PENN TWP — On this weekend of remembrance, Dennis J. Bogan hopes everybody will spare a moment to recall the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the largest naval battle of World War II.

Fought between combined American/Australian forces against the Imperial Japanese Navy in the waters near the Philippine Islands of Leyte, Samar and Luzon from Oct. 23 to 26, 1944, it involved an estimated 200,000 naval personnel.

Bogan, now 98, was one of those 200,000 serving as a radio operator on the USS PC 1231 patrol craft during the battle.

Now, he said, if he can only remember what happened to the PC 1231 and its crew.

“I was a junior in high school. Me and my brother were playing touch football. We went in for a drink and found out the (Japanese) had bombed Pearl Harbor,” he said. “We asked, ‘Where the heck is Pearl Harbor?’ Later we’d ask, ‘Where the heck is Leyte?’”

Bogan’s journey to the Philippine Sea began in March 1943 when, as a draftee, he was sworn into the Navy in Pittsburgh. By April 23, he was undergoing basic training at the Great Lakes Naval Station in North Chicago.

Bogan said he was sent to Chicago for further training as a radio operator.

“There was a problem between the Army and the Navy. They couldn’t talk to each other. There was no ship-to-shore communication,” said Bogan.

He was sent to the Camp Pendleton Marine base in Oceanside, Calif., for further training. He then was sent to Bremerton, Wash., and he said he shipped out with the Army to Schofield Barracks, an Army installation in Honolulu, Hawaii.

“There we had a week of jungle training. The trees were all grown together, it was soaking wet and I was in a big baggy pair of overalls that didn’t fit me,” Bogan remembered.

Apparently the jungle training and the extra radio instruction went unused because Bogan said he was assigned as a radio operator third class to the USS PC 1231 patrol craft.

The ship held a complement of 125 officers and men and had 3-inch guns. (For comparison, Bogan noted that a battleship had 16-inch guns that hurl an artillery shell 18 miles with acceptable accuracy.)

Bogan said he believes the Battle of Leyte Gulf began on Oct. 24, 1944, but he isn’t quite sure because the action took place on the other side of the International Date Line.

“We paved the way for Gen. Douglas MacArthur to come back to the Philippines,” he said.

For the battle, PC 1231 had additional crew on board, said Bogan. “We had extra personnel and extra radio equipment. There were five of us radio operators. There were admirals and generals on board.”

During the battle, Bogan said he would write down radio transmissions. “I would copy messages and give them to the communications officer who would decode them,” he said. “I never knew what they said.

“There were admirals on board the ship. They would give messages back to the communications officer, and he would give them to us to send out,” said Bogan.

In his home in Penn Township, Bogan still has the combat citation praising him “for participating as a member of Control Communications Team #37 aboard USS PC 1231 during occupation of Leyte October 1944.”

What happened next is still a mystery to Bogan.

On Oct. 25, USS PC 1231 took part in the Battle of Samar Strait where the Japanese fleet surprised a lightly armed group of American escort carriers and destroyers.

“I don’t know what happened to me or to PC 1231,” said Bogan. “I woke up on a hospital ship headed for New Guinea. I was transferred to Pearl Harbor.”

After recuperating and being promoted to 3rd Class Radio Operator (“$84 a month plus room and board,” he noted), he “got an airplane ride to Guadalcanal where we were waiting for the Seventh Fleet.”

“It was an island supply depot. I used to ride around the perimeter with the MPs. We didn’t know where we were going to go,” he said.

Bogan was sent to be a radio operator on another ship, a wooden converted mine sweeper, the PCS 1391, and performed a similar function during the invasion of Okinawa.

April 1’s initial invasion of Okinawa was the largest amphibious assault in the Pacific Theater of World War II. The 82-day battle lasted until June 22, 1945.

“We were providing protection during the fight to a light cruiser. I can’t remember the name of the cruiser,” said Bogan. “How many men today get to celebrate their birthday that scared to death?”

“One time, we picked up three native boys swimming in the ocean. They were scared kids; they didn’t know where they were,” he said.

It wasn’t all battles and patrols. Bogan remembered the ceremony held for sailors who were crossing the equator for the first time.

A long-held Navy tradition of initiation, Bogan said the crew began collecting kitchen garbage in a tarpulin in the days before crossing the equator.

“They took a pair of hedge clippers to my hair. Then stirred a mop in the garbage and spread it over my head. And then King Neptune Rex with his three-pronged pitchfork appeared,” said Bogan.

By the spring of 1946, he had amassed enough points to muster out of the Navy and go home.

“I was discharged April 5,1946, just short of three years,” he said.

He still treasures letters he received from President Harry Truman and Navy Secretary James Forrestal thanking him for his service.

He kept his dress cap.

“I was in the Pacific. It was hot. I kept the dress uniform hat. My wife cut up my dress blues to make clothes for my two oldest kids,” he said.

He returned to his parents’ farm in Middlesex Township and helped his father farm and lay brick for several years before marrying and becoming a union bricklayer.

He and his wife, Nancy, had six boys and two girls. He still lives in the house he built. His son, Brian Bogan, serves as his caregiver.

Bogan said he understands why the Battle of Leyte Gulf is less well-known compared to the Battle of the Bulge or the U-boat attacks on Allied shipping in the Atlantic.

“Europe is a lot closer,” he said.

But he plans to speak about his experiences Oct. 25 on the 78th anniversary of the battle at American Legion Post 778, 150 Memorial Drive, Butler Township.