Raymond O'Malley
O'Malley 'finally reunited with his shipmates'
BY ALAN INGRAM
aingram@grandhaventribune.com
Sixty-four years after nearly dying in the northern Atlantic Ocean, Raymond O'Malley, the lone remaining survivor of the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Escanaba, died at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago Thursday. He was 87.
O'Malley died from old age and health complications due to emphysema and lung cancer at about 11:30 a.m. Central Standard Time, with his son, Peter, and daughter-in-law, Deborah, at his side. Ray O'Malley's wife, Dolly, was at home in Chicago.
'He went peacefully, finally,' Peter said, adding his father lived seven months longer than doctors originally thought he would.
While Peter said his father had still been living rather comfortably at home, it had been harder on him in recent months, as he was on pain medications and taking oxygen. He had been fine until Monday, and was admitted to the hospital Wednesday.
O'Malley last visited Grand Haven in August for the National Memorial Service during the Coast Guard Festival. While his health nearly prevented him from attending his 64th consecutive service, his presence ensured he never missed one of the services, which began less than two months after the Escanaba sank in 1943.
'He was glad to make it,' Peter said. 'He was hoping to make it one more time.'
Attending the annual memorial service was important to O'Malley, his son said. Even in 1968, when he lost a kidney to cancer, O'Malley made sure he was out of the hospital in time to make the trek to Grand Haven.
Rear Adm. John Crowley, commander of the Ninth Coast Guard District in Cleveland, visited O'Malley on Friday, Peter said.
During the visit, the pair reminisced and watched home movies of parts of a Coast Guard Festival, circa 1963, including the memorial service and a clip of the parade, Peter said.
'I met with Ray last week at his home in Chicago and feel honored to have met and known a man who deeply cared for the welfare of others,' Crowley said in a statement issued Thursday.
Cmdr. Tracy Wannamaker, chief of response for the Coast Guard's Sector Lake Michigan in Milwaukee, and former commander of Group Grand Haven and Sector Field Office Grand Haven, met O'Malley when he attended her change of command in 2004, and has had contact with him at least four or five times, she said. She last saw him at the 2006 memorial service.
'He'll be sorely missed, and it'll certainly change the face of the festival not to have Ray there,' she said.
While she admits most of her conversations with O'Malley were brief since so many people wanted to talk with him, she said her favorite memory of him came after the change of command, when he welcomed her to Grand Haven. She explained he was another person who made her feel welcome.
Wannamaker said she thinks O'Malley would want people to remember the Escanaba as a whole, as well as the sacrifices that members of the Coast Guard have made throughout the years, rather than just him.
That most likely will happen, as Coast Guard Festival Executive Director Mike Smith said they will continue to recognize all the active duty men and women of the Coast Guard who died during the year. The focus of the memorial service has always been on those who have died before, he explained.
'His presence, obviously, physically, will be missed,' Smith said, adding that attending the memorial service was O'Malley's 'personal commitment to remembering his shipmates.'
Scott Klaassen, who has been on the Coast Guard Festival Board of Directors for the past 10 years, and is the chairman of the 2007 festival, called O'Malley a 'significant part' of the National Memorial Service. Each year, O'Malley would lay the wreath and flowers at the base of the mast that stands in Escanaba Park.
'But the National Memorial Service will go on,' he said.
Smith, who has spent time with O'Malley on and off since 1990, said O'Malley fondly recalled his time in the Coast Guard and was proud to have belonged to it.
'He is probably comforted now by his shipmates, because now they're all together,' Smith said.
The Escanaba, on which O'Malley served, was built in 1932 and was stationed in Grand Haven until the beginning of World War II, according to the U.S. Coast Guard's Web site for the current ship, which is the third one bearing the name.
The Escanaba was part of a convoy in the north Atlantic when it exploded at about 5 a.m. June 10, 1943. The ship sank within three minutes.
O'Malley, who was a first class seaman when the ship sank, and Boatswains Mate Second Class Melvin Baldwin were the only survivors. Baldwin died in 1964.
Each year, on the anniversary of the sinking, the crew members of the current Escanaba hold a memorial ceremony, the ship's Web site states. The ship's captain would call O'Malley each year, by either phone or radio, depending on if the ship was in port or at sea, to report the status of the Escanaba III.
'Ray never forgot his shipmates. And for more than 60 years, he recognized his fallen comrades both at the public memorial service and with a private prayer, when he would light a candle for the crews of both the former and current cutters named Escanaba,' Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Thad Allen said in a statement issued Thursday. 'Six decades following the Escanaba tragedy, Ray O'Malley is finally reunited with his shipmates. We honor him as he honored our service. Our prayers and sympathy go out to the O'Malley family.'
In an interview more than two years ago with Gary Murphy, who was an ensign assigned to the Escanaba III, O'Malley said he joined the Coast Guard during World War II.
'It gave me responsibility and ... it taught me responsibility, I should say, and discipline, and made a sailor out of me,' he said of the Coast Guard.
03/09/07 Submitted by: A Veteran capolisale@aol.com
