The Skokie Fire Department’s honor guard marched up an aisle between rows of spectators, their ceremonial axes glistening silver, to start Skokie’s Memorial Day ceremony Monday.
Skokie Fire Chief Jeff Hoeflich welcomed speakers including Dan Ryan, a U.S. Navy veteran who had worked as the village’s finance director from 1980 to 1990 and later served on the police pension board.
When Ryan’s father, who had served in World War II, was alive the two traveled to the National World War II museum in New Orleans, which in 2014 had a special exhibit on Higgins boats, Ryan said, describing the vessels as those in which the front half opens up to let troops storm out.
“They had a book where veterans could write their remembrances of Higgins boats,” Ryan said, adding he was surprised to see his father writing in it, since he had never previously mentioned anything about the subject. He later peeked at what his father’s entry.
It described how one day in April 1945 in Okinawa, his father’s ship released its Higgins boats, watched the troops inside them successfully make it onshore and said the boatswains brought the Higgins boats back to the ship.
“As we pulled away, we passed and gave honors to the ship that was taking our place (to deposit more Higgins boats and sailors). At that moment, the other vessel was hit catastrophically by a kamikaze pilot. We spent the next hours assisting the ship, caring for the wounded and recovering and respecting the dead,” Ryan’s father wrote, according to Ryan’s recollection.
The moment of solemnity continued as a Niles North High School student sang the national anthem and the Skokie Police honor guard marched to a grassy area behind the speakers and performed a rifle salute.
Rabbi Moshe Wolf gave a benediction, thanking honored heroes and their families and praying that first responders arrive home safely after their tours of duty.
