On Dec. 7, 1941, Army Pvt. Michael A. Varga was sitting on a dock on Pearl Harbor waiting for a boat of ice to arrive when he noticed planes diving closer. Soon bombs exploded around him.
“Basically, he saw the first [Japanese] bombs being dropped,” said his son Andrew, a Cook County assistant state’s attorney. “At first it was just confusion. Then once everything started to explode and the planes got closer he could tell they were Japanese, and then it was really a question of survival.”
As Mr. Varga ran across the dock he joined a group of men running to a boat that took them to more ammunition. He crossed the harbor in the small boat during the attack .
“He saw pretty much all of it from that boat,” his son said.
Beyond a few minor scrapes and cuts, Mr. Varga was unscathed except for the lasting memory of how U.S. involvement in World War II began. From that point, his view of war changed.
“He was never really in favor of any type of military activity unless it was an absolute last resort. He saw enough of what was at stake and what could happen,” his son said.
Mr. Varga, 89, of Downers Grove and formerly of Oak Park died of cancer Sunday, Oct. 2 in his home.
More than 20 years ago, Mr. Varga and his wife returned to Pearl Harbor and were on a guided tour when he spotted the dock where he witnessed history.
“He was pointing it out and where the bombs came down. The tour guide stopped talking and was actually listening to him. It sounds like my dad did a chunk of the tour himself,” his son said.
Mr. Varga and his 13 siblings were born and raised in the Downstate coal mining town of Royalton. After he graduated high school, he came to work in Chicago. In the spring of 1941, he was drafted and sent to Hawaii, where he stayed until he was discharged in 1945.
He returned to Chicago and, in 1959, married his wife Annette in 1959. The couple settled in Oak Park, where Mr. Varga was an active member of St. Catherine of Sienna-St. Lucy Catholic Church.
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Over the years he was a production supervisor for Bally’s Manufacturing and Seeburg Co., both of Chicago, and for Metal Cabinet Co. in Elmhurst.
“He reorganized the production lines to make them more efficient,” his son said. “He seemed to have a knack for spotting and correcting inefficiency, and he was proud of that.”
Years before he retired, Mr. Varga helped with the maintenance of his church and its school buildings. Soon after he retired in the mid-1980s he was hired as a part-time custodian, but he was often there more than eight hours a day for the parish.
“Mike was loved by all,” said Donald Wolverton, a retired Chicago police officer who worked security for the church and became an assistant to Mr. Varga. “All the kids in the school knew Mike and loved him. He was part of that little community at St. Catherine’s. He was spiritually involved and he looked at St. Catherine’s as his second home.”
Mr. Varga was an active member of the Knights of Columbus.
In addition to his wife and son, he is survived by his sisters, Dorothy Rentfro, Margaret Varga, Pauline Regis and Clara Varga, and two grandsons.
Visitation will be held from 3 to 9 p.m. Wednesday in Drechsler, Brown and Williams Funeral Home, 203 S. Marion St., Oak Park. Funeral services will begin at 9:30 a.m. Thursday in the funeral home followed by a 10 a.m. mass in St. Catherine of Sienna-St. Lucy Catholic Church, 38 N. Austin Blvd.