Military

Tuesday marks the seventieth anniversary of the sinking of the U.S.S. Juneau, a light cruiser that participated in the naval battle of Guadalcanal during World War II. Six-hundred and 87 sailors perished during the sinking on Nov. 13, 1942.

Included in the slideshow below are pictures from Saturday’s event at the Juneau-Douglas City Museum that included display and reading of recently acquired letters originally sent by Seaman William George Meeker from aboard the U.S.S. Juneau to Winifred Blohm in Harrison, New Jersey.

 

The U.S.S. Juneau was a light cruiser engaged in one of the fiercest naval battles of World War II. Along with the cruisers Helena and San Francisco, the Juneau had retired from the naval battle of Guadalcanal to head for a nearby Allied port for repairs. The Juneau was already crippled by a torpedo hit. Another torpedo later sent the Juneau rapidly to the bottom. As many as many as hundred sailors may have initially survived, but crews of the Helena and San Francisco may have thought that no could have survived the explosion and quick sinking. There was also the potential of continued torpedo attacks.

Only ten sailors survived shark attacks and exposure after eight days in the water. Among the 687-sailors who lost their lives were the five Sullivan brothers aboard the Juneau.

Lt. Cmdr. Miguel Vasquez, officer-in-charge of the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Fleet Maritime Homeland Defense Detachment Alaska, was a featured speaker at the Juneau-Douglas City Museum on Saturday. Using a power point presentation, he described the first ship to bear the name Juneau and the battle in which she was crippled and eventually sunk.  He gave us a recap following his presentation.

Vasquez says the battle was very chaotic with at least one officer on-board a destroyer calling it ‘a bar room fight with the lights turned out.’

“It was a tactical victory for the Imperial Japanese Navy,” said Vasquez who also noted that the Japanese did not do enough damage to reinforce Guadalcanal.  “It turned out to be more of a strategic victory for the U.S. forces.”

What makes this anniversary of the Juneau’s sinking unique is the recent acquisition of letters originally sent by a sailor aboard the cruiser.  Seaman William Meeker, sent seventeen letters to Winifred Blohm, his next door neighbor and good friend in New Jersey. The last one was sent exactly a week before the U.S.S. Juneau’s sinking.

Jodi DeBruyne, curator of collections and exhibits at the Juneau-Douglas City Museum, describes the donated collection.

“They tell a really great personal story that everybody can relate to. Friendship, love, honor are just themes that transcend time,” said DeBruyne.

Also on Saturday, local actor Bryan Crowder provided his voice for the words written by the 21-year old Meeker, who thought very fondly of his neighbor in Harrison, New Jersey.

“‘Dear Winnie. How are you, Blondie? How are your big brothers making out?'”

The letters, donated by Blohm’s daughter and son-in-law Mary and Ray Testa, will remain in the care of the Juneau-Douglas City Museum until they are brought out for display again.

Also included: pictures of Meeker and a picture of Winifred Blohm visiting Juneau in 1991. DeBruyne said the Testas are trying to track down another picture of Blohm visiting the U.S.S. Juneau memorial on the waterfront.

Blohm passed away in 1998.

 

Coast Guard Commander Bill Dwyer was the featured speaker during Sunday’s Veterans Day observance at Centennial Hall.

You can hear the entire program, which also featured the Alaska Youth Choir and a Coast Guard color guard, below:

History came alive on Saturday when Juneau residents heard the words of a sailor who eventually perished when his vessel, the U.S.S. Juneau, was sunk during World War II.

Seaman William George Meeker, a sailor aboard the light cruiser that sank following the naval battle of Guadalcanal, sent seventeen letters to Winifred Blohm, his next door neighbor and good friend in Harrison, New Jersey.

The letters were briefly put on display at the Juneau-Douglas City Museum and an actor read from some of them during an event on Saturday.

The letters were donated by Blohm’s daughter and son-in-law Mary and Ray Testa.

Jodi DeBruyne, curator of the museum’s collections and exhibits, says they just received the letters last week – one week before the seventieth anniversary of the U.S.S. Juneau’s sinking.

“Mary was reading through the letters last December,” recalls DeBruyne. “So, they came across them and they discovered this great love story. They want to preserve it for a future (generation) and for William Meeker not to be forgotten.”

DeBruyne says letters will be preserved in archival- and museum-quality settings until they are brought out for display again.

Assemblymember Randy Wanamaker brokered the donation of the letters from the Testa family.

Also included: pictures of Meeker and a picture of Winifred Blohm visiting Juneau in 1991. The Testas are trying to track down another picture of Blohm visiting the U.S.S. Juneau memorial on the waterfront.

She passed away in 1998.

Among the 687-sailors who perished when the Juneau was sunk on November 13^th, 1942 were the five Sullivan brothers. At least two other sets of brothers reportedly served on the vessel.

A service is planned at the U.S.S. Juneau memorial on the waterfront at 12:15 p.m. on Tuesday.

Juneau’s annual Veterans Day observance is Sunday at 11 a.m. at Centennial Hall.

Also known as Armistice Day, it is the anniversary of the end of World War I.  Nov. 11, 1918 has been called the end of the “war to end all wars.”

Veterans of Foreign Wars Taku Post 5559 will host Juneau’s ceremony this year.  Post Commander Dan McCrummen says Coast Guard Commander Bill Dwyer will be the keynote speaker.  The Coast Guard Color Guard will present the flags and the Alaska Youth Choir will sing.

CBJ Assembly member Randy Wanamaker will speak about the Capital City’s USS Juneau commemoration on Nov. 13.

The icebreaker Healy stopped in Juneau last week after another season’s work, and the ship’s crew invited the public aboard.

The Healy is its own community. Between the bridge and laboratories, narrow flights of stairs connect three levels of living quarters. The crew needs to keep the ship running 24/7. This year, the Healy hosted Weather Channel TV crews twice, rescued a whaling crew from an ice floe and escorted a Russian fuel tanker to Nome. The Healy entered active duty in 2000 and is 20 years newer than the Polar Sea and Polar Star, which are both in Seattle. The Polar Sea could be demolished in 2013, whereas the Polar Star could be reactivated.

Captain Beverly Havlik is the commanding officer of the Healy.

“I was assigned to the ship last April. April 2011 Our deployment has brought us now to Juneau, it’s our last stop before we go back home to Seattle, homeport is Seattle, Washington,” Havlik says.

Earlier this year, the Healy escorted Russian fuel tanker Renda to Nome to provide heating oil and gas to the iced-in community. Havlik says people travelled to Nome just to witness the historic delivery.

While ice breakers perform commercial deliveries down south in the winter, along the East Coast and Great Lakes, the Nome delivery was the first of its kind in Alaska in recent years. The Healy led the Renda across more than 800 miles of sea ice.

[quote]“The ice conditions were never beyond the capabilities of the ship, the ship handled the ice quite well. Ice breaking is a combination of the hull design and sheer horsepower. The ship has a design to just push through the ice and break it, it’s a little bit of a process of riding on top of the ice and breaking down from above, so you’re kind of stepping down on the ice,” Havlik says. [/quote]

The Healy doesn’t normally escort other ships through the ice. Havlik says the hull is designed to do as little damage to the sea ice as possible so scientists can sample ice floes easily.

She says Russian tankers are generally towed through ice:

[quote]“They will sometimes touch each other. We have no such system on board here, we don’t hook onto other vessels and we don’t tow them through ice, so learning to work together without that assistance that they were accustomed to having was a challenge but we figured out how to work through the language barrier, and the experience differences, the cultural differences to get the job done.”[/quote]

When the Healy got the call last fall to help with the fuel delivery, it was wrapping up some scientific research  – its main mission.

Master Chief Tim Sullivan is the ship’s navigator:

[quote]“Day’s pretty busy, again up on the bridge. We’re staffed 24 hours per day so the ship is always moving and we do a lot of science. It’s an exploration of the Arctic that not a lot of people get an opportunity to see, so it’s like riding on a cruise ship but it’s one of the US icebreakers.”[/quote]

Petty Officer Matthew Emmons came to the Coast Guard from the Navy.

“I’ve been on board here for roughly 4 months and I’m an electronics technician. We fix navigation equipment, radars, radios, GPS, we also maintain the TV system on board. I enjoy it, it’s pretty fun. It’s just different duty than normal Coast Guard duty. It’s not law enforcement, it’s not drug interdiction and such, it’s more science related, so it’s something more out of rate than what people normally do and sometimes that’s a good thing to have a little change-up in your career.”

Last winter, Captain Havlik led the Healy through its first winter science mission. The ship went north-to-south, outracing the edge of the sea ice to track an environmentally sensitive, but abundant type of plankton known as copepods.

This past summer, the icebreaker used high resolution sonar to map parts of the Arctic Ocean’s seafloor. The Healy’s mapping may help the US extend the exclusive economic zone, which is currently 200 nautical miles offshore.

Havlik says the icebreaker will likely do more search-and-rescue in the Arctic as more ecotourism and  resource exploration ships make their way to the far north. There will be ice in the Arctic Ocean even as the Northwest Passage becomes more navigable.

[quote]“And the ice can be dangerous, it will blow around with the wind and move where it wants to go. I won’t say that everyone pays attention to what happening around them, and there is a possibility that they can get trapped in an ice field, and ice under pressure is very very dangerous. ice under pressure can crush ships.”[/quote]

Science missions have propelled the ship to Arctic waters for more than a decade. Havlik says the Healy heads north again in July.

“And then in January the ship will go into a dry dock and spend about two months on dry dock. Then we’ll do the load-out for more science research and get underway in July and be back up to the Arctic again.”

 

Photos by Heather Bryant/KTOO

A civilian contractor was injured Wednesday at Coast Guard Air Station Sitka when a biomass boiler exploded in the station’s main hangar. This incident happened about 12:30 p.m.  The injured man was transported by local EMS to the hospital.

Commanding officer Ward Sandlin said Air Station Sitka personnel and local authorities are working with investigators to determine the cause of the explosion. The station’s other two biomass boilers have been shut down pending the results of the investigation.

Air Station Sitka is the first base in the Coast Guard to convert to the biomass system, which burns wood pellets instead of fuel oil.

Wednesday’s incident comes less than a week after U.S. Senator Mark Begich toured the boiler and praised the project. Air Station Sitka was testing the new wood pellet system, and hoped to have it fully operational by November 1^st.