Celebrating Service with CDR Dominic James DiMatteo, USN Ret.
Fittingly, centenarian Dominic James DiMatteo will celebrate his 100th birthday on the flight deck of the USS Midway on San Diego Bay on Sept. 2, 2021. With over 600 carrier landings, the retired commander will be right at home on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier. DiMatteo has a distinguished career in Naval Aviation with over 7,500 flight hours in 40 models of propeller and jet fighters. He flew in combat in three wars: World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. “My dad, his life, is all about two things; his family and Naval Aviation,” said his son, Coronado resident Capt. Jim “Guido” DiMatteo, USN Ret. Dominic “Dee’’ DiMatteo was born on Sept. 2, 1921, into what we now recognize unquestionably as the Greatest Generation. “We have always stood on the shoulders of the heroes who came before
us, and the heroes we all cherish are our World War II veterans. That war was really the most catastrophic and dangerous, and the perseverance and hardships that generation endured make us treasure them even more. Anytime we have the opportunity to honor those men we take it,” his son Jim commented. Dominic DiMatteo was raised in a large Italian family outside Cleveland, Ohio. He enlisted in the Navy in 1940 at age 19 as an aircraft metalsmith, and then served as a TBM tail-gunner. He went on to the V-5 Cadet program and attended flight school in Pensacola, Florida, where he earned his Wings of Gold, and set a path on a storied flying career that would eventually be recognized at the famed Palm Springs Air Museum with induction into the Aviation Hall of Fame for lifetime achievement.
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