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STONEWALK JAPAN 2005
Margo's Story
It was a few days before Thanksgiving 1944 on a Sunday ..about
10:00 A.M. in Forest Hills, Long Island, New York, when I heard
a scream from downstairs. It was a sound I never will forget....it
still rings in my ears. It was my mother Helen Baker reading the
telegram from the Navy Department that my 19 year old brother Charles
Baker, seaman first class on the submarine U.S.S.Shark 2nd was
missing in action and presumed lost at sea off the coast of Japan...I
was
15 years old and became an old soul on that day.
The submarine
Shark was never found and since subs travel in a wolf-pack of
3 Shark did not meet up with the other 2 subs.....we never knew what
happened.
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USS Shark sliding down the slipway 17
October 1943 [Courtesy of ussubvetsofworldwarii.org]. |
The years past and as an only child now I watched my mother die
of a broken heart... I wanted to tell my children and grandchildren
about what happened to their Uncle
Charles. Charles had to be remembered.
Fifty years later my second husband
Judge Joseph Lerner asked me "What will make you happy
Joyce?" I said ,"I
want to go to Pearl Harbor and leave flowers in the sea and say a prayer for
my brother Charles, as his grave is the sea.". Senator Lautenberg from
New Jersey is my husband's friend and he made the arrangements for us to go
to Pearl
Harbor and go into the submarine station........and this is where I found the
answer to the mystery of the Shark.
The Shark had been in Japanese waters and
sank a Japanese ship. As they looked through the peroscope to see the damage
and they noticed American G.I. prisoners alive floating in the water. Unbeknown
to
the Shark that the Japanese ship had G.I. prisoners....the crew of the
Shark voted to go topside and expose themselves as they plucked
the Americans from
drowning....A Japanese plane was flying by saw them and dropped a bomb
on them...killing everyone..no one survived. I now know the end
of the story. When you kill,
you will be killed. It was a healing process for me.
My brother is locked in my
heart at the age of 19. He would never marry, know his or my children. We
had a tragedy, but I had to mend. Bringing the Stone to Japan will
allow me to
put my foot on Japanese soil for the first time with the enemy...thus
I have
healed.
Joyce Baker Roman Lerner
You can learn more about the USS SHARK (SS 314) and October 24,
1944 when 87 men were lost by following this link: www.csp.navy.mil/ww2boats/shark2.htm |
