guess I never stopped. I figured as long as I remember him, he lives on.

I miss him, all the time.