Memorial Day, When Life Changes!

 With Memorial Day here I always think of what it must have been when Pearl Harbor was attacked. That's when I look back into my dads past and see it as a life changing event. Not for just him but all Americans! In his case he was an all scholastic athlete who was then a freshman at Villanova University playing football. Right after the attack he was on the road hitching rides back to Gloucester to say goodby to his parents and join the Navy. He became a naval aviator as a radioman and gunner aboard a PBY. He and his squadron VP-53 participated in both the Atlantic and Pacific theaters of war. In his first action while on patrol March 8 1943 at 1:10 pm they spotted a surfaced U boat and began the attack. The pilot, Lt Dryden positioned the plane in a perfect alignment with the sun. That way the U boat's crew couldn't see the approaching aircraft. My father manned one of the guns and started to rake the deck in an effort to keep the subs crew from manning their guns. After dropping 4 contact depth bombs the sub split in two and quickly sank. Spotting survivors the PBY's crew dropped two life rafts and circled the site for several hours waiting for a rescue vessel to pick them up. With fuel getting low they had to depart never knowing the fate of the subs surviving crew. My dad never knew the the story of the U-156 until many years later when I read an article about the sub in his American Legion magazine. At one time the U-156 attacked the oil refineries of Aruba
with little success. But later they attacked the British liner Laconia in what was to be known as "The Laconia Incident". In the American Legion article it mentioned details of the U-156 sinking. Out of curiosity I looked through my dads log book and there it was.....March 8 43...."Sunk Sub"! That's all he wrote and not until the 1970's did he tell me the details!

U-156 Captain Warner Hartenstein

R.M.S. Laconia

 Laconia survivors aboard the U-156

 Captain Hartenstein and his crew.

 Attacking U-156 (Two crewmen at base of conning tower)

 Survivors clinging to an external supply tube.

 Survivors in a raft.

 Lt. Dryden

 My dad with the crew somewhere in the Pacific.

 My dad (right) holding captured Japanese flag.

 Navy Air Medal