USS Emmons Association Family Reunion (Sept 2025)

Introduction

After I finished the USS Emmons photogrammetry model, I sent a 6 foot long panorama poster of the model to Tom Hoffman who is on the Board of Directors for the USS Emmons Association. They have an annual reunion for the families and relatives of those who served on the USS Emmons and Tom invited me to come give a keynote presentation on the project at the 2025 gathering in Lynchburg, Virginia. This post details my trip and provides a copy of the presentation I gave.

Presentation

Below is a link to a PDF of the presentation I gave.

Tom had asked me to talk a little bit about the work we do to find and document new wrecks and then also provide some details of the photogrammetry project itself (equipment, dives, etc) along with the results. He had hung the 6 foot panorama poster in the hospitality room on Friday and so people were naturally curious about how it was created and had a ton of great questions during my presentation at the Saturday night dinner.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get any pictures of me presenting; however, somebody snapped this picture when Tom Hoffman presented me with a signed copy of the “The Emmons Saga” book.

It was amazing and humbling to get to meet some of the family of sailors who served on the USS Emmons. Many were either children or close relatives of some of the sixty sailors who died on the fateful day in 1945 when the ship was attacked by five kamikaze planes in two minutes.

Some of the slides in the presentation are “movies” so they won’t render in the PDF below and the animations obviously won’t work but it will provide a good sense of the content.

Hospitality Room Photos

I took some photos of some of the cool artifacts that Kurt Reese (in coordination with NHHC and the Emmons Association) had retrieved from the Emmons including lamps, the wardroom clock, and a few other things. I also got a photo of my poster in the hospitality room along with a map that somebody had meticulously charted the path of the Emmons in both the Atlantic and the Pacific.

D-Day Memorial

While I was in Lynchburg, I visited the National D-Day Memorial in nearby Bedford, Virginia. It was a dreary, rainy day and there were very few visitors so I was able to take some amazing photos. It is quite the memorial and I highly recommend it to anybody who is nearby.

Below are some pictures from the memorial.

Bedford Boys Tribute Center

I also went to visit the nearby town of Bedford. The reason that they put the D-Day Memorial in Bedford is that it suffered the largest loss of lives in terms of percentage of population on June 6, 1944.

Nineteen “Bedford Boys” died on that fateful morning during the first few minutes of the assault on Omaha Beach and the town was in complete shock as the telegrams started rolling in. There is a small “Bedford Boys Tribute Center” in the back of the original Green’s Drugstore that is worth a visit if you are there.

Thanks To…

• A big “THANKS” to Tom Hoffman for his invite to present my project and work at their annual meeting. It was a real honor to meet the families of this who served on the USS Emmons.
• Thanks to the sailors on the Emmons and their family members. The family members who attended were all very kind, complimentary, and curious about the model I had built while in Okinawa. I felt a real connection with them.