Update on the Discovery of the USS Grunion
On August 24, I wrote a post about the discovery of the wreck of the USS Grunion off the Aleutians. (See “Sons Locate Father’s WWII Submarine.”) The Grunion disappeared the night of July 30, 1942 and was rediscovered August 22, 2007 by an expedition funded by the three sons of the submarine’s skipper Lt. Cmdr. Mannert L. Aberle.
Today I ran across a lovely notice from a North Dakota news site. (See: World War II Sub Recovered.) A member of the Grunion’s 70-man crew, Sidney Loe was a native of North Dakota. Mike Loe, the deceased man’s nephew, told the reporter that his father, Amber Loe, was informed of the discovery of the Grunion just days before his death last week at 84. The news gave him a sense of closure about his brother’s fate after so many years of uncertainty.
There’s a marker in the Sanish Riverview Cemetery honoring Sidney Loe, but now his people know where he actually rests, with his shipmates, in a thousand feet of water. I’m sure that the experience of locating the Grunion was incredibly moving for Lt. Cmdr. Aberle’s sons, but were I in their position, I would be equally moved to know that my actions had given an 84-year-old man an even greater measure of peace at his passing. No matter what anyone says, these World War II recovery operations matter. They really do.
WWII, USS Grunion, Mannert Aberle, Sidney Loe, submarine, Aleutians
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