Old Salt
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Location: Medina, OH | Subject: Wahoo Memorial Ceremony Oct. 11, Pearl
WWII veteran from Summit County, Ohio, to honor sailors lost with sub; USS Wahoo Vessel he once served on is found decades after sunk Jim Carney. Akron Journal staff writer. Published on Sunday, Sep 30, 2007 SPRINGFIELD TWP.: Carl G. Hood remembers the day he learned the USS Wahoo had gone down in the Pacific. ''It was bad news,'' said the 85-year-old Hood. The Springfield Township man is one of about six sailors still alive who served on the Wahoo before it was sunk on Oct. 11, 1943, with 80 on board. Next month, Hood, a General Motors retiree, and his wife, Miriam plus several members of their family and other veterans who served on the Wahoo will travel to Pearl Harbor for an Oct. 11 memorial service to remember the sinking of the submarine. The Navy reported Oct. 31, 2006, that Russian divers had found the Wahoo in the Western Pacific. The Gato class submarine was last heard from on Sept. 13, 1943, as it departed Midway Island heading toward the Sea of Japan, the Navy said. Japan has said that one of its planes spotted an American submarine in the La Perouse Strait on Oct. 11, 1943, and that a sea and air attack with depth charges and bombs sank the Wahoo, the Navy said in a news release. Hood, a North High School graduate, enlisted in the Navy but wasn't looking for submarine duty when he was assigned to be a submariner. ''I didn't know anything about submarines,'' he said. Hood's experience Hood was a fire control man second class who worked on torpedoes. He served on the submarine's fifth patrol run for 31/2 months. On that tour, the submarine sank Japanese vessels weighing nearly 25,000 tons. ''We were out to the northernmost-held islands of Japan'' on the Wahoo, he said. Hood kept a journal of his time in the Navy but is unable to read it because the ink has faded over the decades. After his time on the Wahoo, Hood was assigned to more torpedo training and later served on the USS Gato. Three Ohioans aboard Hood said a good friend was on the Wahoo when it was lost. Attending the memorial will be emotional, Hood said. ''I'm sorry for those that can't be there and won't be there because of what happened,'' he said. The memorial will be held at the USS Bowfin Submarine Museum & Park in Pearl Harbor. Three Ohioans were on the Wahoo when it sank: Hiram Moe Greene of Fremont, Arthur Delno Lape of Lexington and Kenneth Lloyd Whipp of Springfield. The Navy held a memorial ceremony off the coast of Wakkanai, Japan, on July 8, 2007. Hood said he still thinks about how he could have been on the submarine when it was sunk. And he has come to a belief as to why he was not on board. ''I think the Lord had a hand in it,'' he said. |
Wahoo Memorial Ceremony Oct. 11, Pearl
