World War II Profile of Navy Veteran Mr. Dan Ponder

Silas Daniel Ponder was born in Phoenix Arizona on March 7, 1930. His father moved to Phoenix during the Depression looking to find a job. Ponder was 12 years old when the war started and Pearl Harbor was attacked. He was “invited to leave home” by his stepmother and found a job working as a Merchant Marine when he was only 13. When his ship was torpedoed in the Gulf of Mexico, he was rescued and brought to Jacksonville, Florida without money, and without a job. That’s when he saw a poster of Uncle Sam, pointing at him saying he wanted you to enlist, so in 1944 when Ponder was only 14, he enlisted, telling the truth about his age, and worked on submarines in the Pacific. When asked about his age when he enlisted, Ponder explained because he was already a merchant marine, they allowed the enlistment.

        He worked as an engineer during the war and when he retired in 2005, he was named Chief Engineer. One of his operations, which he and a few other men assigned with, was on the island of Chi Chi Jima not far off the coast from the island of Iwo Jima. His mission was to try and, “knockout a radio tower,” deep behind enemy territory in Chi Chi Jima. This radio tower could signal and spot any enemy ship that was to pass past the island, so if Ponder could help try and knock this radio tower out, it would be great for the coming battle of Iwo Jima; he was successful in this mission.

Ponder met his first wife in the USO, just like my grandmother, “Gamma” ‘s father met her mother. Ponder now lives with his current wife, Sue, in Norwich Connecticut. It’s kind of neat because my grandfather, Grandpa Mike, also worked in the *Navy and with submarines, and we have visited the Joseph Conrad in Mystic, Connecticut with him. The Joseph Conrad was Ponder’s training ship and is now an exhibit at Mystic Seaport. 

Mr. Ponder said that “After awhile, his ship felt like a home.”  Mr. Ponder has fought in three wars, all in the Pacific front. He fought in World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. He retired from the navy right before the ending of the Vietnam War. Ponder says that the most important thing to remember about World War II, is that “Everybody was motivated to join the war, everybody.” He said that after Pearl Harbor, everybody felt like they needed to be honorable to their country and join the war, including Ponder.

Following Ponder’s retirement, he worked as an engineer at General Dynamics; he also worked as an independent contractor before retiring for good in 2005.

Ponder has been bombed, torpedoed, depth charged and more, he once even served on a captured German submarine. He never spoke about his time in the War until the American Warriors project where he got to see the WWIII monument in Washington DC, where I am going in two weeks. He said that he never really liked to talk about his experiences before because it “sounded like bragging” to him, and because the “stories were very personal”. I told Mr. Ponder, that they should make a movie about him because his experiences were so amazing. He replied back that they have made a movie about the Operation that he was part of!

I learned that my great grandfathers also fought in the war, Hilton Timothy Saint Clair and Jim Charles Ball. I listened to some of the stories that Gamma remembers her father and Grandpa Mike’s father telling her about the war. “Grandpa Hilton was a Missouri Sharp Shooter and fought in the Pacific; he was sent to the island of Okinawa and Iwo Jima but was flown back before reaching the island. However, he was part of the invasion of Japan close to the end of the war.” Gamma said that her dad rarely ever spoke of the war, because of the awful things he saw.

“Grandpa Jim Ball fought in the infantry during the invasion of D-Day,” Gamma said. Gamma said that the war ruined Grandpa Jim; he came back with a severe drinking problem and never spoke of anything about the war.

Mr. Ponder’s, and Grandpa Hilton’s, and Grandpa Jim’s are just many stories about World War II, and they are all somewhat alike.

I really liked learning about World War II. My favorite battle of World War II is the Battle of the Bulge. I liked it because it was such a long battle and it was really neat that the allies were able to claim a victory even if they went two feet onto enemy lines and capturing territory while pushing Germany back. It was a great World War II moment when General Patten came in to help the allies in the Battle of the Bulge. I also really liked learning about double agent spies. I read in a World war II story book about a Russian spy who got captured by the Germans and pretended to spy on the Russians giving the Germans false statements about the Russians location and such, he was never caught.

The most devastating stories about World War II, are those from the European Jews, and young Jews like Anne Frank. When I watched the Diary of Anne Frank, I could really see the fear in their eyes the whole time they were hiding, and especially when they got captured. Another devastating thing about World war II, are all the cities that got destroyed from bombs, major cities like Berlin, London, Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and many other cities from around the world that were completely destroyed. My favorite allied victory I think was the success of the Normandy Invasion, or Operation Overlord. I think my favorite picture is the picture of the soldiers raising the American flag in Iwo Jima telling the sleeping soldiers that they had won. I think my favorite world War II quote is Winston Churchill’s, “We have never owed so much to so few.”