Mare Island ceremony to honor 7 sunken WWII subs

By Donna Beth Weilenman
Staff Reporter

Seven of the submarines built at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard were lost during World War II, taking with them 575 crewmen.

That loss will be remembered Oct. 13 in a Mare Island Heritage Trust ceremony called “Lost Boats of Mare Island Memorial,” said Myrna Hayes, the trust’s executive director.

For the past seven years, the trust has conducted a public memorial near the date of the loss at sea of the USS Wahoo and its crew. The ship was lost Oct. 11, 1943.

“On this 70th anniversary of the loss at sea of the USS Wahoo and her crew, we hope people will join us in honoring these men who gave their lives during World War II in service of the Navy and the people of this nation,” Hayes said.

The Lost Boats Memorial is one of the free events of the Mare Island Fall Festival, led by Touro University-California, she said.

The memorial ceremony will begin at 1:30 p.m. at Commander Dudley W. “Mush” Morton Field, the historic Navy submariners football field that was named for the commander of the Wahoo, which had 80 on board when it disappeared in the Pacific Ocean.

The flag will be raised by Pyro Divison of the U.S. Naval Sea Cadet Corps cadets, after which a program, including music and historical information, will start.

Among the speakers and presenters will be Larry Maggini of Yountville, a former Marine combat systems engineer who worked at Mare Island Naval Shipyard until its closure in 1996.

He now works for Weston Solutions, one of the Navy’s environmental remediation contractors that also is a founding sponsor of the USS Wahoo and Lost Boats of Mare Island Memorial events.

Maggini has researched and compiled a book, “USS Wahoo (SS 238) in Memoriam,” and “On Eternal Patrol — The Lost Boats of Mare Island,” which looks at all seven of the Mare Island-built submarines that were lost during World War II.

The Wahoo launched Feb. 14, 1942. It was among the submarines that made more than 1,600 war patrols and accounted for 54 percent of all enemy ships sunk during the war. It also was among the 52, of a fleet of 325, submarines declared “overdue, presumed lost.”

The other Mare Island subs that never returned were the USS Pompano (SS-181), USS Swordfish (SS-193), USS Gudgeon (SS-211), USS Trigger (SS-237), USS Tullibee (SS-284) and USS Tang (SS-306).

The Wahoo disappeared during its seventh war patrol, and is now suspected of being sunk by both depth charges and aerial bombs. After a search that lasted more than 60 years, the U.S. Navy Pacific Fleet issued a news release Oct. 31, 2006, saying that a wreck found off Japan in Soya (La Perouse) Strait in Russian waters between Hokkaido, Japan, and Sakhalin, Russia, was confirmed to be the Wahoo.

It was found by a Russian dive team, “Iskra,” which photographed the wreckage lying in 2,000 feet of water. The team was working with The Wahoo Project Group, an international team of searchers led by Bryan MacKennon, grandnephew of the sub’s commander, Morton.

Photographs of the sunken ship are available at warfish.com and OnEternalPatrol.com, and the USS Wahoo Project’s website is usswahoo.org. The Navy has no plans to salvage the Wahoo, in keeping with its tradition that it is the crew’s final resting place. The Sunken Military Craft Act protects military wrecks from unauthorized disturbance, Hayes said.

Though the focus is on the Wahoo this year, the dockside service will recognize all those who were lost when submarines made on Mare Island vanished or were destroyed.

A wreath made by volunteers who gathered its materials from Mare Island will be cast near the last World War II landing craft support gunboat, the LCS 102, at Berth 10, north of Building 117, 1080 Nimitz Ave.

The ceremony will conclude with the playing of taps and “Amazing Grace.”

“We have a privilege and responsibility to remember the lost crewmen and to honor all of those who have served our country in the submarine force. And as importantly, we owe the men and women who built and maintained ships, such as these seven submarines at Mare Island, a debt of gratitude,” Hayes said.

The event will begin at 1:30 p.m. Oct. 13 at Morton Field and continue at Berth 10, Mare Island, Vallejo.