My first contact with Joe was on 30 October 2013 when he called me in response to my letter asking if he remembered
my dad on the Helena. My last contact was August 2016 when Joe sent me these pictures of him and Paul Benko.
In between those dates, Joe sent me several documents and newspaper articles related to his time on the Helena.
Plus we had ourselves some pretty interesting phone conversations in which he told me a lot about his life before,
during, and after his time on the Helena.
This past May I called Joe to let him know that his good friend Paul Benko had passed on. During this conversation
Joe told me about how Paul was a pretty good acrobat and together they put together a tumbling routine. Some of
this took place on the beaches of Honolulu but other times they went to various ships and performed for the guys.
The third photo was taken when the Helena was in the Guadalcanal area which could be anytime from August 1942
to the first months of 1943. Signed Doug Comella
