Working In Their Memory
I've posted twice before on the search for the wreck of the World War Two submarine Grunion (here and here). But for a lot of people, it is not about the hunt for the sub itself. It is about closing old wounds and about a family they were not born with but grew into.
BETHESDA, Md. — Mary Bentz is sitting at her kitchen table, poring over old photographs of World War II sailors.She has never met any of the men, but she calls them "my kids." "Look at these faces," she says. "They're frozen in time."
The 70 men she now calls family all died when the USS Grunion, a submarine on its maiden voyage, went down in waters off the coast of Alaska in late July 1942. Her uncle, Carmine Parziale of Weedville, Pa., was on board.
For 65 years, the Grunion and its crew were missing. The ship finally was found last August, thanks to the submarine commander's three sons, who financed an expedition to the site near the Aleutian island of Kiska where it was believed the sub had disappeared.
A mini-sub equipped with cameras and video equipment spotted the remains on a slope 3,000 feet down in the Bering Sea.
The story is part mystery (Why did the sub go down?), part genealogical search (Who were these rakish-looking men?), but mostly it's a love story. A labor-of-love story.
The Grunion's tale will be retold May 1 in a seminar at Boston's Museum of Science.
"I guess in a sense it's a good excuse to bring everything we've collected into one spot," says John Abele, whose father, Mannert (Jim), was the commander of the Grunion and disappeared with the sub when John was 5.
"Part of the day will be a presentation of what we have learned, and part of it will be a display of the letters, thousands of e-mails, photos. And we have about three hours of high-definition video."
The Grunion project (ussgrunion.com) "has taken on a life of its own," he says.
Mary Bentz and the other "Sub Ladies" have made sure that the obituaries or stories about 30 of the 70 men have run in their hometown newspapers. There are forty to go. Some local newspapers have refused to run the stories, a fact that Bentz cannot understand - nor do I. Yes, it is a long time ago now, but they were still men who did their duty at a time that their nation needed them. The least those papers could do is acknowledge them.
By Quilly Mammoth, Thursday, 13 March , 2008 @ 9:20 pm
Speaking of the Greatest Generation, here’s a story we’ve blogged about at JBM:http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,337669,00.html<br><br>100 year old WWII vet and retired diesel mechanic celebrates birthday at Hooters. Pretty cool.
By martian, Friday, 14 March , 2008 @ 7:42 am
"Some local newspapers have refused to run the stories"
Anyone want to bet that every single one of those newspapers has a liberal editorial slant?