Dygert is one of Kankakee County’s last living World War II veterans

As a young man, James Dygert remembers listening on the radio as President Franklin Delano Roosevelt talked about the Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Fired up, Dygert returned home and asked his family in Kankakee if he could enlist in the U.S. Navy.

He was told he could not.

At age 14, he was too young anyway. In youth, he was raised by his grandmother, Mamie Hook.

Three years later, at age 17, he volunteered and headed off to the war.

As a young man, he had worked in his uncle’s Kankakee bake shop, making rolls and putting in jelly in jelly rolls.

When he joined the service and the Navy discovered his former civilian occupation, they assigned him to Baker’s School. Dygert had undergone basic training at Naval Station Great Lakes, then was sent to Gulfport, Miss.

His eventual posting was the USS Callisto, a motor torpedo boat tender. It was a big ship, holding 286 officers and men, that repaired, provisioned and directed PT boats.

Dygert was one of three bakers aboard.

As a baker, his work generally took place overnight. Their main challenge was working with desalinated water. Fresh water, he said, was always in short supply.

Leaving Chesapeake Bay, the Callisto steamed to Pearl Harbor and then kept right on going to join the 7th Fleet in Leyte Gulf in the Philippines.

Now 97, Dygert is one of the area’s last living World War II veterans. He plays down his service a bit.

“I was no kind of war hero,” he said.

He joined late in the war. The Callisto had cannons and anti-aircraft guns and Dygert was trained in fire fighting, should an emergency happen.

Fire is a major life-threatening event on board any ship.

The Callisto traveled back to San Francisco as the war ended, the torpedo boat tender then went into the Naval Reserve fleet in Tacoma, Wash., before eventually being sold for civilian use.

Patrol torpedo boats are largely remembered today because of PT-109, commanded by future President John F. Kennedy.

The exploits of the ship and its commander were celebrated in both a song and a 1963 movie starring Cliff Robertson. The film came out in the summer, while Kennedy was still the sitting president. It was thought to be the first feature film about a sitting president.

While Dygert’s own service may not have been, as he said, life threatening, he thinks of his Navy years often. He is a member of the American Legion.

Dygert returned home to Kankakee County. He married sweetheart Geraldine when he was 21 and she was 18. There would be happily married for 72 years before her death in 2020.

Dygert went to work at Henkel, where he was a boiler operator. He took early retirement at age 60. The couple then traveled frequently, visiting their family all over the country and sometimes all over the world.

The couple would have six children. They would have an astonishing 44 great-grandchildren. Their children are:

• Son, John and his wife, Isabel. Today John is a missionary in Falkirk, Scotland.

• Son, Jim, who lives in South Carolina.

• Daughter, Mary Wingert. Mary’s husband, Wendall, was a Vietnam War veteran, who died after exposure to Agent Orange. Dygert’s grandson, Gary Wingert, received the Distinguished Flying Cross for service in Afghanistan.

• Daughter, Cindy, and her husband, Jeff Craven, live in Brevard, N.C., where their home narrowly escaped damage from recent Hurricane Helene.

• Daughter, Roseland, and husband, John Duffy, live in Texas. John Duffy accompanied Dygert when he went on the Honor Flight to see the World War II memorial on April 13, 2016, in Washington, D.C.

The Duffys also took Dygert on a 2012 visit to Pearl Harbor. They had a special cruise of the harbor with the base commander.

In retirement, Dygert also enjoyed hunting and fishing, frequently in Canada. As a hobbyist, he was a woodworker. He would meticulously make plank-on-plank ship models.

The planks would be soaked and then gently shaped to form the miniature hulls.

It was in 1969 that Dygert had a “lifesaving” experience. His nephew, Keith, fell off a ladder and died. Keith had been president of the senior class at Eastridge High School in Kankakee during the years when there were two city high schools.

Keith was decorating the school gym. He needed the keys, which were tossed to him. He reached for them, lost his balance and fatally fell.

Keith’s funeral services were held at the high school in front of a packed audience. It was then that Dygert realized “he had no relationship with God.”

He converted and has been devout ever since. He began reading the Bible with his wife. Now that she has passed, he finds himself reading her Bible. Dygert is a member of Calvary Baptist Church.

Dygert encourages all to reach out and receive God’s grace.

“Repent your sins,” he said. “We have all sinned.”

He is now in Hospice care. He has five churches praying for him, he said, so that he can continue to share the gospel.

https://daily-journal.com/news/local/dygert-is-one-of-areas-last-living-world-war-ii-veterans/article_985a6392-9fa4-11ef-bb26-5f31a36e77ca.html