1. 2/26/2016 'Just the average sailor doing his job' - Manistee News
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Home / Lifestyles / ‘Just the average sailor doing his job’
‘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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2. 2/26/2016 'Just the average sailor doing his job' - Manistee News
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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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3. 2/26/2016 'Just the average sailor doing his job' - Manistee News
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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.

4. 2/26/2016 'Just the average sailor doing his job' - Manistee News
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“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 mnaintern@pioneergroup.com
View all posts by Logan T. Hansen →
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