Rain can't drown ceremony honoring submariners

By JOHN HOWELL
Posted 10/3/17

By JOHN HOWELL -- Water. It's just what you might expect to find at a service honoring the 54 submarines and 3,645 submariners lost since World War II. But on Saturday there was water and water and even more water...

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Rain can't drown ceremony honoring submariners

Posted

Water. It’s just what you might expect to find at a service honoring the 54 submarines and 3,645 submariners lost since World War II.

But on Saturday there was water and water and even more water as veterans and a rifle squad from the Naval Station Newport huddled under tents at the Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Exeter. The rain that splattered off tent fabric and misted the air was just part of the show. There were spikes of lightning and rattling thunder.

The assembly waited for a break. Soon they were standing in puddles. One of the Navy men braved the downpour to find a rain jacket that he used to cover the audio equipment. The wind picked up, so did the rain.

Base commander of USSVI Rhode Island Charles Mueller waited no longer.

The audio crackled, or was it gurgling?

“Take a seat if you can find a dry one,” he said. Then he added to everyone’s relief that this would be an abbreviated ceremony.

The ceremony held at the site of the under construction submarine memorial at the cemetery honors and perpetuates the memory of those who lost their lines in the submarine service. Rhode Island lost 21 submariners during World War II and as Mueller explained after the brief ceremony while submariners made up 2 percent of men and women serving on ships during the war they sustained the highest casualty rate of any group of sailors.

Those lost were honored by Captain Michael R. Coughlin, commanding officer of the Naval Undersea Warfare Center in Newport and in the benediction delivered by base chaplain and submarine veteran Paul Kelley of Warwick. Coughlin talked of the new class of submarines that will be built in Quonset and of the work of the submarine force. “We’re doing it all,” he said.

As the ceremony drew to a close there was the tolling of the bells for lost boats as Mueller read the names and numbers of each. The bells also tolled as the name of each Rhode Island submariner lost in World War II was read.

The rain pounded, but it couldn’t drown the clear ring of the bells.

Then there was a shifting of splashing feet as the rife squad followed by the bugler gathered at one end of the tent.

“They’re going to do it,” one of the veterans murmured. Sure enough. Ramrod straight the squad marched out into the rain and then standing at attention, waited for the command. They raised their rifles, fired a volley and then on command fired another volley before the muffled tones of taps reached the tent.

It was over with the benediction. They hadn’t placed the wreath at the nearby memorial. Mueller hadn’t wanted to get anyone wetter than they already were. As people rushed for their cars, Mueller carried the wreath to its proper place.

“This is their place,” he said of World War II submariners. It is, but it could have been drier Saturday.

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  • Justanidiot

    Tacky headline.

    Tuesday, October 3, 2017 Report this