Blue eyes twinkling, he told me about the day in April 1944 when a Portuguese merchant ship struck the small but stout Enright.

The Enright was escorting a convoy from Ireland when radar and sonar alerted the crew something was amiss.

Cloaked in fog in the Atlantic Ocean, the Enright turned to try to avoid a collision but was rammed port side about 300 miles from New York harbor.


The merchant ship ripped a 64-foot hole in the 306-foot ship, peeling away metal as if it were a sardine can.

"When that thing came out of the fog, it looked like a giant coming at us because they sit high in the water compared to the destroyer escort. I said an Act of Contrition," Mahr said. "I thought that might be it."

Anybody, he said, who tries to say he wasn't afraid that day is lying.

The ship lost one man, Carl Mims, who fell or was knocked overboard.

In the chaos that followed, Mahr was on deck with my father when he saw something floating away from the ship. "Chester," he told my father, "there goes your accordion."

My father's mouth hung open when he saw his squeezebox in its case bobbing in the waves. It had escaped through the massive hole.

Then my father pointed to something else in the water.

"Louie, there goes your trumpet," my father said, as Mahr saw his trumpet and case following the accordion.

On board ship, Mahr and my father would entertain their mates by playing polkas and songs such as "By the Light of the Silvery Moon" to lift their spirits and remind them of loved ones.

As Mahr told me more about their experiences, I wondered what it was like seeing each other after almost five decades. Joan Mahr remembered the moment well.

Arriving for the first reunion, Louis Mahr entered the hotel lobby. My father was sitting by the door.

"He recognized me right away after all those years," Mahr said.

"Louie!" my father exclaimed.

"Chester!" Mahr called.

The men ran to each other and hugged.

"That's the first time I saw grown men cry," Joan Mahr said.

Ivan McCombs of Wheeling, W.Va., entered the lobby and was overcome by seeing his old friends. He forgot about his wife, who was sitting in the car outside.