Bell’s Tolling Marks a Generation’s Loss

Just inside the gates of the U.S. Naval Weapons Station at Seal Beach, a bell was rung for almost an hour Monday morning, once for each of 52 submarines lost during World War II.

“Tolling the boats” is what they call it, a moving ceremony in which names of each underwater vessel sunk in wartime are called out, along with the fate of its crew. “All hands lost. . . . All hands lost,” submarine veteran Bill Hagendorn intoned over and over, followed by the reverberating bell.

Wives and widows of the sailors both living and gone silently dropped a carnation into a reflection pool as a solemn crowd of 400 veterans and relatives withstood gusting offshore breezes to honor the 3,600 American sailors who died in combat--at 25% the highest casualty percentage of any branch of the service.

“Now and then, we have the opportunity to choose to do something that will make a difference to the world around us,” Vice Adm. Patrick J. Hannifin, U.S. Navy retired, told the standing-room-only crowd. “Surely these men made that choice when they volunteered for duty. . . . They came from large cities and small towns and villages, from ranches and farms, from pueblos and reservations. They were from all the families of America, and . . . we will not forget them.”

Gathered on a quarter-acre patch of lawn flanking Seal Beach Boulevard, several generations of families met at what is the only monument to submarine veterans on the West Coast. The same 52 lost submarines are memorialized at the country’s other submarine veteran monument, in Groton, Conn.

At least 50 members of the U.S. Submarine Veterans of WWII attended, distinguished by their peacock blue vests and hats with white feather plumes. But veterans from every service branch were present.

The spotlight went to the submariners, whose underwater mission is often called the most silent service. During World War II, it also was the most deadly.

“I was actually kind of a chicken,” mused submarine veteran Gus Foster, 75, of Glendora, who stood beside one of 52 tombstone-like markers representing sunken subs. “I wanted to come back in one piece, or not at all. In a submarine, your chances are good it will be one or the other--not that my mom liked to hear that.”

Foster was 19, from Flint, Mich., when he volunteered for the Navy, then for submarine duty.

“I had read a book about the sinking of the Squalus during peacetime in 1938 or ‘39, in which 33 men were rescued after an operational failure,” Foster explained. Their story, and their heroism, he said, overrode worries surrounding the 50% failure rate on torpedoes launched by American subs.

“The war would have been over a year earlier if not for the torpedo problem, but someone misfigured,” he added.

More reminiscing came after the ceremony Monday, at a homemade potluck buffet at the veterans’ clubhouse.

The Seal Beach remembrance has been held every Memorial Day since the monument was created in 1977 by the U.S. Submarine Veterans of World War II. The L.A.-area chapter has 272 members, 34 of whom are veterans of the Korean or Vietnam wars or veterans of other military branches. They enjoy the monthly meetings at the “clubhouse” the Navy has provided on base.

The idea for the monument was born at a meeting, says Alan Bradfield, a Vietnam submarine vet. The Navy donated land near the public entrance, and the group paid for creating an oasis beneath a shady pine tree for visitors to linger. Each marker names those who died with the sub.

“We have a few guys whose boats are out there,” Bradfield said. “They were transferred off right before it was sinking, or we have a man who survived the sinking of his boat. Everyone in the organization knows someone [who died] in those boats.”

Memorial Day was marked elsewhere around Orange County, with thousands of people attending services in Fullerton, Cypress, La Palma and Huntington Beach.

A Fullerton service sponsored by the American Veterans Memorial Assn. and the city, themed “A Salute to Peace Officers in the Armed Forces,” drew perhaps the largest crowd. It included a heavy turnout of law enforcement officers and firefighters who assembled at Loma Vista Memorial Park.

In Cypress, the holiday was marked at an 11 a.m. ceremony at Forest Lawn Memorial Park; Rabbi Sidney S. Guthman, chaplain at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Long Beach, led the program.

About 350 people observed the holiday at a ceremony at Huntington Beach City Hall. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) and other local politicians attended the 90-minute service, organized by Bob Kakuk of the Vietnam Veterans of Orange County and other local vets. Col. William E. Barber, a Medal of Honor recipient, and Vi Cowden, a veteran of the Women’s Air Force Service Pilots, were featured speakers.