Pickles & Dimes

Jason’s Grandpa passed away Saturday. He was 87 and served in the Navy during WWII. The number of veterans that came to his funeral was amazing. We heard all kinds of stories about him. He was supposed to be at Pearl Harbor when it was attacked, but got delayed somehow and avoided what probably would’ve been his death. Instead, he got married and created a wonderful family. Here is the eulogy that Jason gave yesterday.

We all know how proud Grandpa was to have served our country in the United States Navy. He loved sharing his World War II stories, and now I’d like to share one of those with you.

Grandpa was a member of the crew on the USS Salmon. On the night of October 31, 1944, the submarine completed its final mission.

The sub was a mile out of Yokohama, Japan. According to Grandpa, the crew sank a tanker that was going into the harbor. The tanker, however, was protected by four destroyers armed with depth charges, while the Salmon only had one gun to fight with. The sub was rated to a depth of 300 feet. During battle, the back end of the sub began taking on water, pulling them to a depth of more than 500 feet. The fight lasted from 8:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. The sub finally managed to elude the ships when a rain squall came up, although it no longer had diving capabilities because all of the pumps had shorted out during the battle.

The crew bailed water to stay afloat. The sub had expended most of its ammunition in the battle, but did set one of the ships on fire and destroyed another. When the battle was over, the crew only had five rounds of five-inch ammunition left. Escorted by three submarines, the Salmon finally reached Saipan, and the captain ran it aground so that it wouldn’t sink.

The executive officer and Grandpa were transferring the decoding machine and the Captain’s log to the USS Silversides in a rubber life raft. Halfway to the boat, enemy torpedoes started coming in. Fortunately, the 14-foot ocean swells concealed them during the night. When they were on top of a swell, they could see all around them, but when they were on the bottom, they couldn’t see a thing.

They were picked up by the Silversides at 6:00 a.m. the next morning – almost 12 hours after the battle began. The Salmon was taken back to the United States, where it served as a training vessel before it was eventually scrapped. In the battle, nine crew members were injured, qualifying them for the Purple Heart. Grandpa was discharged from the service in 1945.

Last fall, Grandpa had the opportunity to take part in the Honor Flight out of Rochester, Minnesota. He traveled to Washington, D.C. for the day and saw all of the memorials. He was humbled by the crowds paying their respects. The greeting that the World War II veterans received was overwhelming; people of all ages reached out to shake hands and thank them for serving our country. That trip meant the world to him. We are so thankful that he was able to go.

Grandpa was our hero in every sense of the word.