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Gene Brick reads names of
USS Drexler crewmen killed in
kamikaze attack
on May 28, 1945
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2010 USS Drexler (DD-741) Reunion
by Bill Gordon
Six Drexler (DD-741) survivors met together in San Antonio to remember the
65th anniversary of their destroyer's sinking by two kamikaze planes that
killed 158 and wounded 52. Duke Payne, a Drexler survivor who now lives in San
Antonio, served as hometown host for over 40 people who attended all or part of
the Drexler Survivors Reunion from May 13 to 17, 2010. Mike Smith, grandson of
Delmar Bailey who was killed in the kamikaze attack, has attended every one of
the 25 annual Drexler reunions along with his parents Jack and Lucinda Smith. He
showed his Drexler cap weighted down with pins from prior reunion locations. He and
his parents drove all the way from Virginia to San Antonio to bring donated
raffle prizes and Drexler's historical photographs and documents,
available for viewing throughout the reunion.
The 65th Anniversary Memorial Service took place on Friday at the National
Museum of the Pacific War in Fredericksburg, Texas. Due to unexpected torrential
rains in the San Antonio area, the bus trip to the museum took longer than
expected, so the service started about a half hour after the planned time of
noon and took place inside due to threatening weather. After a color guard
presentation and invocation, several individuals read the names of those who
died in the kamikaze attack and then those who have passed away since that date.
I was saddened to hear the names of Joe Curgino, who I had interviewed in a
Chicago suburb in 2006 (his story in Little Italy
to Okinawa), and Lloyd "Red" Brantley, who along with his wife had
accompanied my wife and me to dinner one night at the
2006 USS Drexler Survivors
Reunion. The ceremony made me realize how few Drexler survivors are still
living. During the luncheon after the memorial service, we had the honor to talk
with some men and women currently serving in our country's military at bases in
the San Antonio area.
After lunch, we tried to tour the grounds of the huge National Museum of the
Pacific War in about two hours. Most of the group first went searching for
Drexler's plaque in the courtyard among over 1,200 commemorative plaques
honoring ships, individuals, and units that served in the Pacific War. The small
plaque, put up in 1992 on the Memorial Wall, turned out to be a challenge to
find even for those who knew the general direction. When the group located the
plaque, someone pulled out a cloth and cleaned off some dirt from it.
Drexler Reunion group in front of destroyer's plaque
with one person cleaning off some dirt
The plaque, which has a silhouette of the destroyer, reads as follows:
On 28 May 1945, the U.S.S. Drexler (DD-741) was sunk in less than three
minutes by a Japanese kamikaze attack during the Battle of Okinawa.
This plaque is dedicated to the memory of the 159 brave men who lost
their lives that day.
U.S.S. Drexler (DD-741)
Gratefully and respectfully presented by their shipmates, families, and
the U.S.S. Drexler (DD-741) Survivors Reunion Association
It is unusual that the plaque states 159 men died since all other sources
indicate 158 men died.
Gene Brick (left) and Joe Haas (right), two survivors,
in front of Drexler plaque on Memorial Wall
Next Gene Brick took several of us to the single 5-inch gun outside the
museum entrance and explained how it operated. He served as trainer on
Drexler's twin 5-inch Mount #2, one of the two twin mounts in the front part
of the destroyer. I then took a stroll around the courtyard to view plaques of
other ships I recognized. Several ships sunk or severely damaged by Japanese
kamikazes had plaques to remember the attacks and deaths, including Callaghan
(DD-792), Sangamon (CVE-26), Bush (DD-529), Hugh W. Hadley
(DD-774), and Suwannee (CVE-27). Only about an hour remained when I
finally entered the huge museum with 36 exhibit areas, so I only had time to
look in detail at exhibits in two or three areas. The Pearl Harbor gallery displays the midget submarine piloted by Kazuo Sakamaki, who became America's
first prisoner of war of World War II after his midget submarine ran aground when
its gyrocompass malfunctioned. The gallery on Okinawa has an exhibit of
destroyer Hugh W. Hadley's Combat Information Center (CIC), which was
assigned to detect approaching enemy aircraft and coordinate with Combat Air
Patrol (CAP) to intercept them. On May 11, 1945, Hadley shot down 23
planes in one hour and 40 minutes, a record for number of planes downed in a
single engagement.
On Saturday morning the Drexler Survivors Reunion Association held its
business meeting and decided on Seattle as the 2011 reunion site. In the
afternoon while talking with survivor Gene Brick about his latest wartime
research, I had the honor of meeting and talking with Dr. Rex Davis, still
working part-time at the age of 84. His landing craft, LCS(L) 114, picked
up 119 men from the water when Drexler sank after hits by two kamikaze
aircraft. His story entitled May 28, 1945—Another Day of
Infamy tells about that day's events. On Saturday evening about 40 persons
gathered for the banquet dinner at the historic Menger Hotel, where most of the
group stayed during the reunion. The hotel's downtown location next to the Alamo
and a short walk from the San Antonio Riverwalk made it convenient for
sightseeing, eating, and shopping. After we finished eating dinner, Bartt Brick,
son of survivor Gene Brick, did an excellent job keeping everyone laughing as he
communicated winners of raffle prizes donated by association members to raise
money for the organization.
Drexler Survivors at 2010 Reunion Dinner (May 15, 2010)
(left to right) Gene Brick, Robert Hunt,
Ed Hardin, Duke Payne, Joe Haas
(not in picture) Harold Tatsch
On Sunday we took a bus tour of San Antonio. The recently restored Japanese
Sunken Gardens, called the Chinese Sunken Gardens during the war against Japan,
was our first destination. Next we visited Mission San José, founded in 1720, as
light rain started to fall. Our next stop was near our hotel at the Buckhorn
Saloon and Museum and the Texas Ranger Museum located in the same building. The
tour ended with a rather boring shopping excursion to San Antonio's El Mercado
(Market Square).
During this reunion I had a chance to chat with Gerry Lewis, whose father Elmer
Lewis died when two kamikaze aircraft hit and sank Drexler. Gerry and his
sister Sandra Grice were six and eight years old respectively when their mother
received a telegram in August 1945 that their father was missing in action and
presumed dead. They grew up thinking that everyone or almost everyone aboard
ship had been killed, but in 1997 he discovered the Drexler Survivors
Reunion Association when his daughter found a photo and information about the
destroyer Drexler on the Internet while working on a college project. He said, "Finding this reunion group was a
life-changing event for us." He and his sister attended their first reunion in
1998 in Corpus Christi, and they have regularly attended subsequent reunions.
The interactions with survivors and other Drexler family members have
helped them in the healing process since their mother, who remarried in 1950,
did not talk about the sinking. The only slight disappointment has been that no
survivor knew much about their father other than recognizing his face, probably
since he was 35 years old when Drexler sank, and most other crewmen were
in their late teens and early twenties. The older crewmen tended to hang out
together, so the younger ones did not have too much interaction with them.
Plaque on Memorial Wall at
National Museum of the Pacific War
in Fredericksburg, Texas
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