On Lori Cullen's third birthday, Sept. 30, 1943, U.S. Navy officials decided her father had gone down near the Philippines with the submarine he'd commanded.
Lori doesn't remember the sadness at home or the handsome, dark-haired man who died a hero at age 32. She can't recall his laugh or the comfort of his lap. Her earliest memory is of the day the bells rang to signify the war's end in 1945.
"That's when I asked my mother if that meant Daddy was coming home," she says. Four years later, Lori's mother died.
