Thursday, May 4, 2006 10:28 PM CDT
Veteran recalls long-lost friend
By HERB MEEKER, Staff Writer
MATTOON -- Brunett “Barney” Homan of Mattoon still remembers how James Henry McDonald looked decades ago before the two of them went into the U.S. Navy during World War II.
“He had light sandy hair. He was slim, about 120-125 pounds. He was a real pleasant fellow for a young man at that age,” said Homan during a recent interview. “We ran around occasionally. I lost track of him during the war.”
The last time they saw each other was during Homan’s leave from Navy duty. McDonald was working behind the counter of the old Blue Bird restaurant. He seemed surprised at Homan’s enlistment, and envious as well.
“He gave me hell for going into the Navy without him,” Homan recalled.
After that chance encounter, Homan went back to serving on a destroyer, hunting Japanese submarines and other warships in the Pacific. He came home after the war with plenty of stories and commendations of military service on two destroyers in both the Pacific and Mediterranean. He was aboard the Bernadou when her crew earned a Presidential Unit Citation for landing assault troops inside a French Morocco harbor. Aboard the De Haven, he was aboard for raids on Japanese outposts and a high-powered shootout at Tokyo Bay near the end of the war. The De Haven was one of the American warships present for the surrender ceremony board the Battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay on Sept. 2.
McDonald was not as lucky.
He was one of 86 sailors and officers aboard the USS Lagarto, which was sunk by a Japanese depth charge in early May 1945 during an attack on an Imperial Japanese Navy convoy in the Gulf of Siam. A diving expedition last year discovered the Lagarto 200 feet beneath the South China Sea with the help of fishermen reports of snagged nets and archival accounts from the Japanese Navy citing a submarine being sunk in that area.
For years, McDonald’s true fate was a mystery. Now, 61 years later, undersea explorers and military historians have determined the Largarto was sunk by a Japanese minelayer protecting the convoy assaulted by the American submarine.
“I didn’t know he was lost until I got home,” Homan said.
Crew members from the Lagarto came from more than 30 states so the search for family members to inform them of the submarine’s discovery has became a national search for researchers like Nancy Mabin Kenney, whose father, Bill Mabin, was also a crew member. From her home in Leelanau, Mich., Kenney contacted relatives of the Lagarto crew by phone, mail and e-mail.
Her efforts and numerous newspaper stories around the country helped draw 150 relatives, representing 50 crew members, to memorial services starting this weekend at the Wisconsin Maritime Museum in Manitowoc. Dozens of American submarines were built during the Second World War in Manitowoc.
Unfortunately, no family member of McDonald has contacted Kenney for attending the ceremony. Homan was not aware of any of McDonald’s kin still living in the Mattoon area. McDonald grew up with his grandparents on Broadway Avenue, Homan recalled.
Kenney is disappointed there are still so many surviving relatives not contacted.
“There are a lot of mysteries,” she said during a telephone interview at her home. “But you can only go so far and then you hit a wall. The really sad thing about this is a lot of the men died before they married and had children. And in the case of James McDonald living with his grandparents, he apparently had no siblings. There are no nieces or nephews to contact about this story.”
Kenney hopes continued press coverage might locate more relatives. The important thing is all crew members are being honored this weekend.
“We will be thinking of them. They won’t be forgotten,” she said.
If you have information on McDonald or want to know more about the USS Lagarto contact Kenney at 231-256-9342 or e-mail her at n.kenney@worldnet.att.net.
Herb Meeker can be contacted at hmeeker@jg-tc.com or 238-6869.
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Fxiccxypxc wrote on May 10, 2007 11:31 AM: