Sailors of USS Quincy honored for heroic service
Date: 8/15/2013
By G. Michael Dobbs
news@thereminder.comSPRINGFIELD – For Springfield native Paul Cadieux to hear his brother George’s name read as part of a memorial to the crewmembers who lost their lives aboard the USS Quincy his reaction was profound.
“Words I can not express,” Cadieux told Reminder Publications.
The native of Springfield’s Pine Point neighborhood now lives in East Longmeadow and his daughter Shirley Simolari arranged for him to attend the memorial on Aug. 9 at the home of Daniel Gavin in Quincy.
Now 93, Galvin is a survivor of the sinking of the USS Quincy, a New Orleans-Class heavy cruiser, in 1942, Simolari explained.
According to the Department of the Navy’s Navel Historical Center, “On 7 August 1942, Quincy bombarded Japanese installations on Guadalcanal in support of the U.S. Marine Corps landing there. During the night of 8-9 August, she was one of three heavy cruisers stationed in the northern approaches to the invasion zone and was sunk there by a force of Japanese cruisers in the disastrous Battle of Savo Island in the early morning darkness of 9 August 1942.”
Simolari explained that Galvin started reading the names of his 379 shipmates who were killed in the attack years ago at his home. She learned about it, contacted Galvin and asked if she and her father could attend this year.
“It was so moving. It was amazing,” she said.
Simolari and her father were both impressed with how Galvin read each name and frequently paused to recount something personal about the sailors he knew. The simple ceremony was conducted in Galvin’s garage because of the rain.
“He said [the names] with such emphasis,” Simolari said.
She said that Paul was six years older than her father and he looked up to his older brother. His death during the war affected her father.
“My father never had any closure,” she said.
A portrait of George Cadieux hung in their home as she was growing up, she said.
Over the years, she used the Internet to find photos and information about the USS Quincy for her father. She had made a trip to Hawaii to learn more about the ship.
Paul Cadieux said he learned that day that two other people from Springfield served aboard the USS Quincy besides his brother.
The recitation of the names was “something I wanted to hear,” he added.
Simolari said her father was clearly moved by the ceremony and said that on the ride home heard many stories about her late uncle she had never heard before.
Paul Cadieux said, “I’m blessed to have a daughter who did this for me.”
