TURNER – Walter Bergman feels genuine pride over his role in the North Atlantic capture of a German submarine during World War II.

Yet, it’s his brother’s service – becoming one of the first U.S. officers captured by the Germans – that still draws him to tears more than 60 years later.

“It’s hard,” Walter said, pausing as he collected himself. His brother Fred, who died about eight years ago, never told him what he saw.

It must have been bad.

“He never recovered from the sights,” Walter said. Part of his brother never came home from the war.

That sacrifice is why Walter cherished the flag that was draped over his brother’s coffin. He hopes the flag will continue to be cherished by the town’s newly reorganized American Legion post.

The flag will become the official colors of Post 111, which plans to hold its second meeting tonight.

“We don’t even have a pole to put it on,” said Chaplain Paul Bernard, who ironed the flag and carefully folded it in anticipation of the meeting.

Of the 37 veterans who have signed up, Walter, 84, is the oldest.

He was a young man of 20 when he joined the Navy in 1942, enlisting on Oct. 22, Navy Day.

“My brothers (Fred and August) had joined the Army and told me their stories,” Walter said. “So, I joined the Navy.”

He became a sonar operator with the rank of petty officer 2nd class aboard the U.S.S. Neilds, a Benson-class destroyer.

He figures he must have made 20 Atlantic crossings. The highlight came in mid-May 1944, only three weeks before the Normandy invasion.

The Neilds, also known as DD-616, was part of a group of destroyers searching the Mediterranean for submarines when they made contact with a German U-boat.

As his ship closed in, Walter was below decks, listening to the radar in one ear and the sonar in the other as he plotted the submarine’s course.

Another destroyer fired depth charges and the submarine – sporting the designation “U-616” – surfaced.

Its similarity to the Neilds’ designation made the capture a one-of-a-kind event.

The submarine surrendered and 53 Germans were taken prisoner.

Those Germans never saw the horrors that Fred witnessed, Walter said.

“When the war was over, they just went home,” he said. They didn’t leave anything behind, as Fred did.

Walter’s post-war experience was less scarred. In the years after the war, he attended college and married. He joined a legion post in Braintree, Mass., his hometown, but he left a few years later, when he moved to Cape Cod to become a fisherman.

He retired to Turner, where he lives near the town office.

Town Manager James Catlin led Bernard, the Post 111 chaplain, to call on Walter. He wasn’t surprised by Bernard’s visit and he signed up with little fuss.

Walter said he felt he could give up Fred’s flag since he has another. He also has the flag from his brother August’s funeral.

This one is precious though, he said, finding it tough to describe in words what the donation meant.

Bernard vowed to come up with a flagpole for it.

Every veteran will cherish the flag, he said.