How to resolve AdBlock issue? LAKEPORT, Calif. – The last of Lake County’s Pearl Harbor survivors was remembered in a heartfelt Sunday ceremony in Lakeport.
Wilbur Kenneth “Bill” Slater, 93, died on New Year’s Eve at his Lakeport home.
He was the last of a fascinating group of men who survived the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, and later made Lake County their home.
At the time of the attack, Slater was a 17-year-old aboard the USS Pennsylvania. He had joined the Navy months earlier, as soon as he was able to leave the orphanage where his family had sent him due to not being able to care for him during the Great Depression.
About 100 community members, friends and family members attended the short ceremony for Slater, held at noon Sunday at the Pearl Harbor Survivors Memorial Mast in Library Park.
The memorial service was led by Ronnie Bogner, who along with wife Janeane has helped organize the Pearl Harbor-related commemorations and events for many years.
Also in attendance were members of the Military Funeral Honors Team, who performed a gun volley, and whose bugler performed the “church call” and the playing of “Taps.”
Chaplain Charles Schreiber gave the invocation and benediction, and the Patriot Guard Riders traveled to the event and stood throughout, holding American flags alongside the honors team.
Sheriff Brian Martin and Lakeport Police Chief Brad Rasmussen raised the United States flag on the mast, which also was festooned with the flags of the state, armed services and the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association.
Next to the mast was a small table with a picture of Slater and his late wife, Helen, his Pearl Harbor hat and the golden memorial bell on which the names of Pearl Harbor Survivors who have died are engraved.
As the service began, Clear Lake – which had appeared still and had no wind to speak of on it – began to lap steadily against the shore. Small waves continued to ripple against the shore, sounding very much like an ocean tide.
And as retired District 1 Supervisor Jim Comstock was invited forward to lead the flag salute, three Canada geese flew by low and in a tight formation, honking loudly.
Bogner said the event was a mix of a memorial for Slater as well as for the Pearl Harbor survivors who had gone before him.
“He never considered himself a hero,” Bogner said of Slater, who nonetheless enjoyed his membership in the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association.
While all of Lake County’s resident Pearl Harbor survivors have now died, Bogner said there are still three “sweethearts,” the fond name for widows of the men in the group.
They include Alice Darrow of Kelseyville, whose husband Dean Darrow was aboard the USS West Virginia and died in 1991; Charlotte Bower of Clearlake Oaks, whose husband Chuck was at the US Sub Base and died in 2011; and Vanya Leighton, whose husband Fred was aboard the USS Ramsay and died in 2008. Alice Darrow and Vanya Leighton, who now lives in Napa, were on hand for the event, while Charlotte Bower was unable to attend.
Bogner said Slater was a firm believer in luck, telling of how Slater had gone below decks on the Pennsylvania to bring up ammunition because the hoist was broken. While he was down retrieving the ammunition, a bomb hit where he had been standing, killing about two dozen men.
Later in the war, Slater would travel to Australia, and while on leave in San Francisco would meet his future wife, said Bogner. Slater was coming home and set for discharge aboard the USS Salt Lake City when it nearly capsized near Astoria, Oregon, in October 1945 after it was hit by huge waves at the mouth of the Columbia River. Slater called it the “worst day I ever had at sea.”
Bogner said Slater was a truck driver and a union member who lobbied long and hard to get rid of corruption in the union.
Jim Harris of Lucerne, a Pearl Harbor survivor who died in January 2011, had asked Slater to be the association president after he was gone. As it turned out, Slater would be “the last guy standing,” Bogner said.
Slater loved to talk to people and was a regular customer at Renee’s Cafe in Lakeport, where he often had total strangers buy him breakfast, Bogner said.
Slater’s daughter Leslie attended along with several other family members. Bogner noted that Slater also had a son who died in Hawaii on the 50th anniversary of Pearl Harbor.
Leslie Slater thanked everyone for attending. “I am in awe of all of you being here.”
She said of her father, “He was a very generous and honest person and he would have loved to see you all.”
Leslie Slater recalled her father coming to the Pearl Harbor events, and how he loved to talk to people. “He never lacked for something to say.”
The event’s other featured speaker was Chris Smith, a longtime Press Democrat columnist who has covered the Pearl Harbor survivors since 1991 and was given honorary membership in the association.
Smith said he was given the assignment in 1991 to interview Pearl Harbor survivors for the 50th anniversary of the attack. “I can truly say that assignment changed my life.”
That December, he traveled with about 30 survivor to Hawaii to return to Pearl Harbor. “I walked with them as they paraded down the main street of Waikiki.” He later made a second trip with them.
He recalled the Pearl Harbor survivors he came to know as some of the finest, most fun-loving and gracious men he had ever met.
Smith said he met Slater years later, and found him to be among the most joyful of the group.
He said the survivors didn’t just meet once a month for breakfast. “These guys loved each other. They were each others’ best friends.”
Smith said he often had to remind himself of who the men truly were. “They were boys on Dec. 7, 1941,” he said, and many had never seen the ocean until they joined the Navy.
“They witnessed the horror of that day, which I can’t even imagine,” and saw things they didn’t want to talk about, Smith said.
And yet, after the attack, they didn’t go home, but went off to four years of war. They won that war and came back to the United States, where they witnessed and took part in what Smith called one of the most momentous periods of American history, when the United States transformed itself following World War II.
“As members of the greatest generation they created the United States that we all know and that we all benefit from,” he said.
Smith concluded of the men who survived the attack, “They were a treasure beyond value to us.”
As the ceremony drew to a close, it was time to toll the memorial bell. “Bill was trying his damnedest to keep his name off this bell,” said Bogner, noting the engraving hadn’t yet been done.
The group heard a final prayer and sang one of Slater’s favorite songs, “God Bless America,” before Janeane Bogner tolled the bell in Slater’s memorial.
Ronnie Bogner said Pearl Harbor commemorations will continue. The Military Funeral Honors Team will participate in the brief ceremonies, which will be held each Dec. 7 at the memorial mast.
Bogner recalled how Slater often had a bloody Mary in hand at the Pearl Harbor commemorations.
And so he left them with Slater’s favorite toast: “Here’s looking up your old address.”
Email Elizabeth Larson at
