Two events honor Hays

Red Oak Veteran Alvin D. Hayes was recognized twice last month with special events.
In May of this year, the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors signed a proclamation naming May 23, 2025 as Alvin D. Hays Day. In addition to the proclamation from the county, Hays was honored with a proclamation from the City of Red Oak, which was presented to him at Arlington Place. Special guests included Sen. Joni Ernst, who presented Hays with a flag from the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., and retired Maj. Gen. Chris Hughes, who presented Hays with a SOCOM flag.
According to Hays, the proclamation from both the county and the city were both unexpected.
“I guess that in some respects it was a surprise and other respects I never even gave it any thought because for 70 years I could never tell anything that I did and I’ve kept my word continuously. My wife didn’t ever know about my time in the military until somebody at one of our reunions told her, and my parents both passed away and never did know. I’d have liked for my parents to have known, but I kept this a secret in my system for 70 years before it was ever let out,” said Hays.
Hays referrs  to being among a select few who were the forebearers of the Navy Seals, the Scouts and Raiders. In was U.S. President and Navy veteran John F. Kennedy that changed their name to SEALs. In 2016, the United States Senate recognized that Hays’ organization was the forefather of the Navy SEALs, and Hays was one of 10 that received their trident, the official badge of the Navy SEALs. Hays shared his experiences during World War II in the Pacific.
“We would go around the islands many nights until we had circled the entire thing so we could tell them everything that was going on. We would also give them a estimate of how many Japanese we thought were on that island whether it was a heavy armament or not. While the American fleet wanted to know just exactly what was on that island, the first thing they wanted to know was how deep the water was. That was because in order to get big ships in and troops in, they wanted at least 90 foot of water if they could get it. If we couldn’t come up with 90 feet out fairly close to the island itself, they had to send in a different type landing craft. So that’s what me and the other guys with me did as our duty, we did that for 14 months,” advised Hays. “One of the few things that we were given was a 100-foot piece of rope with a weight on one end. Every three foot, we would tie a knot, and we knew right exactly where it was at. That’s how we would measure the water and see how deep it was, because we couldn’t dive down that far.”
Hays was a graduate from Strand High School, which was located south of Malvern. Hays was to graduate from the school in May of 1944. However, Hays had already enlisted in 1943 in the United States Navy. After graduation, Hays was sent to Great Lakes, Ill. with a V-6 enlistment, which carries more education, and a six-month enlistment extension. After six weeks of training at Naval Service Training Command Chicago, Hays was selected as one of 24 out of 240 graduates to be sent to Little Creek, Va., for further training. The training would later be recognized as the Navy Scouts and Raiders.
“I had one school teacher in Strahan, she knew I was going to service. She had two nephews that were at Pearl Harbor when it was bombed. They were on the Oklahoma, and it rolled when it was sunk. They jumped off and they had to swim out through the oil and grease and the fire. One year after that, on Thanksgiving, they were back to see their parents in Rockport, Mo. They were my teacher’s nephews,” said Hays. “She asked me if I would like to meet them and I told her I would. They gave me such a good report and they’d just come from Hawaii, so they were wearing whites in the middle of the winter. Last I knew, they spent 35 years in the Navy.”
Hays trained 20 hours a day with strenuous physical training, first aid training, classroom work to memorize silhouettes of planes, ships, weather, clouds, and the trainees’ ability to remember details was a large part of their job. Everything was committed to memory.
“Not a word was spoken from the time we left the mother ship until we were debriefed. We’d each spend one hour being debriefed on the mother ship. My buddies and I never spoke a word when we were scouting. We used hand signals and made absolutely no noise. While we carried a carbine rifle, which was long and lightweight, I don’t recall ever firing one once because if we fired it while we were scouting, we might as well have just turned on the light for the Japanese, as it would have given away our locations,” Hays stated.
While there were plenty of aerial photos taken, Hays said the information he and the others provided proved to be invaluable, citing one situation that stuck in his memory.
“The aerial photos showed of Iwo Jima showed what they thought it was white sand beaches, but it wasn’t sand, it was broken coral. The minute you dropped your ramp the soldiers that went on it had it go up about as deep as their boot was and that broken coral is as sharp as broken glass, and if you dropped a jeep on it, it would sink into it and be unable to get to the beach. It was up to us to tell the Navy Fleet exactly what was on each island, and that was one big mistake that we were able to warn them about, ” commented Hays.
While most of the scouts were uneventful, Hays recalled one experience that definitely shook him up.
“This one island, we did take off, scouted it, and after we got into the deep jungle, somebody tapped us on the shoulder. He kept talking, saying ‘Medicano, Medicano.’ He finally told us he was a talker. He was a Filipino. He talked to MacArthur’s headquarters at certain times, on certain nights of the week. He ended up nearly scaring us to death. He had one big ring, and he had some other little ornaments that he’d saved on his body because they’d checked him many times,” Hays said. “He gave everybody some type of a memento. My finger was the only finger that his big ring would go on, so he gave me that and I still have that ring today. It’s kept at my son’s home.”
Hays recalled that one of the last trips he was going to make while scouting ended up scrapped.
“They told us in Manila that we were are all to go into Nagasaki under water. It was voluntary, and they asked us to sign a sheet if we were volunteering for it. They said it was not required that we had to, because they say five out of six won’t come back. Of course, there’s no need to tell the rest of the story, because if one goes, we all go. There was a big sub-base right there, and that’s where we were going to go from this sub-base, underwater to Nagasaki,” explained Hays. “Then it came over the speaker that the Japanese had totally surrendered. We made a U-turn in the ocean and went right back to Manila and took all of the equipment off.  We took on different supplies, then we sailed north to north of Tokyo. I think we were the fourth ship behind the Missouri going down Tokyo Straits,” Hays advised. “Our job was to take every Japanese flag down in Tokyo Bay, and we did. We had 90-some of those flags in our boat, and the other 20 boats or so probably had 100 and 125. When we turned them in, the beach master said, we could have one. I’ve still got one today that is pure silk, put up just for that day. My son put it under glass for display.”.
Hays actually considered rejoining the Navy because it seemed like civilian life was a little slow.
“My parents sent a 17-year-old boy to the service. When I came back, I still looked the same, but I was a different person and I didn’t get along with my parents or my brother and his wife. I almost went back in service. I understood then why so many people struggle after they return from abroad in the military,” stated Hays.
However, before that happened, Hays met the woman who would become his wife, Selma “Rusty” Hays.
“She was from Essex, going to a cosmetology school in Omaha. I met her on the street. She was a redhead, and we started going to movies. I hadn’t seen any movies in a long time. Then we started going to stage shows and different things like that. About two months later, she said it was too bad I couldn’t dance. I asked her who it was that said I couldn’t dance. Well, she said I never told her, and I said she didn’t ask, so we started going to dances. I got attached to her and didn’t know it. And come time to pick corn, I couldn’t go to Omaha and see her when I wanted to,” said Hays. “I told her I was going to ask her parents if I could marry her. She told me that they had already talked it over, and the rest was history. We had 75 years together. We moved near Climax in West Township, bought a farm, raised four kids, two boys and two girls, and did a lot in the community.”
Hays said at the recognition ceremony that was held on Aug. 9, he was surprised at one of the visiting dignitaries.
“It was hush-hush because Joni couldn’t come if they hadn’t kept the proclamation ceremony under cover. Maj. Gen. Stephen Osborn, adjutant general of the Iowa National Guard, and Command Sgt. Maj. Matthew Strasser were also present at the ceremony,” commented Hays.
On Aug. 30, an open house was held at Arlington Place to again recognize Hays, who still feels there are others more worthy of recognition.
“I told so many that I’m not a hero. I say the heroes are the boys under the white crosses. I just did exactly what I was trained to do and did it well. I had six of my crew, and every one of them made it through the military, through the war. My crew, we were hand-picked to do the things that nobody else would do,” Hays commented.
Hays did agree that his actions during that time helped save many lives. He also said that if he could go back and do it all over again, he would.
“I’d go back on service, probably go to the Navy. I’d never even been in a rowboat before and I liked sea duty. I’ve told so many people, youngsters as well as old people, you don’t know what freedom you’ve got here. It’s yours to take advantage of. The minute a child is born, he’s got more freedom than some will ever have in their life,” Hays explained. “Both of my boys went to college and they both took military training. One of them was a full lieutenant and the other one was a captain, and they both had to serve.”
Reflecting, Hays said he is proud that his time in the service was able to make a difference.
“I never regretted one day being in the service, not one. As I said before, I almost re-enlisted. It was a new world that I had to fit myself into when I came back, and I did. I had to change a bit, and I think my dad and mother and brothers and sisters had to change a little bit, too.”