Samuel Day Backus
August 28, 1923 - July 14, 2017
Samuel Day Backus, a native of San Francisco, was born on August 28, 1923. A third-generation San Franciscan, he descended from three Pioneer California families. His great-grandfather, Thomas W Hawkins, settled in the Gilroy/ Hollister area in 1858. Another great-grandfather, Lucius Sanborn, arrived in Watsonville in 1849. His grandfather, Samuel Woolsey Backus, came to Sacramento in 1845. He joined the California 100 to fight in the Civil War. Like his pioneer forebears with their self-reliance, courage and willingness to risk everything, Sam too possessed an abundance of courage, tenacity and risk tolerance.
Sam Backus attended grade school in San Francisco, High School in Palo Alto and College at Oregon State University on an athletic scholarship for football prior to WWII. At Oregon State, Sam enrolled in Army ROTC. The upheaval caused by the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, included strong encouragement from the Army ROTC instructors to the students to enlist in the military. Sam enlisted in the US Army in 1942 at the end of the school year. After basic training and while waiting for orders, Sam was recruited by the Office of Strategic Services to serve in the Maritime unit. It was quite an adventure. He performed numerous underwater demolition and reconnaissance missions in several war theaters including Southeast Asia where the Maritime unit was assigned to Detachment 101 in Burma. The operations of OSS, Detachment 101, and the Maritime unit established the direct involvement in unconventional warfare. These operations were the forerunners to today’s Special Forces, the Green Berets and the U.S Navy Special Warfare, The SEALs. Veterans of OSS, Detachment 101, Maritime have been inducted into the ranks of the UDT-SEAL Association and other prestigious veteran organizations.
In 2016 the U.S. Congress awarded the veterans of the OSS the Congressional Gold Medal. Following WWII, Sam pursued a degree in economics at the University of California Berkeley graduating in 1949. After a 15-year career in Agricultural Marketing, he turned his professional focus toward marketing through financial institutions and retired in 1987 as Executive Vice President of the California League of Savings. He was a founding director of North Coast Savings. He served as an officer of the OSS - 101 Association, and he was a respected member of the UDT-SEAL Association. In addition, Sam was an accomplished and dedicated woodworker.
Sam is also remembered with great affection and respect among the many Navy SEALs he met over the years. Sadly, he was predeceased by virtually all his fellow veterans of OSS, Detachment 101, Maritime, who served so valiantly with him in WWII. One of his friends from those OSS days arranged for his survivors to have a letter sent to Sam informing him that with the death of his friend, Sam was the “last man standing.” Thus, with his passing, Samuel Day Backus served as the rear guard for all his WWII OSS comrades who served with him with such distinction for their country. Taps has played for them all.
Sam was preceded in death by his daughter Melinda Day Rogers of Oregon. He is survived by his wife Janice, his daughters Kathryn (Steve) Edwards of Montana and Deidra (Steve) Meeker of Indiana and three stepsons, Terry, Tim and Jon McDougall. He leaves five grandchildren, Zane Paul Rogers, Chelsea Day McKoy, David Dylan Edwards, Stephen Samuel Meeker and Adam Alexander Meeker.
Friends and family are invited to attend a Committal Ceremony, with military honors, on Friday, August 25, 2017 at 1:00PM at San Francisco National Cemetery, 1 Lincoln Blvd (Presidio of San Francisco) SF, 94129. Donations may be made in Sam’s memory to the navysealfoundation.org.