Today, Sept. 15, marks the 64th anniversary of the loss of USS Wasp (CV-7) during the prolonged battle with the Japanese forces for one of the largest of the Solomon Islands.
My father was a plank-owner (a crew member at commissioning) of the Wasp, and he was with it until it was sunk by Japanese Submarine I-19. Paul Irwin Jordan was lost with the ship. I was 16 months old.
As I grew up, all I knew of my dad was what relatives and friends were able to tell me. This was certainly a poor substitute for having him around, and needless to say, I knew nothing of his days aboard ship.
As I was preparing to transfer from the Azores Islands in 1979 in the continuation of my Navy career, I found out that an organization of the Wasp crew member survivors called “The Stinger Club” was holding their reunion in Charleston. After arriving home to my mother’s home in Columbia, my wife Bonnie and I went to the reunion on the chance that I might get to meet some of my dad’s buddies. I met some that had known him, but there was no one who had been close to him.
The next year’s reunion of the Stinger Club was being held in San Diego, Calif. It just so happened that I was in flight training at Naval Air Station Moffett Field near San Francisco, so my whole family trekked to San Diego.
When I checked in at the desk in the hotel lobby, the man at the desk called over to someone, and I then met “Duff” McDonough, who I learned was close with my dad. He had never been to a reunion but received the Stinger Newsletter and saw that I had been in attendance in Charleston. He came to San Diego in hopes that I would be there.
Duff told me he had been on the sound-powered phones on the flight deck and my dad was at a fuel pumping station below decks, where one of the torpedoes hit. Duff said he was the last person to speak with him before he died.
Over time, I did get to learn a great deal about my dad from Duff.
We bonded instantly, and I got to see him at two other reunions over the years. Well, Duff passed away this past year as is happening with our World War II veterans. Though we didn’t see as much of each other as we would have liked, I felt we were close. I will certainly miss him.
This retired school teacher, who served his country in World War II, has completed his journey on earth and has gone on to his reward.
In the old Navy tradition, I wish him “fair winds and following seas.”
T&D Correspondent Larry P. Jordan can be reached by phone at 803-874-3276.