Destroyer vets meet for ‘family’ reunion

They were “tin-can” sailors once, and young. Now they’ve come together, some probably for the last time, to remember shared dangers and shared friendships.

Two dozen Navy veterans of World War II who served aboard the destroyer Dale were in San Diego this weekend to remember a ship and a war that changed their lives.

It began on Dec. 7, 1941, at Pearl Harbor when the Dale was one of the few ships to get underway and escape the Japanese attack.

The Dale also was one of the first ships to take the fight to the new enemy, downing at least one Japanese plane, maybe more that brutal morning.

In three-plus years of war, the Dale took part in battles from the Aleutian Islands to Okinawa, winning 12 battle stars before sailing in triumph into San Diego Harbor on Sept. 7, 1945. A heroes’ welcome awaited.

A.D. Payne, 83, of Amarillo, Texas, hadn’t been back to San Diego since that day. He remembered racing off the ship to find a wedding ring for his girlfriend back home. He stopped for a beer and was late getting back to the ship -- an unforgivable sin in the Navy of those days.

“I was 15 minutes late so the captain -- he liked me -- gave me 15 minutes extra duty,” Payne said with a laugh. “It’s the only black mark on my record.”

There were other memories: battles fought against the Japanese and one memorable one against the weather, a typhoon that sank several ships in the armada. “Water was coming down the smokestack,” Payne said. “Luckily we were all working so hard we didn’t have time to get scared.”

Earl Hicks, 82, of Potrero, a rural community east of San Diego, remembered fighting a numerically superior Japanese fleet in the battle of the Komandorski Islands, off northeast Russia in the Bering Sea.

“We had to run. They had us outnumbered,” Hicks said. “The [heavy cruiser] Salt Lake City got hit nine times. We put out a smoke screen to save her. Then the Japanese turned and left. I still don’t know why, but it allowed us to limp back to Adak [Alaska].”

For Jack Pettit, 88, of Long Beach, the hours after the Dale got out of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7 remain vivid. A Japanese submarine was waiting. “I looked and two torpedoes were coming directly at us,” Pettit said. “My hair stood straight up, but they passed directly below us.”

Dale veterans have gathered periodically over the years, although their numbers have dwindled. A few attended this year in wheelchairs.

Mary Self, 57, of Harisonville, Mo., said her father, John Cruce, 91, of Nobnoster, Mo., was upset when it looked like he would not be able to attend. “Dad had a small stroke and he was bummed out that he might not be able to be here,” Self said. “He said it was like there wasn’t going to be a Christmas this year.”

But Cruce’s doctor changed his medication and cleared him for the trip. “He packed his bag on Sunday, even though we didn’t leave until Thursday,” his daughter said.

The highlight of the reunion was a trip Saturday to the Midway, the aircraft carrier turned museum moored at the Embarcadero. In the hangar bay, Michael Keith Olson, a writer and radio talk-show host from Santa Cruz, read from his recent book, “Tales From a Tin Can: The USS Dale From Pearl Harbor to Tokyo Bay.”

For his book, Olson gathered 424 stories from 44 Dale sailors and presented them in chronological order. His father, Robert “Pat” Olson, 88, of Billings, Mont., served aboard the Dale from after Pearl Harbor to its decommissioning in New York on Oct. 16, 1945.

“I love sea stories,” the writer said. “This has all the elements: a ship that is a world in microcosm, lots of conflict, and tales of how people faced up to danger and survived.”

Although not as glamorous or headline-grabbing as the carriers or battleships, destroyers like the Dale had a closeness that bred camaraderie.

Elmer Aemmer, 90, of Bellingham, Wash., served on the Dale in the late 1930s but, to his disappointment, was transferred to another ship during World War II. “I passed her a few times and always wished I was on her,” he said.

It’s not unusual for shipmates to stay in touch and have reunions. As a Navy town, San Diego is host to a fair number. But even by those standards, the bonds of Dale sailors appear remarkable.

“These guys are like family,” said Jacqueline Hicks, 79. “When they get together, it’s more like a family reunion than a ship reunion.”

Of about 550 men who served aboard the Dale, 35 are still alive.

Although the Dale sailors are pleased with Michael Olson’s book, they bristle at the notion that their service was somehow extraordinary or more important than that of others in their generation.

“There was a war and we had a job to do, and so we did it,” said Harold Zoellner, 81, of Tucson.

And is there a lasting moral in the tale of the Dale and its wartime service?

Yes, said Robert Olson.

“It doesn’t make any sense to make war if you don’t have to,” he said. “Peace is better.”

--

tony.perry@latimes.com