Print

Email story

Comment

Letter to the editor

The 'Plaice' for memories

Veterans who served together on a submarine during World War II gather for a reunion. Theirs is a story of brotherhood.

By TAMARA EL-KHOURY
Published May 11, 2005

	[Times photo: Douglas R. Clifford]
	Comparing memories Tuesday during their reunion at the Radisson Hotel in Clearwater are veterans of the submarine USS Plaice 390 , from left: John Brown, 80, of Clearwater, Maxwell Nelson, 80, of Calion, Ark., Bill Butcher, 81, of Martinsburg, W. Va., Henry Danz, 84, of Long Island, N.Y., Hank Corbett, 80, of Canton, Ohio, and Norm Lomax, 79, of Warrensburg, N.Y. The men served together on the Plaice in the Pacific during World War II.
	[Courtesy of Norm Lomax]
	The crew of the submarine USS Plaice 390 stands on the deck while arriving in port in Honolulu, Hawaii, after its fifth patrol, which ended in 1945, in the Pacific.

CLEARWATER - When the veterans of the USS Plaice 390 get together, their faces break into smiles and they congratulate each other on making it to another year.

More than 1,000 World War II veterans die each day, a reality evident in the shrinking size of each annual gathering of this submarine crew. This week, over a dozen Plaice veterans gathered at the Radisson Hotel in Clearwater, bringing wives or traveling with the aid of their children. In some cases, widows took the place of their husbands.

The group is grayer and traveling is more difficult, but they keep coming, because when they are together they couldn't be more alive.

"Only they know what went on in that sub," said Bill Butcher's son, Joe Butcher, 45, who said his father is a different person when he's with the group.

The "remember whens" start as soon as they shake hands.

"What happens after every year is we get braver and braver," said John Brown, 80, who served on three of the sub's six war patrols.

"And the stories get longer and longer," added his wife, Rita.

The Plaice was first assigned to an area off Chichi Jima in the Pacific on June 4, 1944. The submarine would subsequently report to Pearl Harbor, Guam and Midway Island.

The storytelling goes on for hours. There were the bucket boys, the guys who had to carry a pail with them at all times because they were constantly seasick. There was the kid who cooked a stolen pig without gutting it first, causing half the crew to get sick with yellow jaundice.

"When we'd start out on patrol we'd stash the food," said Maxwell Nelson, 80. "The showers were filled with potatoes, you couldn't take a shower until you ate them all."

Then there's the time water caused labels to fall off the canned food so dinner was a mystery even to Bill Butcher, the cook, now 81.

And then there was the story of the guy who ran back to shore before departing Panama City to persuade a woman to give him her pink panties because the Plaice couldn't leave any port without a pair of ladies underwear hanging from its periscope.

They were just miles off the coast of Nagasaki when the atomic bomb was dropped on the city.

"Of course we didn't know about an atom bomb," said Nelson.

"It was so bright you could read a newspaper at midnight. The brightness lasted five minutes," said John Turner, 84. "We didn't know what it was."

Some of the stories are scandalous, many more are sobering, but the real story is one of bonding and brotherhood, of a group of skinny, fresh-faced, bony-chested boys given the responsibilities of men and the burden of humanity.

After the war, they came home and scattered across the country. They lost touch, too busy starting families, going to school and earning a living. But decades later they would find each other again and through the efforts of Norman Lomax - the guy who is pointed to immediately when the men are asked who got in trouble the most - the crew stuck together.

"I'm not one of these guys," said Peter Prunty, 80.

"Yes, you are," said Butcher.

"The only good thing I did on the boat is take care of this guy," said Lomax, 79, patting Prunty's thigh. "He was pretty banged up."

The Plaice rescued Prunty and four other pilots who were shot over Japan and crashed in the East China Sea shortly before the war ended. Prunty is now part of the Plaice family.

"I took one bite of a steak dinner and this guy goes gives me a shot of morphine," Prunty said, pointing at Lomax.

Sometimes life or death was determined by the flip of a coin.

Nelson lost his first choice submarine to a buddy who took the available spot after winning a coin toss. That submarine was destroyed on its second patrol.

"There aren't better people in the world. It's just an act of faith what submarine you get on," Lomax said. "I never knew if there's another submarine that got together like this one."

Lomax, who persuaded his mother to let him quit high school and join the Navy at 16, shows off a worn black binder with pages of pictures: black and white pictures of the Plaice and of shirtless boys posing in a clearing in the jungles of Guam. The later pages show color pictures from reunions in Baltimore, Chicago, Little Rock, Anaheim. "These are some shipmates who are no longer with us," Lomax said, pointing to one photo.

He spent 30 years in the Navy and became a lieutenant commander. Now he keeps track of his buddies who first started hearing of Plaice reunions through newspaper clippings and Internet searches.

"They're helping me forget my problems of losing my wife in December," Lomax said of his comrades.

How many Plaice veterans are left?

"There are about 40 left on the roster; about 15 stay in touch," Lomax said.

"We started with 92," said Turner.

"The losses lately have been growing," Lomax said.

The men quickly change the subject back to their heroics. Lomax credits himself with saving the boat because he put someone with a sharp eye on lookout. The man spotted an enemy scope and saved the submarine.

"When the destroyers are after you, they "ping' at you," said Hank Corbett, 80, of the technique used to bounce sound back to determine where the enemy's vessel was. "When the enemy goes to short wave, it means he's got you. Ping, ping, ping. The pinging is what gets your nerves."

"The captain was an expert in evasion," Turner said.

[Last modified May 11, 2005, 00:46:18]