‘Today was the great day!’

In the middle of the Pacific aboard the USS William P. Biddle, the radio chatter sliced through the sway of music around 11:30 a.m. local time.  

Japan had surrendered to the forces of the United Nations ending World War II. Joe Bogage, radioman third class, ran with several crewmates to tell the officer on duty, who informed the other 500-some souls aboard the ship they called the “Willie P.”  

It was Aug. 15, 1945, what we know 80 years later as V-J Day. 

Celebrations broke out on board, and my grandfather – Radioman Bogage – rushed off to send a letter home. “Today,” he began, “was the great day!” 

My grandfather died at age 97 in March 2024. With my grandmother, who died in June, he lived a full life. “We were comfortable,” she told me in the minutes before he passed. “That was what we wanted.” 

My grandfather was proud of his Navy service, but also resentful of it. He felt it robbed him of the chance to go to college; after his discharge, he went straight into the workforce to help support his family.  

Like a lot of men his age – and a lot of men harboring some bitterness – he didn’t talk much about his time in the service. Not with my father and aunt and uncle, and not with his many grand- and great-grandchildren. 

The most fulsome depiction the Bogage family has of his service is this letter – sent with 19 cents of postage to the family’s summer reunion at Surf City, N.J. – which just happens to share the final two months of the war that shaped the 20^th century.  

The postman delivering the note scrawled “SPECIAL DELIVERY,” underlined four times, in pencil across the front of the envelope. My father found it among my grandfather’s effects after he died.  

The Biddle on June 13 set sail from San Francisco to Honolulu to join the rest of the Pacific fleet preparing for combat in Japan. Two days later, a Kamikaze pilot sunk the USS Twiggs during the battle of Okinawa.  

The journey to Honolulu took eight days. The Biddle stayed in port for a week.  

“The city itself was dirty and old, nothing good looking about it at all,” my grandfather wrote. “The mountains in the background were, tho, very picturesque.” 

The upside to Honolulu – where my grandparents later vacationed and raved about for decades afterward – was the rations. The only limits were on gasoline. My grandfather was more interested in the food. “All the pineapple and tomato juice you could hold for 10¢ a can.” He’d have purchased a pair of shoes, also unrationed, he wrote, if he only had the money. 

At Pearl Harbor, my grandfather visited roommates from his days at the University of Wisconsin, where he received his radio training. One of the few stories he did recall from his military service was when he was too proud to wear his long johns during the Madison winter. His legs froze, landing him briefly in the infirmary with a bruised ego. Us grandchildren were always encouraged to bundle up. 

His friends were stationed on the carrier Wasp, a newer, larger, more lethal ship. My grandfather was pleased to be aboard something less prestigious. “That really is a beauty of a ship — which is why I’m glad I’m not on it,” he wrote. “To (sic) much crap with inspections and stuff.” 

The Biddle took off for Enewatek, an atoll nearly 7,000 miles from Osaka, with a full complement of 500 Navy crewmen and 300 more “miscellaneous personnell (sic),” then Ulithi, 1,500 miles further west. 

“Then on to fight in the Phillipines (sic),” he wrote. (Grandpa never really cared much for spelling.) 

It’s hard to think of him going into battle. My grandfather wasn’t the gentle type, but he wasn’t someone I could imagine being violent. By his sparse accounts, he wasn’t much of a soldier, either. During a training exercise, he abandoned his radio equipment to get crushed by a tank when it unexpectedly rolled over a sand dune – another of the few stories he shared. 

Before he died, I filed a Freedom of Information Act request for his discharge papers. He was awarded the American Theater Medal, the Victory Medal, the Asiatic-Pacific Medal and the Philippine Liberation Ribbon.  

My grandfather, a liberator. Huh. 

At the Philippines, the Biddle anchored in the strait between the islands of Leyte and Samar, and “discharged” her passengers.  

Grandpa told my father of a single time when the Biddle came under attack. It was, I’ve deduced using Navy records and World War II histories, January 1945, in this same channel.  

While unloading crew preparing to land on the beaches, an enemy aircraft assaulted the U.S. formation. The Biddle sprayed 72 rounds of anti-aircraft fire, according to an official Navy account. Two crewmen were wounded by shrapnel from allied projectiles. 

In July, back in the same waters, the Biddle’s commanding officers organized an on-shore social once the Biddle’s passengers had disembarked. 

“I had all of four cans of beer.” Whatever you say, Grandpa. 

The Biddle picked up 600 “survivors” from the fighting on shore as Army troops took part in so-called “mopping up” operations on isolated elements of Japanese resistance, then made a beeline back to San Francisco with a brief stopover at Ulithi. 

Floating near the international date line -- “This week we have two Thursdays,” Grandpa wrote -- “the great day” arrived. 

“Everybody is happy on board. Most of the older guys will be getting out soon and even I have only a year or so to go. Long time!” 

He was 19 years old and earned his discharge 11 months later. He was paid $100 for “mustering out,” about $1,000 adjusted for 79 years of inflation. He chucked his sailor’s uniform into the harbor when he left the service. He saved only his cap. We can’t seem to find it. 

He certainly cared about his service, even if he begrudged it. He was involved with the Jewish War Veterans and veterans' groups at our synagogue. Veterans Day meant something to him; it was also Grandparents Day at my elementary and middle school.  

There was a line between duty and obligation that he very carefully walked, even if he didn’t mean to. He revered military servicemembers but hated war on principle; he once shielded my uncle from police in his office building while he escaped a Vietnam War demonstration that turned rowdy. It was his own quiet Vietnam protest. He volunteered at the local police station in my hometown when I was a child. 

These were my memories of Grandpa, and the new “memories” I’d learned and would carry with me. It’s where I thought I’d stop writing. I find when I start talking (or writing) about my grandfather, there’s always more to say, and yet it’s difficult to find the words.  

Then my father and I found another letter. 

“Dear Folks,” he wrote on Aug. 23, 1945, some 49 years and 364 days before I was born, “Still sailing but supposed to hit the States this Saturday morning. 

“Nothing has happened since I wrote the last letter, except that we have run into a bunch of whales.” 

The Biddle was due into San Pedro, Calif., in the coming days, where there’d be a welcome reception at the harbor. “After all, we are bringing back guys who have been overseas two or three years.” 

The ship and her crew were expecting to spend a decent amount of time in the yard: “It’s the Biddle so something fouled up.” 

In the meantime, there wasn’t much to do on board, he wrote. He was set to take his exam for promotion to radioman second class, and asked desperately for his family to find his notebook at home and send to San Pedro. 

He asked for books by Saroyan and family photos from their vacation down the Shore.  

The Navy had a new “point system” for discharging sailors. A half point for each year of age, and each year in the service, plus 10 points for dependents. It took 44 points to earn a discharge. Grandpa had almost 16, with no illusions of an quick exit. 

“At the very least I’ll be in another ten months,” he wrote. “It’ll be peacetime anyway, so no argument there.” 

Peacetime.  

And everything to look forward to. Starting with mail. At sea for three weeks, the Biddle didn’t receive any deliveries. 

“Just to think of the stack of mail waiting,” he wrote, “makes me happy inside.” 

Thanks for reading about my grandfather, Radioman Bogage. What’d you think of this family history? Send me an email and let me know.

And if you have news or history tips, reach me at [email protected], or securely on Signal at jacobbogage.87.