News From Fort Schuyler

December 22, 2008 - Volume 8, No. 44

THIS SEEMS TO BE AN ALL EBB TIDE ISSUE

GARY M. SCHOENHERR, a cadet in the Class of 2012, died in his sleep last Monday. According to an obituary in The Journal News, Gary " .... a lifelong New Rochelle resident, died on December 15th He was 21 years old. Gary attended St Pius X School in Scarsdale, Archbishop Stepinac High School and then continued on to NY Maritime College where he was on the Maritime College Sailing Team. Skiing, golf and sailing were three of Gary's loves. .... In lieu of flowers please make a donation to NY Maritime College Sailing Foundation in Gary's name." A funeral mass for Gary was held at St. Pius X Church in Scarsdale on 20 December.[For the full obituary see http://www.nyjnews.com/obits/index_full1.php3]

BENJAMIN TROEMEL '36 - An obituary in the St. Augustine Record reported that CAPT. BENJAMIN TROEMEL '36 died at the age of 92 on 29 September, 2008. Although he attended the New York State Merchant Marine Academy (berthed at that time at the Brooklyn Navy Yard), his first love was flying. He learned to fly at Roosevelt Field in Garden City. With the help of the NYSMMA Superintendent, CAPT. J.H. TOMB, Troemel was admitted to the Navy's flight school at Pensacola in June1938.

In early December 1941,Troemel was to find himself at an intersection with history. The 25-year old Troemel was serving as a pilot aboard the carrier USS ENTERPRISE, steaming 200 miles west of Pearl Harbor. "Ensign Troemel and others in his Scouting 6 group were scheduled to fly into Pearl from the ENTERPRISE on Dec. 6, but the weather was 'kind of crummy'. The flight was delayed. The next morning, Troemel and his radio-gunner were in their SBD Douglas Dauntless dive bomber and in position to take off. 'I was revving the engine and it was going pop, pop, pop and making a racket' he said. 'They always kept a few planes in reserve, and they pulled me back. The spare got to fly in.'

Scouting 6 took off about 6:20 a.m., climbing against the rising sun and heading toward Diamond Head. 'Some of the guys were shot down. They flew right into the raid. They didn't know what was happening,' said Troemel, recalling one pilot who radioed, 'Stop shooting! This is a Navy plane.' At Pearl Harbor, some 200 Zeroes and other Imperial Japanese Navy aircraft were attacking Battleship Row. More than half of Scouting Group 6 was shot down or killed.

'By then, we knew the war was going,' said Troemel. 'We got the message on ship. The planes still on the ship were sent out looking for the Japanese fleet or whoever we could find. 'Fortunately, we never found them. We wouldn't have had a chance.' On his final run home, Troemel discovered he couldn't find the ENTERPRISE, which had kept moving to avoid presenting a target to the enemy. He was running low on fuel.

'The ship wasn't where it was supposed to be,' said Troemel, adding that he and another Scouting 6 pilot, Bucky Walters, finally headed toward Kaneohe, across the mountains from Pearl. There were no lights on the field or runways, and no answer from the flight tower. Walters went in first at about 60 to 70 miles an hour and found bulky objects scattered along the runway. 'On the airfield there were cement mixers, trucks and planes left out to try to keep anyone from landing. It was a hairy landing,' said Troemel. Walters skidded around equipment before bringing his plane to a halt. Troemel came in after him, avoiding the equipment and Walters' SBD. He left a double stripe of smoking rubber, coming 'to a halt nose to nose with a concrete mixer' according to one account. Neither plane had a scratch from the landing. After spending the night at the field, he and Walters were recalled to the ENTERPRISE for further action. Troemel flew throughout the war, including combat missions at the Marshall Islands and Midway. The recipient of three air medals and the Presidential Unit Citation, he retired from the Navy in 1959 with the rank of captain. [Read the rest in this 2006 article in the St. Augustine Record at http://staugustine.com/stories/042406/news_3789710.shtml. You can also read about some of Troemel's wartime experiences, beginning on page 30, in Edward Stafford's book "The Big E: The Story of the USS Enterprise," published by the Naval Institute Press in 2002.

According to the obituary, posted on the Alumni Association website, Troemel attended the Naval Postgraduate School, was a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Tulane University, and earned a Master's Degree in Rehabilitation Counseling from the University of Florida. He served as Assistant Director of Admissions at Flagler College in St. Augustine for three years. An enthusiastic traveler (and part-owner of a travel agency), Ben was a lifetime recreational flier. [For the complete obituary go to the Ebb Tide section at www.fsmaa.org]

JOHN G. FEELEY '54, a longtime resident of Westchester County who worked for many years at General Foods, died in September, 2008. There was no further information on the Alumni Association website.