Vic-torious

Through a barrage of torpedoes, enemy planes streaming out of the sky in suicide attacks, and wave after wave of weapons fire hammering down on him, Lieutenant Vic Egger couldn’t have abandoned the sinking U.S.S. Hornet fast enough. Even though he had dreamed of being a U.S. Navy lieutenant, he never imagined that he would be helping to create history.

“Goals,” he says. “Goals are very important, and that’s what I always try to tell kids.”

At the age of thirteen, Egger already knew his life’s goal.

“I saw movies, and heard stories. I knew I wanted to be a U.S. Navy lieutenant,” he said, “with two gold bars on a white uniform. And I made it happen.”

Apparently, no one ever told him to watch what he asked for, because nine years later, the 22-year-old boy from El Paso found himself on a secret mission. There he was, steaming across the Pacific Ocean on one of the few remaining U.S. aircraft carriers left after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, preparing to launch 16 B-25 bombers toward Japan in what is now known as the famous “Doolittle Raid.”

If you’re not up to speed on basic World War II specifics, the Doolittle Raid was the United States’ first big strike on Japan.

On April 18, 1942, the 16 B-25 bombers took off, beginning at 9:20 a.m. with the last plane leaving at about 11:40 a.m., according to Egger. He would know. He was “the Talker.”

On aircraft carriers, at least in 1942, the Talker was the man who relayed messages from the officer in charge in the tower. Egger was the Talker on the U.S.S. Hornet that day. He was the guy who signaled the flight deck officer to tell the planes when it was time to take off.

Most of the crewmen on the bombers survived, and the mission was a success. Though it may not have been a major military victory, it was an enormous morale booster for U.S. service men and for the American public, who desperately needed a victory after having been bruised so badly at Pearl Harbor.

An embarrassment, however, to the Japanese, the raid fed their desire to destroy the U.S. Navy. That desire led them to defeat at Midway only two months later.

“They were out to get us,” claimed Egger. “We were the carrier that launched the planes that bombed them, and they wanted to get us.” And get them they did.

Six months after the raid, in October 1942, the Japanese bombed the Hornet at the battle of Santa Cruz. It was badly damaged and dead in the water. An attempt was made to tow the Hornet back to Pearl Harbor, but it was useless.

“In those days, we didn’t have helicopters to take us from one ship to another,” explained Egger. “We climbed down a cargo net, swam across to the U.S.S. Mustin, and climbed up a cargo net.”

You can imagine what that must have been like for Egger and his fellow soldiers. Between waves of aerial attacks, they fumbled down a cargo net into the ocean to escape a burning ship, prayed that they wouldn’t get shot by the enemy or pulled into the propellers of their own ships, before they finally made their way up the cargo net onto the rescue ship.

“Let me tell you something,” Egger explained. “I’m a church-going man. You can’t think of a prayer. You’re numb.

“All you need is someone to tell you what to do. You climb down to get off the ship before she explodes again,” he said.

The infamous but irreparable Hornet was sunk after everyone was safely across. After the war, Egger was assigned to different posts which took him from Rhode Island to Japan. He attended Stanford University where he studied naval administration in preparation for his assignments in Asia during the Cold War.

Most importantly, in March 1946, one of his assignments took him to Camp Wallace, Texas, where he met Ruth, the girl whom he would make his wife.

“It was a blind date,” he said. His buddy, Ruth’s boss, not only set them up on the date, he loaned them his car for the evening.

“He was the only one with a car,” explained Egger. “We just drove around.”

Forty-four years ago, the couple moved to Irving to be closer to her parents who live in East Texas.

“You used to be able to see the buildings in downtown from our kitchen window,” he reminisced. “Now you can’t even see your neighbors.”

In the same house where he lives today, he and his bride raised two children and have enjoyed four grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.

Unfortunately, 15 years after a successful fight against breast cancer, he lost Ruth in 1999 to a different killer -- lung cancer.

In yet another tragic turn, Egger found himself in a new war eight years ago when he was diagnosed with colon cancer. This time, surgery and rounds of chemotherapy were his artillery.

Though this enemy was also defeated, the battle took its toll.

“I went from 155 to 110 pounds,” said the now cancer-free and healthy veteran.

Through all his remarkable experiences, Egger has gone from husband to father, and from grandfather to great-grandfather. He has gone from ambitious 13-year-old to lieutenant to ambassador.

On Wednesday afternoons, the 84-year-old veteran keeps himself busy by taking part in DFW International Airport’s Ambassador Program. There he assists travelers with information about getting around and going to and from the airport.

On Tuesdays, he volunteers at the Navy and Marine Relief Society at the Naval Air Station in Fort Worth as a budget counselor and case worker.

Between his volunteer work and Aquarobics, Egger has also found time to lecture at local junior colleges and elementary schools. His topic: goals. He uses his own experiences as an example.

“Everybody should have their goals when they’re teenagers,” he said. “They should know what they want to do and what they want to be. I knew what I wanted to be at thirteen.”

“Not being from the academy, I had to work hard and study hard to meet the requirements for advancement,” he explained.

He does have regrets, though. After he retired from the Navy, he discovered that potential employers found that his years of Navy experience overqualified him for most positions.

“I changed my resume,” he lamented, “to say, ‘served in the armed forces.’ ”

As an example to today’s youth he shares these experiences, and admits that he regrets he didn’t have a more formal education.

“If I knew then what I know now, I would have gotten a better education.”

His focus these days, he said, is his health. After experiencing problems with a sciatic nerve, he decided to enroll in Monica Clausen‘s Aquarobics at North Lake. He takes aquarobics in combination with seeing a chiropractor, a treatment which “the doctors don’t like,” he said. “But, it really helps.”

“Keep healthy,” he advised. “It’ll pay off as you get older.”

WWII Exhibit
The Dallas Historical Society will host the “Memories of World War II” exhibit during the State Fair of Texas, Sept. 24 – Oct. 17 in the Hall of State building.

The exhibit includes photographs taken by Associated Press photographers, including shots of the planes taking off from the U.S.S. Hornet, as well as other photos of the raid itself.

Admission to the exhibit is $1 and will be charged in addition to the regular fair admission. The Hall of State will be open from 10 a.m. until 7 p.m. Sundays through Thursdays, and from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays.