2 INTREPID LOVEBIRDS Smooth sailing even after 70 yrs.
SHE WAS the love of his life — and almost his death.
Don Bee was just an 18-yearold sailor on the warship Intrepid in the middle of World War II when a Japanese kamikaze attack nearly killed him.
But it was also a lucky break: He got sent stateside while the fabled warship was repaired — sending him back into the arms of Eloise Lineman, the Pennsylvania sweetheart he’d met only a month before he shipped out.
On Saturday, the couple will renew their vows aboard the very same Intrepid — celebrating 70 years of marriage.
Bee had fallen in love at first sight on a blind date with Lineman in December 1943 — but he didn’t want to propose because he knew he was heading off to war.
“I saw Eloise and oh, my god, she was beautiful. Within 20 seconds I knew this is the girl I love,” said Don, 90. Eloise, 88, was equally smitten. “He was tall, dark and handsome,” she recalled.
But with Bee’s ship-out date looming, it wasn’t all smooth sailing.
“I didn’t want to be married because I thought, ‘What if I go out there and get killed?’ ” said Bee, who worked on the hangar deck — which always had a Japanese target painted on it.
First, he survived a rocket attack.
Then, “all of the sudden I saw a white path coming toward the ship, it was a torpedo coming straight at us,” he said. “It hit right below me.”
Bee also survived the notorious suicide attack on the aircraft carrier on Nov. 25, 1944, which left 69 servicemen dead — but sent him back to Pennsylvania, where he quickly reconnected with his love.
They married on Jan. 27, 1945, Bee in his sailor’s suit.
“He got me an engagement ring and a wedding band at the same time,” said Eloise. “I bought a dress, I didn’t have a gown because our money was scarce. He bought me a white orchid and we did it all on Saturday.”
Two days later, Bee was headed back to the Pacific theater, where he remained until after V-J Day later that year.
It’s no surprise that the couple chose the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum for the recommitment ceremony. Though the ship was a machine of death, it was also a love boat for the couple, which wrote each other every day.
“I’m fine and still being true, which I always will be,” Lineman wrote in one letter, which to this day still puts a smile on Bee’s face.
Seventy years later — through war, peace and four kids born and raised — Don and Eloise Bee remain anchored in love.
“Occasionally we had some differences, but before we go to sleep we patch things up,” said Don. “There’s a great healing to that when you say good night to your loved one that they know you mean it.”