Tuesday is Veterans Day, and once again this year, RadioOnTheGo will feature area veterans during the Newsmaker program through Tuesday on KLMJ with help from Franklin County Veterans Affairs Service Officer Adam Akers.
On Friday’s program, longtime Hampton resident Roger Hansen was featured. Hansen graduated from Cedar Falls in 1949 and later joined the Naval Reserve during the Korean War. Hansen attended boot camp and was later assigned to a Navy Destroyer, the USS Chevalier out of San Diego, California. Hansen says the ship ultimately made its way to Korea for about a year during the war.
“During that time, we operated on both the east and west coast of Korea, operating with aircraft carriers, occasionally with a cruiser, and then often we were in a squadron of four destroyers. We would operate up and down the coast, and as I remember, often fire the guns. Most of us didn’t know what we were shooting at. At night, they would often fire the guns every 15 minutes and my bunk was right under the aft gun turret. It was rather difficult to go to sleep and you had to get up and we usually served four hours on watch and then eight hours off when we were out to sea.”
Hansen remembers that day in July of 1953 when he and his crew were informed that the war was over.
“The captain came on the intercom and said ‘in about 20 minutes we’re going to go to general quarters. We’re chasing a North Korean ship into a harbor and we’re going to engage it.’ Then about 10 minutes later he came back on and said ‘forget that message I just sent. A truce has been signed. We’re going home.’ Believe me there was a lot of cheering on our ship.”
You can listen to the full interview on the Newsmaker podcast page.
