Dennis Bogan, 98, poses with a portrait of himself in the Navy at his home in Penn Township. Bogan joined the Navy in 1943 and later fought in the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the largest naval battle of World War II. Joseph Ressler/Butler Eagle

Joseph Ressler

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.

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