Herbert Joseph Satten's Obituary
A tall and well dressed fellow, he was from a family of sailors – both merchant marine and navy, and was proud of being the boxing champion of his destroyer, the USS Haines, in world war 2. He was also very proud of having one of the first Datsun 240z in 1971…through the 60s he drove Jensen Healey etc, but swore off any English car after that.During the invasion of Southern France in 1944, he and his buddies were clearing mines out of the harbor of Marseilles. They did this by going slowing through the harbor, with a couple guys on the front of the ship, legs dangling off of the side, with rifles. On seeing a mine, they’d shoot it so it would fill with water and sink. He went off of shift to take a nap, when one of the guys managed to actually hit the mine on the trigger and the thing exploded maybe 20 feet from their ship. He said he and all of his buddies were sure he was a goner, and the relief was amazingly funny when they realized they were alive.Prior to the invasion of Southern France, the ships in the invasion docked in Morocco. For secrecy, no one on any ship was allowed to leave their ship. However, he noticed that the ship docked next to his was the one his father Daniel was on; he was the only one allowed to leave the ship and they had a happy reunion as father and son.Herb was in the first group of Americans to Nagasaki right after the war, and saw horrible things that he would not talk about. He did say that it was amazing he lived so long, since so many of his friends got cancer from the radiation. After that he spent about a year in Japan helping the US Strategic Bombing Survey.After spending time at the US Navy base in San Diego, he decided he’d have to be an idiot to go back to the cold New Jersey winters, and settled in the area, inviting his family from the east coast to join him. He started working in the private sector when the Korean war broke out, and he got called back to the Navy. As he bounced up and down in 50 foot swells in the North Sea in 1951, he again missed the warm weather in a big way.In San Diego, he worked for many years in the furniture business, including at Howard’s Furniture, working both retail and wholesale.He spoke often about what a wild child he was; the local paper growing up in Fairlawn, NJ listed the kids who had injured themselves with fireworks on July 4th, and he was “in that paper every July.”He was a loving and supportive Uncle to Ron, Michael and Nina Drabkin.The service date and time is being kept private.
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