They also visited the Lincoln Memorial, Korean War Veterans Memorial and Vietnam Veterans Memorial. “I’ll tell you it was all over,” he said with a laugh. The doodle became popular during World War II, something Silvey remembers well.
They even caught an engraving of Kilroy – a cartoon bald-headed man with a large nose peeking over a wall accompanied by the phrase, “Kilroy was here.” “It’s a beautiful memorial,” Silvey said. It was their first time visiting the National World War II Memorial. Guardians often accompany veterans on Honor Flights, and Silvey’s was his son, Thomas “Tom” Silvey II, who served in the U.S.
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The nonprofit organization arranges free visits to the nation’s capital for veterans of World War II, the Korean War and Vietnam War to visit memorials commemorating the conflicts they served in. Silvey was the only World War II veteran in a group of over 80 former service members on a trip in June to Washington, D.C. The couple remained in town until last December, when they moved into an assisted living facility in Westfield. He and his wife, Caroline, raised a family in McCordsville. He earned a degree in mechanical engineering from Purdue University and worked for Allison Engine Company in Indianapolis, where he tested jet engines and designed parts for them. 45 – that tells he was an officer,” Tommy said. Later, on Okinawa, they headed up to right behind the front lines in order to make contact with a fellow service member, where Silvey’s friend’s new weapon spurred a sense of false identity among the enemy. Silvey recalled a friend of his picking up a. That branch was not without loss, however. He said his role and relative distance from combat and destruction eased any fears he might’ve experienced. military hospital that the Japanese military bombed on an island he served on, an attack that killed many. “And it rained that night he ended up sleeping in a puddle. “He must’ve been more afraid than I was because he dug his side of the hole real deep,” Silvey said with a laugh. Silvey recalled his fellow service member with whom he shared a foxhole. “There was firing going on all night,” he said. military personnel remained on high alert. While the bulk of the fighting in that area may have been over, U.S. “The fighting was over the day we went in, and there was plenty of Japanese still there,” he said. It fit in a hut that sat on an Army 6-by-6 truck.”Įventually the switchboard was moved to a secure location on the ground, allowing Silvey to use the truck for other tasks, including transporting inhabitants of the island to bury the Japanese dead from previous fighting. “We had eight-hour shifts on the main switchboard. “We had everything - construction, radio platoon, telephone, teletype … and I did all sorts of things,” he said. Navy on a smaller island nearby that had an airport he helped provide communications for. Silvey was on the island of Okinawa for nearly a year.
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“They would bring it to the typist and … the person receiving it has a code machine to read it.” “Anything critical that the enemy would need was encrypted,” he said. “We had telephone communication and radio back in those days.”Ī construction platoon strung telephone lines from the switchboards Silvey worked from to where the fighting was happening. “They took all the officers’ messages they wanted sent out and they just sent them by telephone or maybe radio if it was possible,” Silvey said.
Soldiers who worked in construction and radio communications were part of his outfit as well. He served in the Signal Corps on Japanese islands, where he worked as a switchboard operator in a platoon that also specialized in telephone and teletype communications. Silvey was born in McCordsville and graduated from the town’s former high school in 1942 before joining the Army in spring 1943. That journey also gave him an opportunity to reflect on his involvement in the defining moment of the Greatest Generation. The 97-year-old recently got to visit military sights in the nation’s capital thanks to an organization that arranges such trips in honor of military veterans.
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