Your Say: Nov. 29-Dec. 5, 2018

Remembering the Battle of the Bulge: Two men who were there reminisce: Nov. 8, 2018, www.bayweekly.com/node/45987

       I found Bill Sells’ Nov. 8 story on the Battle of the Bulge very interesting.

       My father was also there, from Nov. 10, 1944, to Sept. 4, 1945.

       From his Honorable Discharge, I know his date of induction was 1 June ’44 at Fort George G. Meade. He was a sergeant in the infantry in charge of a squad of six men. He supervised setting up, aiming and firing 60mm mortars.

       He received a Good Conduct Medal, European African Middle Eastern Service Ribbon and WWII Victory Service Ribbon.

       He is a very lucky man. He came home to my mother and their two children. I was born later in 1948. He finally arrived home to the States, Sept. 11, 1945, back to Fort Meade.

      To this day he is still living at 99½ years old, in a nursing home on Dowell Road but under hospice care.

      His name is Alvin E. DeAtley, and he is better known around Lusby as Skeeter.

       I listened to his great stories for many years and how fond he was of all the generals he fought under. I wish he could still tell those great stories to my grandchildren, but those years are behind him now.

       I love my dad so much and wanted to share some of his time spent overseas with Company K, 157th Infantry.

 

How Well Do You Know Annapolis? Can you find this Star of David? Nov. 15, 20018: www.bayweekly.com/node/46060

      The Nov. 15 article by Iris Shur How Well Do You Know Annapolis? about Commodore Uriah Levy and The U.S. Naval Academy should have been titled How Well Does Iris Shur and Bay Weekly Know Annapolis?

      Shur wrote “Before 2005, Jewish naval midshipmen were marched to a local synagogue for services. That trek became unnecessary when the Commodore Uriah P. Levy Center and Jewish Chapel was completed …”

      The Jewish Church Party started in 1938 when instead of attending Christian services on the Academy grounds, Jewish mids marched to nearby Kneseth Israel synagogue, which moved much farther away in 1963. Jewish services were conducted for many years at the USNA, and there was even a small Jewish chapel.

      Uriah P. Levy was not the Academy’s first Jewish commodore. Levy was the first Jew to attain flag rank in the U.S. Navy, but there is no commodore of the USNA. The commanding officer of the Naval Academy, almost always an admiral, is known as the superintendent, and in its early days three did hold the now-defunct rank of commodore. The second in command is the commandant (not commodore) of midshipmen.

       Shur wrote that “He is known for his refusal to flog his sailors,” and during his later years he did refuse to flog sailors under his command. This led to the last of six naval courts martial for which he was basically exonerated, including three times by presidents, which in this case was Tyler. Levy did play a role in eventually banning such practice in the Navy but was much maligned and victimized simply for being a Jew. He died in 1862.

      Shur wrote that there are museum exhibits about Jewish naval graduates and a Judaica library at the Levy Center, which is ironic because she apparently did not use those or other easily available resources to ascertain and check facts.

      Levy purchased and thus saved Jefferson’s Monticello from almost certain ruin, for which some call him the father of American preservation, and he commissioned a bust of Jefferson in the U.S. Capitol. There is much more to appreciate about this fascinating and until recently, unsung hero of Naval and Jewish history.