[QuadList] Fwd: [USNCVA] Correspondence between two old timers

Tue Nov 8 12:52:15 CST 2011

For Ted,

Just another great read RE: WWII from my Navy Crypie Vets Group.  BTW, I will be at Pearl Harbor while on a cruise over Xmas, New Year, with son, grandkids, sri couldn't make it for the 7th, would love to have met your dad.

You can't make this stuff up.

73,

George Keller

-----Original Message-----
From: George Keller <cwo4geo at yahoo.com>
To: george keller <georgenann at aol.com>
Sent: Tue, Nov 8, 2011 1:43 pm
Subject: Fw: [USNCVA] Correspondence between two old timers

--- On Tue, 11/8/11, Charles Hannagan <cfh1 at earthlink.net> wrote:

From: Charles Hannagan <cfh1 at earthlink.net>
Subject: [USNCVA] Correspondence between two old timers
To: USNCVA at yahoogroups.com
Date: Tuesday, November 8, 2011, 3:53 PM

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Stan
To: Hanagan Chuck
Sent: Tuesday, November 08, 2011 1:47 AM
Subject: John Engen

Did you know John Engen? I knew him but not well. We didn't travel in the same group. I believe he was a musician in the navy and chummed around with some of the radio men and learned the Morse code from them. ON Dec. 7th  he was on one of the ships that was sunk and he along with a few others were trapped in a compartment below the water line. As I remember the story, he tapped out the Morse code to a rescue party and it was through this action that he and the others were rescued. Then he came to Wahiawa and was assigned to our unit and went through our school.

Also I believe he was contacted at his residence in the Seattle area but did not want to discuss any of his "war stories" with them and did not seem interested in continuing any further contact. He felt his work while in our group was or should be still classified and the less it was talked about, the better. Any way, he is gone now.

You are the only one I know of from our original group. It is nearing the end of an era.

I am 93 today. My grandson from Montana, who is a LEED certifier, is with me for a few days.

Being a member of the VFW Honor Guard, I will be attending three different school assemblies to post the colors as part of their Veterans Day activities. There are 5 of us that have worked together on this posting the colors routine and are getting pretty good at it. We usually march in or up on to the stage doing a half step. The lead man is a rifle man followed by three flag bearers, The national flag then the state and then the VFW flags and then another rifleman.  Then we post the colors and half step off the stage or to our seats. At the end of the program we do the reverse order and march off.  We we think we look pretty sharp and enjoy doing it. A bunch of old fogies playing around. I am the only Navy guy in the bunch.

I saw your little article in the Cryptolog.

Have  good one!
Stan
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Reply from Chuck Hannagan to Stan Dudley
Sent November 8, 2011 at 10:36AM

Hi Stan: Like you I knew Engen only as a class member. That part about being a musician, knowing Morse code and being trapped on a sunken ship on 7 December is all true.

His knowledge of the morse code was taught to him by his father a Navy Chief Radioman.  The sunken ship was the battleship Oklahoma which capsized. It took workers approximately 33 hours to cut through the bottom to rescue the group. Not certain about the code tapping - I heard that it was metal hammering metal that alerted rescuers that someone was still alive.

I tried to contact Jon (as Phil Jacobsen and I remembered the spelling of his first name) when Jake and I were writing the story of The Attic Gang. He did not reply.  Other than the NCVA I am not a member of any veteran's group. I do however get called by one of them to participate in Honoring Veterans at one of the local schools. Thursday 10 November I am scheduled to address two classes at a High School level. It should be quite different than the previous sessions 
at elementary level schools. Missing will be the usual questions How many Japs did you kill? Were you killed or just wounded?
By the way old man HAPPY BIRTHDAY! (I entered the middle age stage (88) last August).

Chuck

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