Bonnyman Found on Tarawa
Marine First Lieutenant Alexander “Sandy” Bonnyman’s valor during the November 1943 Battle for Tarawa earned him a posthumous Medal of Honor—and, until March 2015, a forgotten grave.
This changed with the discovery of a long-lost burial trench—designated Cemetery 27—by a team from History Flight Inc., a Florida-based nonprofit that specializes in the recovery and repatriation of U.S. fallen from 20th-century battlegrounds around the globe. History Flight field specialists recently recovered at least three dozen sets of Marine remains. While a forensic review is still under way, dental records confirm the recovery of Bonnyman, one of four Tarawa Medal of Honor recipients, and the last to be unaccounted for.
Bonnyman, 33 when he died, is a fixture in Pacific war lore. Son of a Knoxville, Tennessee, mine-company president, he operated a New Mexico copper-mining business when World War II began. Though exempt from military obligation, Bonnyman enlisted in the Marine Corps. After distinguishing himself on Guadalcanal, he accepted a field commission and served on Tarawa as executive officer in a combat engineering unit.
When fellow Marines were pinned down on the beaches of the atoll’s Betio Island, Bonnyman led a small team that repeatedly assaulted enemy fortifications, including a massive bunker containing more than 100 Japanese. The team succeeded, but Bonnyman was mortally wounded on 22 November.
His remains joined those of 40 other Marine KIAs in Cemetery 27, a temporary burial site. An American Graves Registration Service team exhumed some 500 Marines on Tarawa in 1946 but was unable to locate Cemetery 27. A year later the Medal of Honor was presented to Bonnyman’s daughter, Frances. In 1949 the hero was among hundreds officially declared “unrecoverable” by the Quartermaster General’s Office. History Flight founder Mark Noah first learned of these “lost graves of Tarawa” in 2006 while searching for a downed Navy aircraft in Betio’s lagoon.
Adding poignancy to the 2015 find was the presence of Sandy Bonnyman’s grandson, Clay Bonnyman Evans. “Clay first called me about five years ago asking for help related to his missing grandfather,” said Noah in a recent interview. This year, as excavators neared the spot documented to contain Bonnyman’s remains, Noah phoned Evans from Tarawa. “I said: ‘Pack your bags. In about ten days we’ll be recovering your grandfather, so you can see it.’”
Evans, who is writing a book about his grandfather’s life and legacy, picks up the story. “According to archival research, my grandfather would have been in spot 17 [in Cemetery 27]. They were working on spot number seven, so I went down. Kristin Baker [History Flight’s team leader] was really confident, but I just had butterflies because anything can go wrong.” Now, after actually witnessing the recovery and reviewing the subsequent dental analysis, Evans is convinced “that we found Alexander Bonnyman. Period.”
The found hero will be interred in Knoxville on 27 September. “My mom [Frances] was the only one of three sisters who was old enough to remember him,” said Evans. “I think she really feels great that we’re going to do this with the family and do it up right. My aunt [a third sister is deceased] was only one when he left for the Marines. She’s kind of lived vicariously through getting to know about him. She is just ecstatic.”
Meanwhile, History Flight, in collaboration with the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, plans to continue its work on Tarawa. “We’ve been focusing on Tarawa now because it’s been so successful,” said Noah. “Not finishing it would be like running away from the Super Bowl when you’re winning.”
Families of Tarawa missing are encouraged to contact History Flight at www.historyflight.com or 1-888-743-3311.
—David Sears
Wreck of Russian Sub Discovered
Swedish officials announced on 29 July that a World War I–era Russian mini-submarine has been discovered in their country’s territorial waters. According to the Swedish wreck-hunting dive company Ocean X Team, which made the discovery, the sub looks to be “completely intact.” Cyrillic lettering on the hull gave the first clue as to the origins of the boat, which is 66 feet long and 11.4 feet wide. “We . . . can confirm that the vessel is from the czarist era and that it . . . collided with another ship,” a Swedish Armed Forces spokesperson told The New York Times. “It is a very old vessel. It is from before the time of the Soviet Union.”
The current prevailing theory is that she is the Som, which went down with all hands after colliding with a Swedish merchantman on 10 May 1916. If so, she is a Russian boat with an American pedigree: The Som originally came into being as the Fulton, an experimental U.S. sub built in 1901 and subsequently sold to the Russian Empire for service in the Russo-Japanese war. She became first in her class of a submarine series manufactured by Electric Boat and sold to the Russian Imperial Navy. More details are expected as investigation of the wreck site continues.
An Appreciation: Tom W. Freeman, 1952–2015
Outside Tom W. Freeman’s house flew a flag emblazoned “Don’t Give Up the Ship,” a replica of the banner hoisted by Master Commandant Oliver Hazard Perry at the Battle of Lake Erie in the War of 1812. The internationally acclaimed maritime and naval artist himself never gave up, but he ultimately succumbed on 16 June after fighting a valiant battle of his own against cancer. He was 62.
Freeman, a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve and U.S. Army, was a self-taught master of watercolors. Former U.S. Naval Institute CEO, retired Rear Admiral Tom Marfiak once said of his work: “All of us naval people are great at envisioning the sea. Only Tom Freeman and C. G. Evers had the talent to capture that vision on canvas.”
After leaving the Army, the native of Pontiac, Michigan, and longtime resident of the Baltimore, Maryland, area started showing his paintings to Naval Institute Proceedings art director Delroy Kiser and studying the artwork of the great Evers. Kiser became duly impressed and ensured that Freeman’s painting of World War II Victory and Liberty ships, titled “Convoy,” made the cover of the February 1977 issue.
This was the start of a long relationship with the Naval Institute, which, after 9 Proceedings covers and 22 for this magazine, eventually made him its first artist-in-residence in 2003. It was also the launch of a nearly 40-year career that took Freeman’s historical images to locations his artistic peers could only dream about: the White House, the National Geographic Society, the National Museum of the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Naval Academy, and the Arizona Memorial in the United States, and internationally in the Vatican, the Clandestine Immigration and Naval Museum in Haifa, Israel, and Bahrain’s Royal Palace.
“The entire community of those who appreciate naval history feels the loss of this incredible talent,” said current Naval Institute CEO, retired Navy Vice Admiral Peter Daly. “Tom’s memory will live on in his art that has touched so many of us.”
Freeman is survived by his wife, Ann, five children, and 13 grandchildren.
A retrospective of the artist’s professional life and work appeared in the July 2015 issue of Proceedings, available online at www.usni.org.
—Fred Schultz
‘Indy’ Survivors Reunite
Seventy years after they battled the elements, starvation, and shark attacks, survivors of the USS Indianapolis (CA-35) gathered in their ship’s namesake city for a reunion in July. Fourteen of the 31 living survivors made the journey, where they were joined by the families of sailors who were lost at sea when the heavy cruiser was sunk by a Japanese submarine in 1945. Also attending the event were families of several of the sailors and aviators involved in the rescue efforts, as well as the descendants of the Japanese submarine commander who fired the fatal torpedoes. In all, 500 people were on hand to memorialize one of the worst naval disasters in U.S. history.
Noting the large audience while delivering the keynote speech, U.S. Naval Institute CEO Vice Admiral Peter Daly, USN (Retired), remarked that sailors have always had an affinity for their shipmates, but the crew of the Indianapolis “forged everlasting bonds in the fires of combat” that “transcend generations and embrace all family members,” including those of the men who saved them.
With a feature film starring Nicolas Cage in production and a separate movie in development by Robert Downey Jr.’s company, the story of the Indianapolis and her crew is due to receive a significant boost in public interest over the next year. A planned National Geographic expedition to find the wreck of the ship next spring and an accompanying documentary will also increase exposure.
—Scot Christenson
Gettysburg Artifacts Returned to Hometown
On 1 July, the 152nd anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, 18 sailors from the Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Gettysburg (CG-64) returned artifacts from the fight to the Gettysburg National Military Park Visitor Center. Before the namesake ship was commissioned in 1991, approximately 50 Civil War artifacts from the Battle of Gettysburg were loaned to her captain and crew for display. However, with the Gettysburg preparing to undergo modernization efforts for three years, it was time for the items—which include an officer’s sword, a Colt revolver, an Army canteen, officers’ sashes, cannonballs, bullets, belt buckles, and more—to be returned to Gettysburg for safekeeping and proper maintenance.
To ensure that the sailors still felt a connection to the town, they spent several days there touring the battlefield and assisting with local clean-up projects, such as removing overgrown shrubbery from the front of Little Round Top.
Call for Cold War Papers
For the 11th consecutive year, the John A. Adams ’71 Center for Military History & Strategic Analysis at the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington has announced that it will award prizes for the best unpublished papers on Cold War military history. Any aspect of the Cold War era (1945–91) is eligible, including papers on U.S. military strategy, plans, and operations; the relationship between the armed forces and society; international security affairs; and the connections between Cold War military history and contemporary geopolitical challenges. First place will earn a plaque and a cash award of $2,000; second place, $1,000 and a plaque; and third place, $500 and a plaque.
Entries should be sent electronically to the Adams Center at the Virginia Military Institute by Friday, 30 October. Entries must be limited to a maximum of 7,500 words (minimum 4,000 words) of double-spaced text, exclusive of documentation and bibliography. A panel of judges will examine all papers, and the Adams Center director will announce the winners in late 2015. The Journal of Military History will consider prize-winning essays for publication. In addition, the Adams Center would like to post the best papers, with the permission of the author, on its website.
Please send Word documents to [email protected]. For more information, visit www.vmi.edu/adamscenter.
What’s Up at the NHHC
Command Provides Archaeological Expertise to Slave Wrecks Project
In June the Naval History and Heritage Command (NHHC) participated in the Slave Wrecks Project (SWP), an international collaboration coordinated by George Washington University (GWU), in efforts to use maritime archaeology to advance understanding of factors of the African slave trade that helped shape global history.
Held in Cape Town, the initiative involved core SWP partners including GWU, Iziko Museums of South Africa, the South African Heritage Resources Agency, the National Park Service, and the Smithsonian Institution.
At the request of Lonnie Bunch, director of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African-American History and Culture, the NHHC’s Underwater Archaeology Branch developed and led a three-day maritime archaeological conservation workshop in Cape Town for archaeologists and cultural-resource managers from South Africa, Mozambique, and Senegal.
Given the SWP’s aims to advance and raise the field of maritime archaeology and conservation, especially in Africa, the intent of the workshop was to provide essential training on the assessment, management, and preservation of submerged cultural resources, with a focus on conservation treatment of artifacts from underwater environments. The NHHC was asked to participate because of its responsibility to study, preserve, and manage the U.S. Navy’s 17,000-plus historic sunken ships and aircraft worldwide, and related expertise in maritime archaeology and archaeological conservation.
The course was co-instructed by NHHC maritime archaeologist George Schwarz and Iziko Museum maritime archaeologist Jaco Boshoff. The workshop was attended by 12 students and involved intensive lectures as well as hands-on conservation training in the conservation laboratory at Iziko Museum in Cape Town.
The workshop coincided with an announcement of the SWP discovery and excavation of the São Jose shipwreck. The São Jose, which went down in 1794 off Cape Town, was a Portuguese slaving vessel that was thought to be carrying more than 400 slaves from Mozambique to Brazil, but wrecked in foul weather off the coast of Cape Town in the process, resulting in the death of approximately half of those enslaved.
The wreck, first discovered in the 1980s and identified as a Portuguese slaver by SWP partners in 2010, has become a major focus of the group’s recent efforts. Artifacts from this significant wreck site, including shackles, ballast blocks, and ship’s fasteners, are undergoing conservation at the Iziko Museum and will be put on display in 2016 at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African-American History and Culture, currently under construction on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. A reception in honor of the museum’s director, Lonnie Bunch, and the collaborative work conducted on the São Jose was held on 1 June at the U.S. Consulate’s residence in Cape Town.
During the same week a press conference on the work undertaken by SWP was held at the Slave Lodge Museum in Cape Town, along with a public symposium that featured presentations from various partners of the SWP, with the aim of engaging both the scholarly community and the local population in an effort to bring the history into public memory, in Cape Town and internationally.
A memorial ceremony attended by local and international media was held on 2 June in honor of the slaves lost during the wreck of the São Jose. Three SWP representatives from Mozambique, South Africa, and the United States participated in the ceremony, which involved the depositing of sand taken from Mozambique near the wreck site. Taking place on the shore adjacent to the wreck site, the event symbolized the reconnection of the lost slaves with their homeland.