80 Years Later
Honoring Our Local Heroes
Meet five remarkable World War II veterans from the Coachella Valley who answered the call to serve and whose stories continue to inspire generations.
SGT. BERNARD SURGIL (RET)
US ARMY
"I slither along the beach... reach a GI behind a dune — find he's dead, shot through the head like a trapped deer. I momentarily freeze... Grandpa in heaven, save me... I don't want to die here." The words are raw and haunting — lines from a poem written by Army Veteran Bernard Surgil, a sergeant who fought in the Philippine Islands during World War II. Now 100 years old and living in Rancho Mirage, Surgil uses poetry to process the memories and emotions that have stayed with him for decades. "We were patriotic people," he said. "That was the incentive to go." At just 18 years old, Surgil enlisted in the U.S. Army, driven by a sense of duty shared by many young Americans at the time. His service took him to the Pacific, where he witnessed the brutality of combat and the loss of close friends. He was also tasked with taking the Japanese Army into POW camps. Decades later, those experiences continue to inspire his writing — a form of remembrance and reflection that connects the past to the present.
CPL. DOROTHEE IRWIN (RET)
USMC
Corporal Dorothee Irwin, a 100-year-old World War II veteran who lives in Palm Springs, made history as one of the first 92 women stationed at Camp Pendleton after enlisting in the U.S. Marine Corps at just 20 years old. Inspired by a wartime radio call urging women to take over men's jobs so they could fight overseas, Irwin convinced her initially hesitant father to sign her enlistment papers. During the war, she served as a mess sergeant and worked in the post exchange, helping sustain the Marines on the home front while freeing men for combat duty. It was at Camp Pendleton that she met her husband, Lt. Col. John Irwin, marrying him after only two months of dating before settling in Palm Springs in 1961 to raise their family. Though decades have passed, Irwin remains a proud Marine, donning her green beret and uniform at local Veterans Day events, where she's celebrated as a symbol of courage, service, and pioneering spirit.
LYDIA VAN VOGT
TRANSLATOR, US ARMY
Lydia van Vogt (née Bereginsky) was born in Crimea in 1927 and, together with her family, escaped the turmoil of the Russian Civil War to eventually live in Romania and Poland before settling in Munich, Germany during World War II. During the war, she survived the Allied bombing of Munich and following the German surrender, she was hired by the American Army as a translator due to her fluency in German, Russian, Polish, Romanian and some English. One of her notable assignments was riding in an open jeep with Dwight D. Eisenhower as his personal translator in liberation-related operations, including visits to the concentration camps such as Dachau, an experience she described as "very sad … but an honor" to have assisted the American forces.
PETE BEHENNA
COXSWAIN, US NAVY SEABEES
Peter D. Behenna, born July 22, 1926, in Somerville, Massachusetts, served in the U.S. Navy Seabees during World War II. After being unable to join the Navy as a sailor due to color blindness, he trained with the Naval Construction Battalions and was deployed to the Philippines during the Battle of Leyte Gulf in 1944. There, his unit built airstrips on Samar Island under harsh monsoon conditions before later serving in China, supporting vehicle maintenance and assisting in postwar repatriation efforts. Returning home in 1946, Behenna earned his Airframe & Powerplant license, worked 35 years for American Airlines, and later volunteered as a docent at the Palm Springs Air Museum after retiring to Desert Hot Springs.
CPL. MICK DAWSON (RET)
ROYAL ARMY SERVICE CORPS
Arthur "Mick" Dawson, born in Norfolk, England in 1928, left school at age 14 in December 1942 and found work as an electrical apprentice at a wartime airfield being built for the U.S. Army Air Forces. His early exposure to the "Yanks" and the operations on the airfield gave him a unique vantage point of the Allied war effort. During the post‑VE period he was drafted into the Royal Army Service Corps in 1946 and served until his release in 1949. In later years he became a volunteer docent at the Palm Springs Air Museum (since 2010), sharing his first‑hand experiences of life in wartime Britain with visitors on Thursday mornings in their European Hangar.
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