Grant “Gully” Gullickson, the 95-year-old World War II veteran who was featured in The Virginian-Pilot series The Lucky Few, died in Virginia Beach in June.
Gullickson served on the USS Corry as the chief machinist’s mate. The Corry was sunk on June 6, 1944, off the coast of France during the D-Day invasion. Two dozen crew members died, including Gullickson’s two best friends.
On the 70th anniversary of the Corry’s sinking, Gullickson took a chartered boat along with one other survivor of that wreck. At the spot where their ship had sunk, they read aloud the names of those who died and dropped a red rose into the water for each one.
“Fallen sailors are never really gone,” Gullickson said that day. They’ve simply “been transferred to the celestial ship in the sky.”
“And we hope that we will be shipmates again.”
Gullickson was one of the few remaining survivors of the Corry.