Remembering Daddy on Veteran’s Day
By: Susan Van Allen
Tags: Family History, Veterans Day, World War II, Womens Travel, Italian Travel

Remembering Daddy on Veteran’s Day

With Gratitude to WWII’s Silent Style

My father never talked about his time in the Navy during World War II. We did see pictures of him in uniform, knew he was a radio operator, and thought it was cool that he used Morse Code. There was also that Pea Coat in great condition, from when he was discharged in January of 1946. The coat was handed down from my brother to us three girls, fashionable in the 1960s, perfect for New Jersey winters.

I also remember a framed certificate in the garage, propped up on a wooden tool counter, mixed in with old hammers and oily rags. On the certificate was a picture of a ship, the USS Savannah, and my father’s name honored as a survivor. I somehow knew the ship had been bombed, but little else until a few years ago when I went down a Google rabbit hole to research the event.

(wikimedia)

The images were a punch to the gut: September 11, 1943, in the Bay of Salerno, Italy, Daddy’s ship was hit with a German glider bomb. The bomb tore through turrets, ammunition exploded, 197 crewmen were killed. I ran videos back and forth to look for Daddy, imagining him at 19 years old, in the midst of this horror, as charred bodies were laid out on the ship’s deck.

My childhood impression of Daddy’s service time was that it must have been like McHale’s Navy — the hilarious sitcom about a World War II crew we’d watch every week on the black and white TV — laughing over Ernest Borgnine’s escapades, loving how he and his cronies would try to hide their naughtiness from the captain, aka “Old Leadbottom”. Between that show and my mother’s romantic stories about meeting our father when he was a lifeguard at the beach in Long Branch, New Jersey, my story of Daddy’s past seemed complete.

Of course he must have loved the Navy — he loved the ocean, swimming in the sea, walking on the beach in all seasons to take in the horizon.

In May 2019, 76 years after Daddy’s ship was bombed, my sisters, my niece, and I were in the Bay where it happened, traveling by ferry from Positano to Salerno. It was a gorgeous Sunday, the sea was calm and sparkling, seagulls swooped overhead.

I thought of Daddy, looking out at this view through his blue-gray eyes — a kid from the Jersey shore experiencing a new horizon, this paradise of Italian coastline. Although we never talked about it, he must have had some moments like this elation I was sharing with my loved ones right then on the ferry. And when the bomb landed…I stopped my thoughts and sent blessings.

Thanks to his silence, my father forever leaves me open to imagine his experience with more of the happiness and less of the horror. I believe that’s how he wanted it to be. Thanks to his service, along with all who served and are serving, we have an abundance of joyful moments like that Sunday on the Bay of Salerno — to be filled with Love for Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. I know that’s what he fought for.

Thanks to all their sacrifices, I travel, explore, and enjoy, holding all who fight for freedom in my grateful heart.

P.S. — Paestum, home to these amazing temples, was a short ride from Salerno. After the ferry docked, we moved on to this spot my history-loving Daddy would have also loved…