RECOLLECTION

Chester Hill 1988

“A BLIND DATE”

25 Augusta 1943, Swanson was in Drydock No. 2 in Brooklyn Navy Yard, New York, in the midst of those six weeks of repairs necessitated by our collision with Roe early in that memorable morning off Sicily on 10 July. I had returned the day before from a 72 spent visiting my parents down in North Carolina, where I had been treated and feted in grand style, since very few local boys had come back from actual combat at that time. I had the on board OOD duty for the night and Lt. Billy Hickman had the engineering watch.

Late yesterday Billy had mentioned to me that his wife, Mac, would be coming on board for dinner with him in the wardroom, and would be bringing along a young friend from their mutual home town of Brookhaven, Mississippi. They were wondering if it might be possible to get one of the other officers to be their friend’s escort for evening. Show her what a destroyer life was like, and maybe even tell her a few sea stories! I volunteered without hesitation.

So there I stood, waiting at the gangway, starboard side, while Billy went out to meet our guests at the Sand Street Gate. QM2c Steve Jasick was running me up the wall with his incessant jocular jabber about what this babe from Mississippi was going to look like, act like, talk like, dress like et cetera when I finally saw them coming with Billy between them. Jasick had already informed me that he had seen Mrs. Hickman before, so I learned from that my date was the 5’2” curvaceous brunette in the white dress with the full pleated skirt and white and brown pumps, Spectators, I believe they called them. I could not take my eyes off her as she came across that long gangway.

The evening was delightful. She seemed to enjoy the dinner, as were having, filets mignon. We agreed to see each other some more, and so we did. We wrote regularly while I stayed on the Swanson and then were married in her home in Brookhaven while I was on leave awaiting assignment to new construction, on 3 March 1945.

We are still married, with six children and eight grandchildren. I forgot to say that her name was Mary Adine Becker and is now Deena to all who know and love her. It was a wonderful blind date.