Mayor Thomas P. Koch and the City of Quincy on Aug. 9 dedicated a new park in honor of United States Navy veterans, which included the unveiling of the iconic Lone Sailor Statue. The park’s centerpiece, the “Lone Sailor,” represents a 25-year-old, senior second-class petty officer who is fast becoming a seagoing veteran. Quincy’s statue is the first in coastal New England and reminds active-duty service members, veterans, and civilian personnel that they serve a grateful nation.
“He has done it all,” the United States Navy Memorial Foundation, states about the Lone Sailor. “Fired weapons in war, provided humanitarian assistance in far-away lands, been attacked by the enemy and defended our freedom. He has made liberty calls in great cities and tiny villages where he was a tourist, ambassador, adventurer, friend and missionary to those less fortunate. His shipmates remember him with pride and look up to him with respect.”
Quincy’s Lone Sailor is the 19th such statue dedicated by the US Navy Memorial in locations around the world. His brother sailors stand sentry in such spots as the Navy Memorial in Washington, D.C.; the World War Two Valor in the Pacific Monument at Pearl Harbor, where he greets visitors on their way to the USS Arizona Memorial; and gazing out to the ocean, as all sailors must, from a promontory over Utah Beach on the Normandy coast, one of the places where the liberators of Europe landed 80 years ago. Quincy’s Navy Park at Squantum is the first coastal New England location to host the Lone Sailor. The location — the former site of the Victory Destroyer Plant shipyard and Naval Air Station Squantum, where fighter pilots were trained, and not far from the former Fore River Shipyard — is fitting.
“Today at this historic site we celebrate Quincy’s vital contributions to shipbuilding and to the training of Naval aviators,” United States Marine Corps General (ret.) Joseph Dunford, himself a Quincy native, said at the August 9, 2024 dedication of the monument. “But most importantly we celebrate the long line of Quincy natives who answered the call to serve, whether as a shipbuilder or as a sailor in uniform.”
The Navy Park at Squantum will also become home to the bell from the third USS Quincy, a heavy cruiser built at the Fore River Shipyard and given its name after the second Quincy was destroyed in the Battle of Savo Island in the Guadalcanal campaign, with the loss of 370 sailors, on August 9, 1942. Recalling that sinking that occurred 82 years, to the day, before the Quincy dedication, Father David Campo, a Lieutenant Junior Grade and US Navy Chaplain, spoke of the nature of courage while remembering the loss of the USS Quincy during his opening prayer.
“ ‘Courage,’ in the words of US Navy Chaplain Joseph Conway two years later, ‘is fear having said its prayers,’ ” Father Campo, also a Quincy native, recalled. “Taking his own medicine, after offering Mass for his Marines right before invading Guam, Chaplain Conway was killed in action with the Marines in his assault craft. He was found with his chalice box tightly gripped to his chest. We could all keep God close to our chest now days. On this day we have the solemn dedication of the Lone Sailor as a reminder of the sacrifices of all Navy personnel, from those about the USS Quincy 82 years ago today, of what tremendous bravery God has given to those putting everything on the line. Let us also ask God to continue to raise up brave men and women to defend us, since freedom is never truly free.”
Mayor Koch noted his city’s revered military history, including the shipyards, the air station, and the numerous Army and Navy commanders who hailed from the city.
“It is our job to be the preservationist, the conservationist, to tell those stories to future generations,” Mayor Koch said. “And this will be forever here as a living outdoor museum.”
