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Thank you for stopping by and checking out the USS Idaho website. I was born in 1953, the year after my father, Mack L. Roye, graduated from East Texas Baptist College and ever since I can remember, I have heard stories of the USS Idaho ... many times told from the pulpit of our church during one of his sermons. Angered by the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, my father, like many other young men, at age of 17, with the signature of my grandfather, enlisted into the US Navy to go and fight the Japanese in World War II. After boot camp, he was commissioned to the USS Idaho, Fox Division and served in 13 major war campaigns in the South Pacific manning the big guns of the "Big Spud". Literally overnight, his experiences on the USS Idaho turned a young farm boy from Central Texas into a grown man who was honored and proud to serve his country on such a great battleship. My father passed away in 1985, and ever since, I have possessed his photo albums that he put together with some of his memoirs of his time spent on the Idaho, and have I spent hours over the past 19 years looking at the pictures and reading the articles of his Navy days that meant so much to him. In 1999, in my off-time while working on a business project in Michigan, I began searching on the Internet to find more information about the USS Idaho and the people that were in my father's pictures, and I met a couple of ex-crewmembers of the Idaho by the name of Lew Davidson and Don Seger. Lew and I started exchanging E-mail messages and I became compelled to do whatever I could think of to try and preserve my father's memoirs, so I began scanning the pictures and in 2003, started posting them on my personal website and in 2004 created www.ussidaho.com - the official tribute website to the USS Idaho and its crew. The past few years, Lew Davidson and his wife, Sal, have become like adopted parents to me and my wife, and Don Seger has sent endless inspirational E-mail messages of encouragement, faith, and hope during this present time of war in the Middle East. It was because of my father,Lew, and Don that I became inspired to make this website specifically in dedication to the men who served on the USS Idaho. Over the past two years, many of the sons, daughters, nieces, nephews, grandchildren, and wives of the USS Idaho crew have contacted me and share in my desire to preserve the memories of their loved ones that served on the Idaho - even as far back as on the 1921 USS Idaho - another era I hope to be able to include in this website. I just recently acquired a photo album of Cpt. Russell Moore that was discovered in an antique shop in Oklahoma and sent to me and have just added over 200 photos from the pre-WWII 1938-40 era of the USS Idaho. It is a great thing to be able to put names, faces, and places associated with the many men and years of service of the Idaho crew. Thanks to all of you who contribute to this site and share in the pride that was born on the USS Idaho. If you have photos, articles, or any memorabilia in regard to the USS Idaho and would like to be added to this website, please contact me at 540.922.2362 or send me an E-mail at dave@ussidaho.com David
Roye, |
