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Portland Press Herald
April 23, 2005
By Ann S. Kim
For 56 years, Harold Petersen harbored a fear that something might
have gone awry in the engine room during his watch.
Everything had been running fine when his shift ended on April 23,
1945. Just 14 minutes later, the USS Eagle-56 was sinking off the
coast of Cape Elizabeth.
A Navy court of inquiry soon ruled that an explosion in the boiler
room had sunk the submarine chaser. It wasn't until 2001 that the
Navy acknowledged the actual culprit was a German U-boat.
Petersen was able to put his fears to rest with the Navy's reversal
four years ago. Today - the 60th anniversary of the sinking - Petersen
and other survivors of the USS Eagle-56 will remember the 49 officers
and crewmen who perished. Thirteen men survived.
A ceremony will be held today at Portland Head Light to commemorate
the battle and unveil a new memorial monument. The event will begin
at 11:45 a.m. and end with a 21-gun salute at 12:14 p.m. - the time
the German torpedo struck the ship.
The recognition is especially welcome since it took so long for
the Navy to acknowledge that the men died as a result of enemy action,
Petersen said.
"I think it's going to be a fine affair," Petersen, 82,
said from his home in Rochester, N.Y.
The sinking of the USS Eagle-56 was the single greatest loss of
Navy personnel in New England waters in World War II, said Paul
Lawton, a naval historian who researched the case.
The unveiling of the memorial coincides with the publication of
a new book about the USS Eagle-56 - "Due to Enemy Action,"
by Stephen Puleo, an author from Weymouth, Mass.
In the last days of the war, the USS Eagle-56 spent part of its
time towing targets for Navy bombers. The ship had not been sub-chasing
before the attack. Instead, it had just moved a target and its crew
was waiting for the planes.
Nothing that happened on the day of the disaster pointed to a boiler
explosion for Petersen, who was a machinist. After the torpedo hit
and Petersen climbed out of the ship, he saw dead fish in the water,
which he took as a sign of an external explosion. And he didn't
think that a boiler explosion would have had enough force to cause
the 300-foot column of water he saw.
Despite all that, Petersen had some faith in the Navy's explanation.
"You had to, because, after all, maybe the Navy must have known
something we didn't," he said. "I always had that on my
mind, 'Did I do something that may have caused this?' "
The question would still be lingering if Lawton, the naval historian,
had not learned about the death of Ivar Westerlund, one of the seamen
who died in the attack and the father of his childhood friends Bob
and Paul.
Lawton, of Brockton, Mass., gathered documents, interviewed survivors
and led an unsuccessful expedition to find the ship.
His search led him to believe that the court of inquiry was a sham
designed to protect the reputation of the Portland naval base commander,
who didn't want his record marred by the sinking of a warship a
few miles away.
Lawton's work led him eventually to Bernard Cavalcante, an archivist
at the Naval Historical Center in Washington who had seen transcripts
of German communications that indicated the presence of a U-boat
in the Gulf of Maine in April 1945. After reviewing Lawton's research,
Cavalcante recommended that the Navy correct the record.
The Navy did, and the following year Purple Hearts were awarded
to two of the living survivors and to the families of those killed.
John Breeze of Milton, Wash., was one of the survivors who saw the
submarine. Breeze, 82, caught only a glimpse of the sub's conning
tower, but said others saw the logo: a red horse on a yellow background.
It was the mark of the German U-853, which the Navy chased and sank
in Narragansett Bay 12 days later.
John Scagnelli, the ship's engineering officer, said Lawton's work
has gotten people talking again about the USS Eagle-56.
"I think it's wonderful that we're memorializing those sailors
that went down with the ship. It's time that they were recognized
not only by their families but by other people," he said from
his home in Morris Plains, N.J.
"My hope is that the people will occasionally come and read
the plaque," he said, "and remember the ship that was
out there."
Copyright © 2005 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.
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