EVERETT – Sixteen warriors who sailed on a World War II escort carrier or flew warplanes off its deck are expected to arrive in Everett on Thursday to swap tall tales and meet in a reunion.
The USS Savo Island, a Casablanca-class escort carrier, and composite air squadron VC-27 left the United States in mid-1944 and spent the next seven months in the South Pacific combat zone. The men and machines participated in island invasions and engaged Japanese forces in the second Battle of the Philippine Sea.
It was one of the most successful squadrons of its kind in the war, claiming credit for shooting down more than 60 enemy fighters and bombers, and destroying eight on the ground.
It’s the 12th annual reunion of sailors who manned the ship or flew fighters and torpedo bombers off the 512-foot deck. It’s called a “composite” squadron because the group consisted of fliers and mechanics attending to both fighters and the torpedo bombers.
The reunion headquarters is at the Everett Holiday Inn, said organizer Don McPherson, 82, of Arlington.
Between now and Monday, participants will visit the Museum of Flight in Seattle and the Future of Flight Aviation Center in Mukilteo. They also plan to lunch with the executive officer of Naval Station Everett, ascend to the top of the Space Needle, hit the Pike Place Market, tour the Everett Boeing assembly plant and more.
In addition, McPherson said the group plans to visit the old site of Sand Point Naval Air Station in Seattle, where the squadron was formed and initially trained.
“It was a different world from the mainstream,” said McPherson, who then was just out of high school in Montesano in southwest Washington, and was just learning how to fly. “The Navy expected you to be a lot older, more educated than a kid 18 years old.”
He and others were expected to be “proficient and eager,” McPherson said. “We learned real fast.”
The VC-27 and USS Savo survivors decided to start meeting annually in the 1990s. Most of the former fliers and sailors live east of the Mississippi River, but the decision was made last year to host a reunion near where the squadron was formed in Seattle.
McPherson has about 100 names on a mailing list, and a lot of them have written back that they can’t make it to this reunion.
Why meet?
The number of World War II veterans is quickly diminishing as folks age, McPherson said. Besides it’s a good chance to relive what happened more than 60 years ago, he added.
“You develop a certain camaraderie that’s hard to understand,” McPherson said. “You don’t understand unless you live through it.”
Reporter Jim Haley: 425-339-3447 or haley@heraldnet.com.
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