Former Congressman, WWI Medal Winner Dies

A former San Diego congressman and the last surviving World War I Medal of Honor recipient, retired Navy Lt. Cmdr. Edouard Victor Michel Izac, died in his sleep last Thursday in Virginia. He was 100 years old.

Izac was aboard the troop transport President Lincoln on May 31, 1918, when a German submarine sank it with three torpedoes. Captured by a German U-boat, he was able to glean strategic information about German submarines in the Atlantic. Izac tried several times to escape, once by jumping out the window of a moving train en route to a prison camp in Villingen, Baden. But, having injured his knees and head, he was recaptured.

Izac eventually escaped, trekking through the mountains of southwest Germany and swimming across the Rhine River so that he could relay the information.

“Even among Medal of Honor winners, Izac stands out as a particularly heroic figure,” said retired Rear Adm. Gene La Roque, director of the Center for Defense Information in Washington.

Then-assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt presented the Congressional Medal of Honor to Izac on Nov. 11, 1920, the highest honor that can be bestowed on a serviceman. It was an honor, friends and family say, that Izac played down.

“He never considered himself a hero; he said he did what anybody would do,” said his daughter, Suzanne S. Quinlan, who lives in Fairfax, Va. Izac died in her home.

He chose a quiet life and dedicated himself to his family. Until two years ago, Izac split wood and cultivated an ample garden at his Bethesda, Md., home that furnished his neighbors with strawberries and tomatoes.

And his promptness became legendary. Neighbors say they could almost set their clocks by Izac, who left his house promptly each week for Saturday evening Mass. He was a devout Catholic.

Born in Cresco, Iowa, Izac attended the Naval Academy after fudging about his age, making himself two years younger. Izac graduated in 1915 and soon after married Agnes Cabell, daughter of Army Gen. De Rosey Carroll Cabell, a San Diego resident.

When the war was over, Izac appeared before a claims commission and charged the Germans with brutality. As part of his evidence, he produced the court-martial records of the German soldier who had been convicted of destroying government property after smashing his rifle stock on Izac’s head. Izac received $20,000 and later published an account of his experiences in a book, “Prisoner of the U-90.”

In 1921, Izac and his family moved to San Diego.

“Grandfather Cabell ordered his daughter to San Diego,” explained Cabell Berge, Izac’s oldest daughter. And, Cabell also helped the young man get a job, at the San Diego Union. But Izac had political aspirations.

Izac became a U.S. congressman , representing San Diego from 1937 to 1947. A Democrat and Administration supporter, he voted for New Deal legislation and the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, and against the poll tax. He also voted against permanent status for the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

“To be in Congress for 10 years is quite an honor, and everybody thought he did a good job,” said Olive McAndrews, whose late husband, Joseph Patrick, ran Izac’s last campaign.

But, in his own San Diego district, Izac was not as well known by today’s standards.

“Izac was the last of an era of congressmen--unable to frequently fly back and forth, he stayed mostly in Washington,” said former Rep. Lionel Van Deerlin. “He thought he had been elected to help run the country and didn’t pay that much attention to running his district.”

Still others thought Izac had helped the Navy more than he helped the city, which led to his defeat by Republican Charles Fletcher.

“He was very supportive of the military, and, towards the end of his term, he had become somewhat complacent. The city wanted more roads, a better way to get to Los Angeles, and dams,” said former San Diego Councilman Bill Cleator, who had worked as a youth on Fletcher’s campaign.

“And there was this big, tall good-looking guy--Charlie Fletcher--interested in improving the quality of life.”

When Izac lost to Fletcher, his defeat marked one of only two times since the Depression that Republicans controlled the House of Representatives, Van Deerlin said. After his loss, Izac decided to settle in Louisa County, Va., where his wife had inherited a 600-acre Gordonsville farm. There, Izac raised cattle and created a 2-mile lake, which still bears the name Lake Izac. The couple eventually moved to Bethesda, where his wife died in 1975.

Izac suffered a devastating blow in 1953 when his second-youngest child, Forrest, committed suicide at age 19. The note he left said that he could never live to be the kind of hero that his father was, said Quinlan.

Izac turned to his family, gardening and writing. In the years after his son’s death, he wrote a travel book about Israel, “The Holy Land, Then and Now.”

Izac is survived by five children, 19 grandchildren and 25 great-grandchildren. Funeral services were held Tuesday at Arlington National Cemetery.