Same Name, Same Ship, Different War

Doug Graves © 2007

In a parallel universe it might have made sense. But in the early 60’s when Harry C. Knecht was working in the air mail cage at the Allentown Post Office, he processed a letter addressed to a Harry W. Knecht aboard the USS Epperson (DDE -719). It was the same destroyer that Navy veteran Harry C. Knecht had served on as a radarman from 1950 to 1952.
“My first thought was that the Navy still had me on their crew roster,” Harry C. recalled recently. “I went ahead and forwarded the letter, but I thought about it for years afterward.” It wasn’t until about 5 years ago that postal worker Harry C. contacted Harry W. Knecht, by that time discharged from the Navy, and married to the former Michele Trescak of Bethlehem. He was still in uniform, but as a fire fighter in Bethlehem. The two Harry Knechts quickly found that not only did they share the same name; they were, indeed, both U. S. Navy veterans who had served on the same “tin can” although during two different tours of duty.
Harry C. Knecht, now 82, was a radarman in World War II on the aircraft carrier USS Lexington (CV -16). It was dubbed the “Blue Ghost” by Tokyo Rose because the Japanese military thought it had been sunk several times. While Knecht was aboard the Lexington it earned eleven battle stars in rugged action. “In November, 1944, we were hit by a kamikaze suicide plane. It hit the secondary con [control room located in the “island” or superstructure] wiping out the bomber pilots but missing me in the radar room. It missed me by about 40 feet.” Near the end of the war, “the ship was rattled by the blast from an atomic bomb,” recalled the veteran of two wars.
Following his service in World War II, Harry C., the senior of the two Knechts, was honorably discharged from the Navy. He married his Emmaus High School sweetheart, the former Edna Eschbach. They settled down to married life when, in September, 1950, Harry C. was recalled to active duty for the Korean War. “I didn’t like it a bit,” said his wife, Edna. “We had a house and a young son. In those days when they went to war they were gone for years.” They now live in Emmaus, Pennsylvania.
He joined the crew of the USS Epperson and sailed from Pearl Harbor. The Epperson was the flagship for Escort Division 12 and entered the Korean War in June 1951. “We did carrier screening duty, did coastal patrols, and provided naval gun fire for the soldiers and marines on shore. We won 3 battle stars,” recounted Knecht. He left the Epperson in March, 1952. An impressive wall-mounted shadow box showcases a chest full of medals attesting to Harry C. Knecht’s service to his country.
After the Korean War, Petty Officer 1st Class (Radarman) Harry C. Knecht resumed his life as a Post Office employee in Allentown. It was there that he saw the letter that eventually led him to meet Harry W. Knecht, now a retired Bethlehem firefighter living in Allentown.
Five years ago, when they met for the first time, they shared stories about their service aboard the Epperson. The veteran destroyer men became friends and still see each other occasionally.
Harry W. Knecht, now 66, is a graduate of Catasauqua High School. His Navy experience began when he enlisted in June 1959 in Allentown and went to Great Lakes, Illinois for training. After duty in several posts and stations around the world he was sent to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. There he sailed with the destroyer USS Epperson as a Petty Officer 2nd Class (Boilerman).
“One of our most memorable missions was to stand by in support of Astronaut Walter Schirra who splashed down with the Apollo IV space mission in 1962,”said Harry W. “I had the same blood type as Wally Schirra, therefore I could not eat for 24 hours prior to splash time in case my blood was needed for Wally.”
“In 1961, recalled Harry W., “the Eppe picked up three Air Force divers and the important piece, the nose cone, from Discoverer 29 three hundred miles north of Oahu.” “A support team photographer gave me a NASA shoulder patch when I found his lens cap that he had lost in the bilges,” Harry said.
“Another exciting time”, he laughed, “was when we got torpedoed by one of our own submarines! The Eppe was steaming off the coast of Hawaii and offering itself as a target for our subs to practice launching [inert] torpedoes. The sub usually set the depth of the ‘fish’ deep enough to clear the hull of the ship by going underneath it. On this occasion the ‘fish’ surfaced and hit the starboard side. It struck an I-beam which prevented the torpedo from piercing the skin of the ship and causing havoc inside. There was more damage to everyone’s pride than there was damage to the ship.”
Harry W. Knecht now works part time as a City Center Monitor in Bethlehem.
Though they had no idea when they met that they were related, the two Harry Knechts have since discovered that they are descended from Peter Knecht, a Hession soldier who settled in Pennsylvania after the Revolutionary War.
The USS Epperson was named in honor of U. S. Marine Corps private Harold Glenn Epperson killed on Saipan when he saved the lives of his fellow marines by covering a hand grenade with his body.
On her second tour of duty off the coast of Korea, she earned the nickname “The Interim Mayor of Wonson Harbor” for her dominance of those waters while shelling enemy positions from Wonson Harbor, according to an on-line history of the ship.
The USS Epperson, in January 1954, served as a monitor ship for the detonation of six nuclear devices at the Bikini and Eniwetok test sites in the Pacific Ocean.
The warship was decommissioned in 1973. She was rescued from moth balls in 1977 and sold to the Pakistani navy where she served as the Taimur (D-166). Pakistan decommissioned the Taimur in 1999 and sunk her as a target ship in 2000.