I never had a chance to really know my father. He died from an industrial accident when I was nine months old. Most of my knowledge of him came from my mother’s stories about him and research I have done on his short life.

William D. (Tommy) Thompson was a Navy Electrician’s Mate during World War II, fought in the Pacific and was stationed on the USS Missouri when it headed for Tokyo in 1945 to participate in what was thought to be the final assault to end the war in the Pacific. The battle was expected to bring as many as a million American military casualties and he fully expected to die in that fight.

But American use of the world’s first Atomic Bombs to destroy Hiroshima and Nagasaki brought the never-say-die Japanese to an unconditional surrender before the Mighty Mo’ reached Japan and Electrician’s Mate First Class Thompson stood in his dress whites on the deck to watch the Japanese Emperor surrender to Gen. Douglas McArthur.

He returned to his fiancée, waiting for him at the Norfolk Naval Yard, where she worked, and they rode their Harley-Davidson motorcycles to Meadows of Dan to meet her parents, then he rode alone down to Tampa, where he was born, and she followed a week later on her bike to meet his folks and marry. They settled in Gibsonton, just south of Tampa, and I came along a year later.

Tommy worked as an electrician at a company on Tampa Bay and was working on a generator repair when the power was improperly restored and he was electrocuted. He was 29 and became one of six brothers who died before they reached age 30. His mother lost all of her children, including a daughter who died in her 30s before she died at age 99.

In the time he and my mom had together, they rode their motorcycles in thrill shows and with friends. They danced together on roller skates at shows.

Mom told me in my early childhood that my Dad could never be replaced. When I was five, we moved from Florida to her native home in Floyd County. She remarried when I was eight but, by then, I felt that a new stepfather could never replace my Dad and I never gave him a chance.

My mother and grandparents said I was a lot like my Dad. I feel honored to be considered so.

Happy Father’s Day, Dad. I’ve missed you for 78 years and do so even more today.