'Just the average sailor doing his job' - Manistee News

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‘Just the average sailor doing his job’Posted by Logan T. Hansen on September 11th, 2015

The USS Montgomery, originally launched on March 23, 1918, was a 314-foot

vessel that served in both world wars. Though salvaged after a run-in with a

Japanese mine in the South Pacific in 1944, she was ultimately scrapped two

years later. (Courtesy photo)

BEAR LAKE — World War II veteran Richard Waldecker is the last person

that would label himself a hero.

But as a crew member on both the USS Montgomery (DD-121, later

reclassified DM-17) and the USS Dennis J. Buckley (DD-808) — the former a

destroyer used in both world wars; the latter commissioned right as WWII

ended — most everyone else would think it only fitting to call him one.

Originally from Dearborn, Waldecker, who saw action in the South Pacific

during the war, has resided in the Village of Bear Lake for a number of

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Richard Waldecker sits in his home in

Bear Lake, accompanied by photos of

the two ships he served on while in the

United States Navy from 1942-1946.

(Logan T. Hansen/News Advocate)

years.

Living in relative anonymity and

usually electing to bring up any topic

other than his years in the Navy, one

would be hard-pressed to discover

that he was even in the service.

Manistee resident Bob Lux, a friend

of Waldecker’s who has come to

know him over the past few years,

said as much.

“You’d never suspect that he went

through some of the stuff he went

through,” Lux said. “He’s not a

bragger, he’s not someone that’s

going to exaggerate, but he’s very

proud of being in the war, very

proud that the whole family was.”

Mentioning the whole family, Lux

alludes to the fact that Waldecker’s

four brothers also served their country during WWII.

“There were five of us in the service,” Waldecker said. “Five brothers, and we

were aboard different ships and never saw each other.

“We were never home at the same time either.”

During numerous conversations with Waldecker, Lux has been awed and

fascinated, and a little disconcerted that the veteran has never been

properly given the recognition he deserves — not that Waldecker has ever

sought such recognition.

“(Richard) feels that he didn’t do anything special,” Lux said. “He feels proud,

but he’s just like, ‘We did what we were expected to do and we came home,

got a job and were married, raised families and life went on.'”

But Lux spies the significance of five brothers entering the service at the

same time — all of them making it home safely from the various theaters of

WWII — and the fact that Waldecker is alive today even though he was

aboard the Montgomery when a Japanese mine blew out the ship’s

midsection.

That was the evening of Oct. 17, 1944, with the United States deep in the

throes of Operation Forager, an offensive launched against Imperial

Japanese forces in the Mariana Islands and Palau.

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World War II veteran Richard Waldecker was selected as a

crew member of the USS Dennis J. Buckley in early 1945.

As a commissioning crew member, he received this

certificate, which entitles him to one section of plank of the

vessel. (Logan T. Hansen/News Advocate)

The Montgomery

was sent to the

atoll of Ngulu in

order to destroy a

radio tower,

thereby preventing

enemy forces from

alerting

reinforcements.

With the ship

anchored off of the

atoll, Waldecker

and a crew of men

were charged with

securing the aft

fire room below

deck. They’d gone

topside only 15 minutes before the ship collided with the mine.

“The minesweepers were supposed to sweep that harbor (at Ngulu),”

Waldecker said, “but evidently, they missed one — just one, but that’s all

they have to miss.

“The wind came up and blew the ship into the mine.”

The aft fire room, where Waldecker had been just minutes before, and the

forward and aft engine rooms were completely obliterated.

“The whole center of the ship was gone,” Waldecker said. “We lost

everybody below deck and when I last saw (the Montgomery), the mast was

almost parallel to the water.”

Fortunately, everybody below deck was only four men out of the more than

100 on board.

With the fuel tanks also compromised in the explosion, Waldecker said

some crew members elected to jump into the water, while many others,

including himself, were picked up by other, smaller ships that had been

floating nearby.

From there, Waldecker was transported to Hawaii, where he would stay for

a short period before returning to the mainland, and eventually re-

deploying on the Buckley after a 30-day survivor’s leave spent in Dearborn.

Even after all that excitement, and four years serving in the Navy — three of

them during the war — he counts that night among the many that he was

just doing his job.



“There wasn’t anything fabulous about

what we did; (I was) just the average

sailor doing his job.” said World War II

veteran Richard Waldecker, shown here

standing among the forest of Christmas

cacti growing in the foyer of his Bear

Lake home. (Logan T. Hansen/News

Advocate)

“There wasn’t anything fabulous

about what we did,” he said. “We

weren’t like soldiers, dragging guys

out of danger; just the average sailor

doing his job.”

When he disembarked from a Navy

vessel for the final time in 1946, he

returned to Michigan with little fan

fare.

“His attitude when he came home,”

Lux said, “he didn’t feel that he was

entitled to anything; he didn’t feel

that the government owed him

anything.”

And that’s the same way Waldecker

feels today, 69 years later,

surrounded in his Bear Lake home

by the Christmas cacti forest growing

in his foyer and the many images of

family — his late wife, his parents,

his six sisters, his four brothers (all

clad in uniform in one photo) — that

hang upon the walls.

He may be nearly 90 years old, he may be a four-year veteran of the U.S.

Navy and he might have survived a run-in with a Japanese mine, but for

Richard Waldecker … life goes on.

From left to right, Ernest, Lawrence, Edward, Richard and Russell Waldecker all

served in the United States Navy during World War II. Because the brothers



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never saw one another while in service, their mother had each of their images

superimposed into this single photograph. (Courtesy photo)

Posted by Logan T. Hansen

Logan Hansen is a summer intern at the News Advocate; he

will be covering a variety of topics and events. He can be

reached at (231) 398-3113 or [email protected]

View all posts by Logan T. Hansen →

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