McKeesport committee remembers namesake Merchant Marine ship

By JEFF STITT
jstitt@yourmvi.com
While practicing social distancing, Army veteran Tom Maglicco, Navy veteran Bobbie Billsborrow and Sue Striffler Galaski on Wednesday carried on the McKeesport Veterans Committee’s annual tradition of paying tribute to the SS McKeesport.
“We normally announce this ceremony and honor those who served aboard the SS McKeesport in a memorial service with the public,” Billsborrow said.
Maglicco said that social distancing guidelines from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other restrictions put in place by the state Department of Health have dictated that it “wouldn’t be safe” to hold a public ceremony.
“With everything going on you have to work with what you got,” Billsborrow said.
A German submarine fired a torpedo 77 years ago that sank the Merchant Marine steamship, which was carrying 68 men and was credited with bringing aid to millions of people during World War II and its lifetime at sea.
On April 29, 1943, the SS McKeesport, commanded by Capt. Oscar John Lohr, sank approximately 500 miles off the coast of Newfoundland.
Typically, the SS McKeesport ceremony, which has been held annually since the early 1990s, features military gun salutes, music from local students and comments from local dignitaries and veterans, and provides a chance for the city to specifically honor World War II Merchant Marine veterans who hail from the Mon Valley.
On Wednesday, Billsborrow, Maglicco and Striffler Galaski laid a wreath and raised the American flag as well as the SS McKeesport flag at the SS McKeesport stone memorial, which is fitted with a bronze information plaque that tells a brief history of the vessel. The memorial is located along the Great Allegheny Passage trail in front of the McKees Point Marina. It was commissioned via the efforts of Striffler Galaski’s late father, Frank Striffler; late former Mayor Joe Bendel and Maglicco, who worked with area veterans in the 1990s to have the memorial approved and placed. Striffler Galaski is owns and operates Striffler Family Funeral Homes.

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