From the September 16, 2012, Iowa Globe Gazette "M.C. man hosting last reunion of WWII sailors" by John Skipper.
This will be the final reunion of those who served aboard the USS Haggard as "there just aren't many of us left."
Madison City's Earl Opheim, 86, and the youngest of those left, will be hosting the 25th reunion of the destroyer, which saw action late in the war and earned nine Battle Stars. Opheim received a Purple Heart "for taking shrapnel in my leg."
The men and their families started arriving Wednesday and daily activities were held, concluding with a banquet on Saturday night.
The reunions started 25 years ago when one crew member was going to Las Vegas and invited others to meet him. Thirty took him up on it. Every year, it was held where one of the members lives and it is Opheim's turn to host it. "I wasn't on the Haggard at the beginning. When I came on, I was a radio striker and had to learn Morse Code." A big reason he got the job was because he could type. "You had to type 22 words a minute because that was the speed of the code."
The Haggard was in action at the Marina Islands, Western Carolines, Leyte Gulf and China Sea operations.
Sad to See All These Final Reunions. --GreGen
The USS North Carolina (BB-55) My all-time favorite warship. As an elementary school student in North Carolina, I donated nickels and dimes to save this ship back in the early sixties.
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