Joe Dial

Joe Dial

I was born on December 15, 1924 in Merit Hunt County Texas. I enlisted in the Navy on December 14, 1942. I left home on 24 December 1942 and had Christmas dinner on the train. I arrived at San Diego, California where I underwent Basic Training. I went to Signal School, and then was assigned to the Nassau as a Signalman around June 1943. I worked on the bridge with flags and signal lights. The thing that sticks in my mind is when a plane, which was landing, blew a tire and crashed into the bridge. It broke the light on my side. No one was hurt and there wasn't a lot of damage, but it sure did scare me.

I left the Nassau on November 1, 1945 for the U.S. Naval Separations Center in Norman, Oklahoma where I was discharged on 4 November 1945.

I was married on 15 March 1949 in Wiesbaden, Germany to a wonderful German girl named Elizabeth Hergert. We had one daughter and twin boys. We have eight grandkids, three girls and five boys; and two great-grandkids, one girl and one boy.