The United States Navy Memorial Stories of Service Program is honored to announce the March 2025 story of the month has been selected to recognize the service of United States Navy Veteran, Quartermaster First Class Lyle Buckingham. The United States Navy Memorial Stories of Service Program is privileged to honor the service memories of Quartermaster First Class Lyle Buckingham thanks to HT2 Charles Atkins. The Following reflections of QM1 Lyle Buckingham’s service was written by USS Hector AR-7 Historian, HT2 Charles Atkins.

“Lyle lived in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, when he entered the Navy. He went to boot camp in Farragut, Idaho while his parents moved to the Washington area to help build ships for the war effort. After boot camp he immediately was placed in the Quartermaster school there in Farragut. When he graduated from Quartermaster school he was given the rank of Third-class Quartermaster.

Lyle was transferred to San Pedro, California and to an office near the USS Hector. They were still finishing the Hector and it had not been commissioned yet. It was discovered that he could type, so he was assigned yeoman duties in the office. His job was to type up the “official” ships manual.

He was part of the commissioning crew and left San Pedro with Hector on her first overseas assignment. He was then given the duties of Quarter master and worked up on the bridge in his rate. He made the rank of first class and was holding a chief’s billet and was given all the privileges of a chief Quartermaster. He stayed on Hector until 1945 and while Hector was in Saipan, he was transferred to the Mount Katmai AE-16, an ammunition supply ship.

Lyle really liked his Hector assignment and thought she was a good ship with a good crew. His most memorable moments for him on board Hector were witnessing another Navy ship on fire and sinking, after it had been torpedoed. He said that the Japanese submarines were in the area, while Hector was stationed at Ulithi. One of those Japanese secret weapons, a “manned” Kaitain, torpedoed the USS Mississinewa AO-59, an auxiliary oil tanker, and sunk it. He witnessed this from the bridge of Hector.

“There is an interesting item regarding the AO-59 during the rescue. A small plane dragged a line thru the oil spill and then stalled to allow those in the oil to grab the line and then when corrected the stall and dragged the seaman out of the fire circle.

Years later I read where this pilot had taken this plane w/o permission and was punished. He should have had a medal. We watched this happen. We had a 50-power scope on it, and took turns watching it from the signal deck of the Hector.

He was near the end of his enlistment while aboard the Mt. Katmai when she pulled into San Francisco, California, next to the US Coast Guard station. He went over to visit them and decided he would test for a job with them as a third mate. When the captain saw his study material he refused to let Lyle test for the job, the captain told him that the Navy trained him, so he would stay on a Navy ship. This helped him to decide to get out of the Navy when his enlistment ran out.

Lyle was discharged from the Navy in San Francisco in 1946. He was a young husband with a newborn son and decided to go to school at the University of Seattle, Washington. After a year, in 1947, he followed his parents back home and went into the post-war family business of selling real estate and cars. He said the family did well with the business in those years. For the rest of his working life he stayed in sales. Later he worked for a hardware company and rose to become one of their top salesmen. He retired from that job.

Lyle has been a Hector Association member for approximately 12 years and has never been to a reunion due to health reasons. He also belongs to the American Legion. He says that outside of his Navy training, and short college career, he learned a lot from his dad. He also holds an honorary doctorate’s degree in ham radio, model airplanes, kite flying and toy steam trains. He is close with his family and really enjoys time with his grandchildren.”

The United States Navy Memorial honors United States Navy Veteran, QM1 Lyle Buckingham, featured within this series titled, Tales from the Navy Log, Story of the Month. Each month, this series honors a Veteran’s story recorded by the Stories of Service Program at the Navy Memorial. To learn more about this story and to explore the Navy Memorial archive, visit the Navy Memorial Stories of Service site at https://www.navymemorial.org/stories-of-service