"Hello Joe," were the sweetest words heard by a local American Guerilla in the Philippines.

The small town of Springfield, South Dakota, was the scene of Edward Grover DeLong's birth on August 20, 1915, to Arthur and Sarah Delong. Edward attended local Springfield elementary schools and graduated from the high school in 1932. After a year at the state college, he entered the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, from which he was graduated in 1937. An assignment on the West Coast took him to Stanford University where he met and married Helen Ris, a Santa Cruz girl.

In 1941 Lt. Delong received orders sending him to sea; and his wife Helen returned to Santa Cruz to live with her mother and father, who managed the local Woolworth store. During 1941, Lt. DeLong served aboard a battleship and destroyer before being transferred to (PT) Motorboat Sub- chaser, Division 3, in June. Following a month of instruction, Edward DeLong was assigned as an engineering officer with a torpedo boat squadron in the Philippines.

During the Japanese invasion of the Islands in December 1941, Edward's squadron intercepted and destroyed a number of Japanese vessels in Subic Bay. On January 30, 1942, the Lead Daily Call, a South Dakota newspaper reported that:

Edward DeLong, lieutenant junior grade, from Springfield, S.D., returned with ten naval men from a perilous mission behind Japanese lines on the Bataan peninsula on the night of January 18th, [they had] accomplished their mission and then found themselves faced with the job of returning individually to their base... While trying to get back to base, DeLong encountered a native with a bayoneted rifle. After a moment of startled silence, the native spoke first, saying, "Hello, Joe," which DeLong said, "were the sweetest words I ever heard."

Following the surrender of American forces at Bataan on April 9, 1942, a number of Americans continued to resist the Japanese in the islands as depicted in the 1950 movie American Guerilla in the Philippines. While attempting to escape in a native boat, Edward DeLong and a fellow officer were captured on the Island of Bangka, North Celebes, and were taken by the Japanese to Manado. In the garden of Lie Boen Yat, Saris, Manado, on July 2, 1942, Lt. Edward Grover DeLong was executed by the Japanese and buried in a common grave.

(SCSn January 27, 1942 1:4, June 30, 1942 1:3, December 17, 1942 1:5, South Dakota State, US Military, Veteran Affairs Fallen Sons Daughters Profiles, plus photo http://www.state.sd.us/military/ VetAffairs/sdwwiimemorial/SubPages/profiles/Display.asp?P=434, [Approx. May 2007])