He could never control his tears, when they came unannounced. There were nightmares too. My Dad saw so much and was very silent most of the time. He would lean on God more and more. The first picture is of my father. The other is a photo of their destroyer, DD-649 which was hit by a Japanese battleship.

My father received the Purple Heart. His best buddy died by splitting in two while operating the torpedo. Dad had to take over for him. People in the boiler room could not get out, and those that did, had to deal with my Dad. The assistant pharmacist had to give morphine to those whose last minutes were present. The Dr had been shot. The ship was an escort ship for McArthur, and the ship received a personal letter of thank you from him. The ship is the only one who was credited for the sinking of the only Japanese battleship during that morning, Oct. 25th.

Note the holes in the ship, which is especially evident where you can see the guys playing around with their feet dangling out of the hole in the ship. When the battle was over that next day or two, the captain asked all the shipmates who were left to choose between two options: either wait for a fuel tank vessel to come to rescue, or patch all the holes with mattresses and with feet literally dangling in the water due to the massive loss and low fuel, guess what the men chose? “Let’s not wait and head back to Hawaii!” I remember Dad said to me, “I was sitting up on the top of the deck, and my buddy and I heard Captain Nieswaner say, The war is over, men. We are going home.”