Captain Daniel Dillon

Captain Daniel Dillon was a World War II U.S. Navy veteran and an early, long-time member of the Guild. 

Dillon, one of several master mariner members of the DNG, attended and graduated from a maritime academy and was already serving in the Merchant Marine before the Pearl Harbor attack. Subsequently, he joined the navy and early in his career, served on the USS Rio Grande (AOG-3). In the opening days of World War II, this gasoline tanker serviced PT boats. Dillon described being aboard this gasoline tanker—which was laden with explosive ordnance--while being under Japanese air superiority: “We hid during the day and ran like hell at night.” Dillon remained in the Pacific during the conflict and eventually went on to serve aboard ships at the Battle of Iwo Jima and Battle of Okinawa.

Image Courtesy of Peter Dillon

After the war Dillon met DNG member and fellow master mariner, Raymond Aker, in one of the several associations of maritime-veteran’s groups that existed around the San Francisco Bay Area at the time.  From that relationship, Dillon joined the DNG and later worked with Aker at Westinghouse where they both worked on the Polaris missile project.  Dillon was a technical writer, a skill upon which the DNG relied with their publications into the late 1970s.  Additionally, he was a regular participant in the archaeological investigations. His practical seamanship experience contributed much to the understanding of Drake’s Bay as a suitable maritime haven for Drake.

In the 1950s, Dillon was often joined by his young son, Peter, at the meetings which were held at Vladimir’s in Inverness.  Pete and his father also discovered what may by the largest Coast Miwok midden that exists in the Point Reyes region.  It is overgrown and remains undisturbed today. 

Peter Dillon went on to also serve in the U.S. Navy, become heavily involved in the DNG as a director and officer, and retired from the Guild with the honorific, director emeritus.