Rock Falls seaman stood ready to rescue
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Note to readers: This is the eighth in a series of Sauk Valley Newspapers stories on some of the World War II veterans who are going to Washington, D.C., Tuesday on the Whiteside County Honor Flight.
ROCK FALLS – In 1944, 17-year-old Alfred Lopez of Rock Falls volunteered for the Navy. It wasn’t his first choice, but it was a good one.
He didn’t want to be drafted, so he volunteered around Christmas time 1944, and was called to serve in January 1945.
“I wanted to be an Army Air Force paratrooper, but you had to weigh at least 125 pounds. I only weighed about 118,” Lopez said.
His brother, Vincent, was in the Navy, and he urged Lopez to join.
“He said in the Navy you get a bunk and three square meals a day, unlike the Army or Marines,” Lopez said.
He received his basic training at the Great Lakes Naval Base before he was sent to California. From there he was shipped to Hawaii and then to Guam, where he was stationed on a naval destroyer, the USS Henderson.
“We sailed around the islands of Guam and Taipan, about 1,500 miles from Japan,” he said. “We cruised in a star shape, waiting to pick up pilots if their planes were shot down or had trouble and went down into the ocean.”
His ship never had to make such a rescue, but others did, and each destroyer had on board sailors who were expert swimmers.
“It wasn’t like it is now,” he said. “They didn’t have SCUBA gear. They just had face masks and wet suits. They had to be good.”
Lopez, now 82, saw the USS Arizona in 1946, the year he was discharged from the Navy. The Arizona was bombed at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, and Lopez says he would like to see it now that it has become a monument.
Lopez was raised near Dallas, and quit school at age 16 to go to work. The United States entered World War II in 1941, when the nation was still enduring the Great Depression, and jobs and money were scarce.
“We moved to Indiana to work on a sugar beet farm,” Lopez said.
He moved to Sterling shortly after.
“My dad called my brother and told him to come, there was a job for him at Northwestern Steel and Wire.”
The brothers arrived in the Twin Cities in 1942. Lopez had planned to return to Texas, “but I’m still here,” he said.
The Moose Club in Sterling hosted a dance in 1942 for the young men who were ready to leave for military service, Lopez recalled.
“There were a bunch of us there. There was Mike Valente, the Marruffo brothers, Jesse Gonzalez, Frank Ramirez and Santo Rodriguez. Some of them didn’t make it back,” he said.
He married his wife, Mary Lou, in 1949; she died in 1982. They had three children and seven grandchildren.
He worked at Northwestern Steel and Wire for 39 years, and has been a member of the Latin American Social Club since it formed on Wallace Street in 1951.
The Honor Flight File: Alfred Lopez
Age: 82
City: Rock Falls
Branch: Navy
Rank: Seaman 1st Class
Theater: South Pacific
Terms of service: January 1945 to November 1946
Employment: Northwestern Steel and Wire Co. for 39 years, 1946-1985
Give ’em a hand
To help send a World War II veteran to Washington on an Honor Flight, send donations to United Way of Whiteside County, 502 First Ave.; Sauk Valley Chamber of Commerce, 211 Locust St.; the American Legion, 601 First Ave.; or Ward, Murray, Pace and Johnson, 202 E. Fifth St., all in Sterling, IL 61081.
Make checks out to Honor Flight of the Quad Cities.
For more information, go to www.honorflightqc.org online.
