This book was born of the desire to know more that’s common to many who research family history. Before the research became the grist of this book, it was an exercise in genealogy and, ultimately, a record of something I wanted my kids to know. But then, things got out of hand.
My brother Jeff posted Frank Gallagher’s story about Naples on social media, and a young man from Delaware named James Gebhart messaged him to say his grandfather wrote frequently about John Gallagher in his wartime diaries. In the spring of the following year, in the midst of planning a family trip to Italy, the floodgates opened after I began talking to the likes of Jim Feltz, Ken Brown, and Jack Simpson. By the end of summer, after we’d come back from Italy, it became clear to me there was a book in all this.
Ken’s daughters Kerry Haygood and Karen Fratantaro helped jump-start the project by setting up conference calls with their father. Kerry and her husband, Jerry, opened the door of their home to me as a place to stay on two weekends I spent with Ken in 2017 and 2018.
The families of so many on the Plunkett have bent over backward to aid in the effort to get the ship’s story told. When Jim McManus’s daughter, Alice Gipe, sent me her father’s unpublished memoir in the spring of 2017, I struck the kind of gold any writer of history hopes to find. I struck the same kind of gold on a visit to Jim Feltz’s home when he opened an old cardboard box and showed me literally hundreds of letters he and Betty had exchanged during the war.
Ed Burke’s grandson, Ed Gipple, sent me dozens of photos that helped bring the ship’s captain back to life. And then he worked with me on a number of attempts (that ultimately proved successful) to obtain his grandfather’s records from the National Archives.
Likewise, Jack Simpson’s daughters Bonnie Reavis and Sunny Barr spent as much time as I needed, before and after Jack’s death, supplementing what Jack told me about his time in the Navy.
So many other family members were instrumental. They submitted to interviews and sent me what they could. I’m thinking in particular of Ed Spagnolo, Barbara Geraghty, Fran Poulin and Carla Polzin (nieces of Dutch Heissler), Doris Putis Warren and Laurie Pierce, Christine Mott, Steve and Dave Gebhart, Sally Carthell, Charles d’Autremont, David Bates, Pat Morrone, Cindy Zingler, Marjorie Kaffenbarger, Peter Oliver, Jeff Collingwood, Gail Zakrzewski Johnson, Barb Mueller, and Cliff Dornburg. I spoke with Edwin Baechtold’s sister one day. She was 104 years old, and her mind was as crisp as can be.
Other sailors who’d been on Plunkett at Anzio remembered for me what they could—H. R. “Skunky” Kline, John Capito, and Russell von Glahn. More Plunkett sailors who’d come aboard after Anzio also spent time answering my questions. There was Ted Mueller, John McMahon, Russell Baxter, Frank Hughes, William Sousa, Pat Corriero, and Alex Shimkonis.
At the destroyer Cassin Young, once under the command of Ken Brown and now a museum ship at the old Boston Navy Yard, Steve Briand and Sam Goodwin opened many a dogged-down door so I could familiarize myself with the inner workings of WWII-era destroyers.
While all of these noted above helped fill the coffers of this story, I had friends and family along the way, providing enthusiastic boosts as I talked some of this out loud—Scott Canfield, Mike Moran, Kara and Jim Woolverton, and Kristin and Bob Leonard. I’m grateful to Ed Hellenbeck, who listened to so many set pieces of this story (after our weekly squash match) with interest that was genuine and more encouraging than he can know.
My old pal, Don Snyder, read an early run at this story and gave a pat on the back that propelled me a long way. I’m grateful to Tom Barbash for more of the same midway through the writing, and to Jack Beaudoin, who read the first half of this book and wrote a long email that carried me all the way to the end.
It was a revelation to me halfway through reading Jim Hornfischer’s monumental books on the Navy in World War II that he was also a literary agent. I sent him a chunk of this book by email one day, and I heard back from him like this: “I dare say, you’ve queried the right guy.” He was right about that.
And he was right about getting this to Colin Harrison at Scribner. I can still recall trying to find a place on an island in the Rangeley Lakes of Maine where I could get cell phone reception. I spoke with Colin for fifty-one minutes and knew in the wake of the call that I would have exactly the right editor for this book.
In my own family, I owe so much to so many for keeping me going on this story, my brother Jeff, first of all, for lighting this story up on all our radar screens again. Patrick Gallagher carried a torch for John Gallagher at family gatherings for a long time and gladly handed it to me when I started down this road. All of the Gallaghers have been enthusiasts from the start: Tommy, Kristen, and Katie. Their parents, Nancy and Tom Gallagher, accompanied my family on a second trip to Italy that was partly holiday but mostly (in my mind and perhaps theirs, too) research.
So much of the family turns out for this sort of thing. When John J. Gallagher Square in Dorchester was rededicated after twenty-five years, there was Joe Robichaud and his sister Renee Robichaud, Chuck Gallagher, as well as so much of the extended family all the way out to Lois Huss Breignan, who remembered John Gallagher from when she was a girl. Frank Gallagher’s daughter, Carol Keneally, was likewise a great source of information, and documentation, over the past several years.
This story has always had special meaning for my uncle Joe Robichaud, because he served on a Navy aircraft carrier in the 1960s, and for my aunt Mary Robichaud, because John Gallagher carried her when she was a baby. Likewise, there’s a lot of relevance here for my uncle Charlie Gallagher, the Weatherstrip, who shared a lot of memories that informed this book.
My parents have been a big part of this journey. My father, James B. Sullivan, was a radioman on a destroyer escort, the USS Price (DE-332) in the 1950s and was a great sounding board on all things Navy. My mother, Joan Gallagher, who was one of three nieces and nephews named for John, has been my greatest booster all the way along, and was with us every step of the way on both trips to Italy.
Closer to home today, my wife, Thuy, has obliged me with patience and love, and has put a foundation under our home that I’ve been able to write from every day. My college-aged children, Cullen and Vivian, have listened to much of this story with so much eagerness it’s as if Plunkett is but another sibling on the way.
And of course, there’s Jim Feltz, Ken Brown, and Jack Simpson. Had they been lesser men, I never could have written this story. My contact with them has been inspiring, sustaining and, indeed, resurrecting. Ken and Jack are off to the big reunion now, but Jim’s holding steady. And here’s to hoping he does a good long while. One hundred, Jim.