Big Mike

Michael Gallagher

born February 24, 1916
died March 9, 1997 (obituaries)

He was born outside of Freeland, Pennsylvania to Mike Bytsura and Mary Ann Chalachan Bytsura (Mame) His father told me that when he was born, the family was so poor, that they sent little Mike to live with relatives in Binghamton, NY. But he was home with his parents by the time school days started - he went to the Japan School near his home in Swamptown.

Mike had two younger brothers: Ted and Reds. His mother, Mame, born March 6, 1900, passed away in the summer of 1972. His father, Mike Bytsura lived on in the old family house, 105 Middletown Road, outside of Freeland, and died in 1983 of heart failure. He had been a coal miner at Breaker 15, and that house overlooked the stripped mountains from which they gained the coal.His granddaughter, Marylou Bytsura, looked after him the final years of his life.

After High School, Mike moved to Philadelphia, to go to University of Penn, but a chance to travel - to go to sea, came along.

Marriage

He married childhood sweetheart, Stella Mae Smith, of Jeddo, Freeland on July 15, 1937. The marriage lasted until his death almost 60 years later.

Family

Mike and his wife Stella had a family of eight children. They lived near 52nd and Kingsessing, St Francis de Sales Parish in Philadelphia until 1953. Then they moved to Kathmere Road, Havertown, in Annunciation Parish. The children were:
Patricia – B. Aug 10, 1938 –D. February 4, 2005
Diane- Born July 25, 1943
Richard - Born Jan 17, 1947
Kathleen - Born September 20,1949
Michelle- Born Nov 9, 1950
Michael - Born Aug 10, 1955
Terence - Born Sept 19, 1956
Gary - Born Dec 5, 1957

When the boys were teenagers, in the early 1970's Mike and Stella moved to Baltimore to be closer to his work assignment at the Port of Baltimore. They lived, initially in Woodlawn, then on Register Road in Towson, Md. When Mike retired, he and Stella moved back to Delaware County in Pennsylvania, and lived out their lives in their home in Springfield.

All of Mike and Stella’s children at Michael's wedding. Diane's son Scott at lower right; Patsy's son, Gregory in the brown suit.

Work and War

Almost from the time that Mike came to Philadelphia from the coal regions, he worked as a merchant mariner, rising to the level of officer. He worked for United States Lines. They were part of the war effort, and Mike was conscripted to National Service sailing all over the world from 1939 until 1946.

In 1939 his first ship was Malay. The master of that ship was Captain Dodge. Their sailing was to go between Gulf Oil Refinery in Philadelphia and Houston, Texas. Mike remembers sighting German submarines that patrolled off the coast of the Delmarva Peninsula. This was at a time before the United States entered World War II.

The next ship that we was assigned was the Muskogee. It was another oil tanker. Mike was third officer. In 1942, having departed Persia, and stopped at Diego Garcia island, coming out of the Indian Ocean, they had rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and were waiting for a pilot to come aboard to bring them into Capetown Harbor. Mike was on the bridge when his ship was torpedoed. Next things Mike remembers was waking up at sea clinging to a wooden hatch. The Muskogee was sunk.

Thirty-four men lost their lives. Mike told me he was rescued by another ship, an English flagged ship named The Tilsington Court which was bound for Buenos Aires in South America. Mke was worried in Buenos Aires, Argentina, because it was a pro-Nazi town. He was able to get from there to Rio de Janiero through the help of Admiral Jonas Ingram, by shipping on a freighter that took him to Uruguay, then Santos in Brazil and then Rio. In Rio, Ingram, at that time the United States Navy's Admiral of the South Atlantic Fleet, had arranged an introduction to the American ambassador, Mr Armour, who had Mike stay at US Embassy. Because of difficulty traveling during those years, it took him three months before he was able to get back to the United States for reassignment. He sailed from Rio to NYC aboard a Moore’McCormick ship.

The Great Meadows was the next assignment in the summer of 1943 Mike was a yeoman, then assistant purser, an officer, on board this ship and it was his favorite ship. It was a gear reduction tanker that could travel at 23 knots. Mostly they traveled at 10 knots in convoy. The convoys, crossing the North Atlantic in company for safety, traveled at the speed of the slowest vessel. The job of the Great Meadows was to refuel submarines at sea. Mike remembers the sailors from the submarines coming on board his ship so that they could take showers, as water aboard subs was so closely rationed. Mike was able to slip them a beer, as there was no liquor aboard subs. On board this ship he traveled to Europe, Glasgow, NY, Panama, Cartegena, Tahiti (but he was not allowed to land here)

Henry Barnard was the next assignment – on this ship he was part of the Normandy Invasion in June of 1944. For that he received European Invasion Star Ribbon. But his first voyage on this ship was to South America, and then back to NY, then across to England. They discharged their cargo at Hull then sailed up Thames to London. He remembers a bad toothache, and a visit to an English dentist in London. After the dentist visit, he ran across an old friend, Captain Acheson (from Tilsington, Ct.). Mike brought him back aboard the Henry Barnard for lunch. Back across the Atlantic on the Henry Barnard. With him on it, the Henry Barnard was the first merchant ship to sail through the Straits of Dover after the Normanday invasion. On Victory in Europe Day in 1944 Mike was at Kings Point,. He was teaching a course in celestial navigation. But still part of crew of the Henry Barnard.

This ship also took him to the South Pacific. He was aboard the Henry Barnard for the Invasion of Manila. He witnessed the dead bodies of Japanese and American soldiers floating in the waters off Corregidor. He received the Phillipines Invasion Campaign Medal for his participation in this battle.

Some notes I have of his memories of early 1945: He saw, but wasn’t involved in, a bar brawl between American soldiers and Australian soldiers – “Marines claiming women of departing Aussies…” He spent four months “bored to death” in New Guinea and New Hollandia on the central coast – ferrying cargoes of tarmac and creosoted poles for airstrips. He went on from there to Leyte, passing Guadalcanal and up through the Caroline Islands in convoy. To Langayan (sp?) and Luzon Gulf He could see Japanese Zeros firing on Lingayan. At Luzon Gulf, he saw Admiral Bull Halsey who was then on the battleship, New Jersey.

In Manila he got ashore, and with the captain of the Henry Barnard, John Thunberg, visited a POW camp that had been recently liberated. Mike said that there were 142 illegitimate kids born in the POW camp between 1942 and 1945.

After Manila, he sailed back to Honolulu, then to Seattle. At Seattle, he left the Henry Barnard – and World War II behind.

It was more than thirty years later (1977) the the US Government recognized the Merchant Mariners contribution to WW II. Mike received papers in 1979 declaring him an honorably discharged veteran awarding him these ribbons and medals:


Merchant Marine Emblem


Atlantic War Zone Bar

Pacific War Zone Bar

Mediterranean – Middle East War Zone Bar


Philippine Liberation (with Stars).

The Department of Defense recognized his service aboard the Great Meadows and the Henry Barnard, which were under supervision of the War Department during WW II.

After the war, he sailed on the Black River. It was an oil tanker. He picked it up in Mobile Bay, Alabama, sailed from there to Lake Charles, Louisiana, then onto Europe. They sailed up the Seine River. He saw young German boys dismantling pillboxes . Sailed to Rouen, the Shell oil refinery was untouched. He remembered that the ties in the Seine were sixteen feet from high to low, and he remembered ‘barge people’ that had gardens and even cows on the barges. There was a farmer that he met whose daughter had a sore hand. Mike was able to get her some sulfa drugs. The farmer took Mike into town and introduced him to a black marketer, from who he bought, cheaply, an emerald and a ruby using inflated French Francs

Leaving the sea to tend to his growing family, he continued on with United States Lines as shipping manager in Philadelphia, and then near the end of his career running container operations at the United States Lines facility at Sparrows Point, Dundalk, Maryland, part of the Port of Baltimore

After retirement he kept up contact with his work mates. For a number of years in the late 80's and 90's he wrote a newsletter for US Lines retirees, to keep them abreast of one another's activities. Except for an operation in 1992 to replace part of his aorta, Mike enjoyed good health his entire life. He died in Delaware County Hospital after suffering an aneurysm. He was a walker, and got to know everyone in the neighborhood during his walks