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A Sailor Inspired: George Pegg and Robert Patterson
By: Andrea Hoffman Collections Manager
When Madison resident Robert G. Patterson enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1956, he joined a long familial line of U.S. military veterans that stretched back to the 18th century. His ancestors included a great-grandfather and great-great grandfather who served in Wisconsin regiments during the Civil War, and a greatgreat-great grandfather who fought during the Revolutionary War. But it was his uncle, George Edgar Pegg, a fellow Madisonian who served in the U.S. Navy during both World Wars, who influenced Patterson’s specific decision to become a sailor.
Patterson’s uncle enlisted in January 1918 at the age of 18 while living in his hometown of Merrimac, Wisconsin. Pegg completed naval training at Great Lakes Naval Training Station, Illinois before attending Naval Radio school, then served as a Landsman Electrician (Radio) during World War I. Pegg was discharged in August 1919, and following service, lived and worked in Madison for five years before deciding to reenlist. He continued to serve as a radio operator during the interwar years and spent time in the Aleutian Islands and the Philippines in the 1930s. In November 1940, he boarded the gunboat USS Asheville (PG-21) and sailed to the Philippines. His ship was anchored in Manila Bay when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor the following December.
Radioman 1st Class (RM1c) Pegg was reported missing in action after the USS Asheville was sunk 300 miles south of Java, Indonesia on March 3, 1942. Patterson had just turned four when his mother Ruth, George’s sister, received word of Asheville’s fate in mid-March 1942. The U.S. Navy officially declared Pegg deceased in November 1945.
RTC Company 603 at the U.S. Naval Training Center, Great Lakes, IL, 1956. Robert Patterson is second row from the top, left. Mss.2025.021.001
His uncle’s memory influenced Patterson as he grew up. Once high school graduation was behind him, that memory motivated him to join the navy in September 1956. While enlistment meant leaving his lifelong home of Madison, he soon learned he would be taking a bit of home with him – at least in name – when he was assigned to USS Wisconsin (BB-64) after completing recruit training. Yeoman Patterson assisted with what he referred to as the “mothballing process” (pre-inactivation overhaul) ahead of the Iowa-class battleship’s March 1958 decommissioning. He worked in the office of the gunnery section and wound up being one of the last sailors aboard the USS Wisconsin before the vessel was returned to Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, its shipyard of origin, to rejoin her sister ship USS Iowa (BB-61) in the so-called “mothball fleet.”
Patterson’s time aboard “Big Wisky” remained a life highlight long after he was discharged in July 1962, so much so Patterson wrote then-Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson asking to be a part of the USS Wisconsin’s recommissioning ceremony in October 1988. “It is hard to picture what she will look like today with all the new things they are going to put into her,” he told the Wisconsin State Journal on July 3 of that year. “Being on the Wisconsin and being from Wisconsin made it even more memorable,” he stated in conclusion. From the Revolutionary War to the Cold War, Pegg and Patterson carried forward a proud tradition of service. Their stories remain a testament to one family’s lasting commitment to their country that spanned nearly three centuries.
