2 Veterans Pursue Memorial Missions

Larry Tunks spent 55 years trying to forget the horror of World War II, until the recurring image of his sunken Navy ship forced him to remember.

More than half a century after his ship, the Perry, was sunk off Palau by a Japanese mine, Tunks, 78, was lured back to the Pacific by a sudden interest in a war that he had spent decades shoving aside.

“I had an urge,” he said. “Something just told me I had to go back. . . . Fifty-five years later, I went back and found it.”

Although Tunks did not plan it this way, finding the Perry is a fitting Memorial Day tribute to his eight shipmates who died in the mine explosion, he said.

Tunks, a Huntington Harbour resident, set out April 27 to find his ship after about two years of planning. Never mind that others who make their livings by finding and exploring World War II wrecks had spent decades and thousands of dollars looking unsuccessfully for the Perry.

The ship, a destroyer converted to a minesweeper, was the only U.S. warship lost in the vicinity of Palau, where the bloody battle of Peleliu was fought in 1944 by U.S. ground troops. It rests with 38 Japanese ships sunk by the Americans.

Tunks found the Perry on May 1. It lies 240 feet below the surface, where it has been undisturbed and unseen all this time, about 700 yards offshore from Anguar, the southernmost island of Palau, a nation of islands southeast of the Philippines.

Tunks found the Perry by plotting the wreck’s location over a period of several months, drawing on U.S. Navy records of the sinking and a hazy recollection of events. Too old to dive that deep, he paid two divers to go down and find it while he waited anxiously above.

“There’s no question it’s the Perry. It’s clearly an American ship and a destroyer,” said Sam Scott, an Olympia, Wash., native who has been diving in Palau since 1983 and owns a dive shop there.

Scott and underwater photographer Kevin Davidson have made two dives to the Perry since Tunks found the ship. Since the Perry’s discovery, four other Palau divers have visited it, and an expedition of stateside divers is being formed to examine the Perry in June or July.

Tunks’ finding is significant, said diver Bill Remick, who grew up on Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands and tried to locate the Perry five years ago. Remick, who has been diving since 1967 and is an Arizona state hydrologist, said he and other divers “have known only disappointment in our search for the Perry.”

“I spent a small fortune looking for the ship. When you’re looking for something that’s 300 feet long and 45 feet wide, you need something to go on, or a lot of luck. Sounds like Tunks had a little of both,” Remick said.

Tunks said the search cost about $10,000, which was paid by him and three fishing buddies who wanted to share his adventure.

Part of the problem in locating the Perry was that most divers were going by the Navy’s coordinates for the spot where it sank. Tunks used his own calculations and memory of where the ship was to determine that the Navy’s coordinates were off by about 2,000 yards.

The Perry is one of about five U.S. warships sunk in relatively shallow waters of the Pacific Ocean in World War II and accessible to divers, said Remick.

It was moored at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, but escaped Japanese bombs. During the attack, the Perry managed to steam out of the harbor. Its gun crews were credited with downing one of the Japanese planes, according to the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships.

The ship’s Pearl Harbor ties make it especially alluring to divers who explore World War II wrecks. The Perry lies at the limit of a safe tank dive, but it can be reached, Remick said.

Finding the ship unleashed a torrent of memories for Tunks. It was also a moment for rejoicing. When the two divers he hired surfaced with thumbs up, Tunks said he tore off his clothes and jumped into the water between them in celebration.

Like many other World War II veterans, Tunks forgot the war when he returned in 1945 to his home in Lincoln, Neb. Eventually, he settled in Southern California, where he worked as a mechanical engineer. He seldom gave his old ship, where he served for three years, a thought. The Perry was the only ship Tunks served on.

But Tunks said that changed in 1998, when he read “The Greatest Generation,” a book by NBC newsman Tom Brokaw about ordinary Americans fighting fascism at home and on the battlefield during World War II.

“It was Brokaw’s book that got me thinking about finding my ship. Reading it gave me a new understanding of what my generation did. Many of us were poor but patriotic. [Brokaw is] right. We may just have saved the world,” Tunks said.

The old sailor gets emotional when he talks about Sept. 13, 1944, the day his ship went down. The Perry, a flush-deck destroyer commissioned in 1922, had been sweeping the water for mines in preparation for the upcoming Peleliu invasion.

“It was frightening,” Tunks said. “The mine exploded under the boilers, sending steam and hot oil gushing throughout.”

Two minutes after the mine tore an 8-foot hole in the hull, the captain gave the order to abandon ship. Tunks, a member of a gun crew, jumped over the side with the rest of the men.

The 120 or so surviving crew members--their heads bobbing in the water--were targets for Japanese riflemen on Anguar. Fortunately, none were hit. They were picked up by two other ships.

An after-action report of the incident dated Sept. 23, 1944, said the crew reacted coolly “and in accordance with the highest Navy traditions.” Although the ship was listing 30 degrees to the port side and in danger of rolling over, crew members managed to scoop up “service records, pay accounts, ship’s service funds, registered publications and navigation records” before abandoning ship, said the report.

A Navy spokesman in Hawaii said the Perry is still Navy property and is considered a grave site. However, no decision has been made about how to proceed with identifying it, he said.

It was chance that put Tunks aboard the Perry.

He was serving in the Army’s 35th Infantry Division in Arkansas when he was ordered to change services. He was discharged from the Army on Oct. 25, 1941, and told to report to the Navy.

“I was the only one from my unit who was sent to the Navy,” Tunks said. “One day I was in Arkansas, a couple of weeks later I was in San Diego. I never asked why. I just did as I was ordered. That’s how things were in those days. You did as you were told.”