Postscript: : Marines’ Chapel Recalled for Its Warmth, Coziness

Three months after a vintage World War II airplane crashed into the chapel at the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, killing the pilot and a passenger, nothing remains of the white, wood-framed building but its concrete foundation.

The tragedy robbed the base of more than just a building, however, said the base chaplain, Capt. Gordon Read. The simple structure, with its peaked roof and wooden spire, was a special place for El Toro Marines since its construction in 1946, just after World War II.

“We’ve lost the sense of warmth and coziness we’ve had,” Read said. “There are difficulties because we don’t have the religious context we would like to have; it’s made it difficult to do weddings and memorial services.”

Although “the mills of the gods and government grind slowly,” Read said, and plans for rebuilding the chapel are just beginning, Marines have been making do by holding services and Bible studies in offices next to the chapel site. Other services are held in the station theater, a large, yellow hangar-like building ordinarily used for training films.

Some of the base’s 15,000 Marines might be going to the chapel at the Marine Corps Air Station in Tustin, said 2nd Lt. Timothy Hoyle, a Marine Corps spokesman.

Meanwhile, military engineers soon will begin searching for an architect, who will meet with Read and other El Toro Marines to choose a design for the new chapel. The new chapel should open in about two years, Hoyle said.

Read has said that he expected insurance and federal money to pay most of the $1.1 million cost of replacing the chapel. However, the federal government’s claim with the pilot’s insurance company has not been settled.

A special fund, started with a $300 contribution from the thrift store operated by the Officers Wives’ Club, will help pay for special items in the chapel.

Hoyle said other contributors may specify that their money be spent on stained glass windows or bronze plaques, for example. “The contributions are going to be used for extras, things the taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay for.”

The April 27 accident killed Merrell Richard Gossman, 55, a former Marine and a member of the Condor Squadron, a club of pilots who perform mock dogfights at air shows. Robert G. Arrowsmith, 25, an El Toro hospital employee who was with Gossman, also died in the crash.

Because it was the day before El Toro’s 1985 Navy Relief Air Show, and regular Saturday services had been canceled, the chapel was empty and no one on the ground was killed.