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06/16/09 - I joined US Submarine Veterans WW2 in May,1959. Part of the purpose was "To Perpetuate The Memory of Those Shipmates Who Voluntarily Gave Lives In Submarine Warfare". It was later decided that no one volunteered to die, so the "Voluntary" was dropped. However they would only honor those who were lost on a boat that was lost.and anyone else who went out on patrol and didn't come back was not counted.The Muskallunge was patrolling in the vicinity of the Kurile Islands on Aug, 8th,1945 when radar picked 3 Sea Trucks in a heavy fog and in a ensuing gun action we lost a EM3. We buried him here. I was in the burial detail. He was never part of the 3505 who were always honored. I fought the chain of command, wrote articles to Polaris to no avail. In 1993 I put in a resolution to honor all shipmates lost in submarine warfare{ we didn't know the exact # of shipmates lost at that time.} The resolution was soundly defeated, so we continued with our "Purpose" but only honored those who were in the 52 boats. It wasn't until many years later that Joe Mc Grievy set the record straight that we lost 3623 shipmates in submarine warfare. The EM3 was the last submariner to die in WW2.
I went to Panama in February of 1946. The Cutlass, Diablo & Conger were in Balboa with the Proteous. If the boats were in Coco Solo it was a temporary thing.
Mike Galetka,CMoMM and a shipmate in Panama recently went on Eternal Patrol.
Frank Fatale ~ FrankFatale@aol.com
On 12/20/08, Wayne Reedy EN2 (SS)1961-1963
On 2/1/09, Pascal VanHorn IC2 IC2SS 6/25/59 to 9/19/61