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Death’s Icy Grip: The Shipwreck of Lydia Ingraham

by Roger Weston

In 1850, one of the most shocking shipwrecks in history unfolded near Owl’s Head Light on the coast of Maine.

It was December 22 near midnight. A storm was raging in the dark of night. An anchored schooner was rocked so violently that her cables snapped. The storm thrashed her around like a toy sailboat in a raging river. She crashed over high waves and plunged down into troughs where waterfalls of saltwater blasted milky froth over every exposed inch of her ship-works. Windblown spray froze on contact. 

The doomed schooner was driven across the bay, and for unknown reasons the captain was not even onboard. The only people manning the drifting vessel were Richard Ingraham, his fiancé Lydia Dyer, and deckhand Roger Elliot. The two crewmen could not control the drifting, storm-tossed vessel, which ran aground on rocks just offshore.

As the ship took on water, Lydia edged out of a hatchway and onto the slippery deck with a comforter and a large blanket. Ingraham wrapped the blankets around her as protection against the freezing winds. He put an arm around her and escorted her carefully along the rail as the storm soaked them.

The lovers found a sheltered part of the deck against the taffrail where they crouched and shivered like wet dogs. The schooner shook and shivered as waves thrashed her sides and decks. Wind shrieked through the rigging like the howls of enraged demons.

Sea spray was constantly freezing in the rigging and on every inch of exposed surface. Even the wet clothes of the victims hardened with ice.

“Wrap the comforter around yourself and snuggle against the taffrail,” Ingraham told Lydia.

Ingraham covered himself with a blanket and lay down next to his fiancé.

Elliot suddenly appeared on decks. He grabbed a door jamb to steady himself. His hair whipped in the wind. He made his way to the others.

With a blanket he brought up from below decks, he lay down next to Ingraham. However, Elliot did one thing different. He pulled his knife from its sheath and kept it handy so that he could chip through the ice of his frozen blanket and ensure he could breathe and escape if the situation became even more dire.

For hours, waves relentlessly broke over the rails, and sea spray continually showered the frozen vessel. Throughout the night, Elliot shook violently and endured through misery and psychological terrors. He repeatedly saw himself as a ghastly corpse sinking in the ocean and devoured by crabs. Besides nightmarish visions, his blood ran cold in his veins. His mind sifted over his life as he contemplated the injustice of having his life robbed from him by fate.

He listened to crashing waves of the sea that he had always loved and which he now saw for what it was—utterly uncaring and probably malevolent in the extreme. Somehow he survived the night though he feared that frostbite and hypothermia were closing in. 

Morning brought a new situation. As the tide turned and went out, Elliot lay there shivering and compulsively chipped away at his ice prison.

His fingers were so numb that he could barely hold his knife, but eventually, he chipped away enough ice to break away a six-inch thick, two-foot long section. This created an escape hatch where he was able to slide out of his icy grave. After struggling to his feet, Elliot could see Ingraham and Lydia. They appeared to be dead and frozen beneath six inches of solid ice. He could see Lydia’s face, and her expression looked serene as if she’d died peacefully. Her hair spread out around her face like a fan. Yellow locks of frozen hair spread out around her face like rays of sunshine. Her blue-gray complexion brought a scripture into Elliot’s mind: “Dust to dust, ashes to ashes.”

Shivering, he spoke earnest words for their immortal souls. His numb lips mumbled the 23^rd Psalm.

Elliot could see clearly that the tide had gone out and the ship was left on the rocks, the water having pulled back. He was amazed to see that he could simply walk ashore. The danger of the sea had retreated some, her cold depths receding. What had been a raging bit of offshore storm at sea was now a beach with rocky hills and jagged saddles.

Staggering ashore, he threw a look back at the tragic fate of his beloved ship. With sadness he saw that the schooner that had broken in two. It looked like two icebergs had washed ashore.

After Elliot turned his back to the sea, a rogue wave rushed him and slammed him down, his head striking a rock. He lay there unconscious and facing certain death. Only the splash of another wave restored his senses. He was sufficiently revived to regain his feet and struggle to get beyond the surf zone.

Several times, he slipped on the frozen shore and fell on the solid ice. Pain brought flashes of heat to wounded bones deep within his half-frozen flesh. It was hard to walk and harder to get up off the ground because he wore hard, frozen clothes that chaffed against his skin and limited his movement. His numb feet felt like aching blocks of ice.

Elliot pressed on through the snow and ice but found his way blocked at the high-tide mark by long, sloping snowdrifts at the beachhead. With no choice but to endure, he slogged through the deep snow, counting his progress by inches. Step-by-step, he pushed and dug through massive drifts.

Finally, he found a roadway, but he had no idea which way to go. He knew that if he guessed wrong, he would surely die of hypothermia before he found salvation. However, he was able to see the direction of the hoof-prints of horses.

One-step-at-a-time with numb feet and toes, he followed the hoof-prints in the snow. Every time he fell, he climbed back onto his miserable feet. His frozen pants chaffed against his knees. He eventually found his way to Owl’s Head Light, but the door to the tender’s house was locked and the windows shuttered. Nobody was there. Elliot kept on and on down the road. His inner dialogue was making peace with his maker because his intuition told him a grim tale of approaching death. It was as if he was walking through an arctic dream of tragic destiny.

Then the unexpected rose up like a mirage in the vast white silence of a wintery desert. Through the frigid snap morning he heard sleigh bells. As the mirage emerged in the winter wonderland, he saw horses pulling a low, one-horse box-sleigh on runners. That was the last thing he remembered as he lost consciousness and collapsed to the ground.

The sleigh master was Light Keeper William Masters of Owl’s Head Light. Masters lifted Elliot into the sleigh and drove the horses toward the lighthouse. He carried Elliot inside and lay him on the floor. He cut Elliot’s frozen clothes off his freezing body. He put the poor man to bed and covered him with snug blankets.

Half-conscious, half-delerious, Elliot was ranting incomprehensible nonsense. Masters tried to calm the panicked victim, assuring him that he would make it. Then Masters realized what his patient was saying.

Elliot was making desperate pleas for two other shipwreck victims.

“You have to get them!” Elliot pleaded. “Before the tide comes back!”

“I will.”

“Hurry! They took shelter under the taffrail.”

“Just calm down and get some sleep. I’ll leave right now.”

“I had to come ashore! I didn’t want to leave them.”

“It’s okay,” Masters said. “I’m leaving now. Go to sleep.”

Masters rang the lighthouse bell, which signaled to every able-bodied man in the area to hurry for a rescue effort.

The tide was rising as a dozen men boarded the doomed wreck. With picks and axes they hacked at the ice that was covering the dead sailor and his beautiful fiancé. A fire axe hacked into the ice inches from Lydia’s lovely face which the men could see under the ice like a face behind a window. Soon the big picturesque piece of ice was broken free.

Ten men carried the slab of ice with its frozen lovers. They handed the slab over the rail and down to men who stood waist deep in the rising surf.

“They’re dead alright,” one of the men said. “At least they’ll get a Christian burial.”

“We’ve got to try and bring them back to life,” said another.

A couple of the men scoffed at the absurd prospect, but most of them agreed they must try.

The huge ice slab was carried ashore and to the sleigh. Men strained and groaned as they loaded it onto the timbers. A whip snapped in the winter wind. The horses pulled their load through snow as they trotted down the path. Flying snow kicked up from hooves and covered the ice slab until Lydia’s face and floating locks of hair were no longer visible beneath the ice.

At the lighthouse, the slab was carried inside into Master’s kitchen. Over and over, water was poured over the ice. At first it was cold treatment, but each bucket brought warmer and warmer water. The ice slowly melted off the doomed sailor and his tragic fiancé. Soon her green eyes were exposed to the air and her golden wet hair stuck to her face and gathered in bunches around her ears.

Masters and three helpers slowly and carefully moved the hands and feet of their patients. As arms and legs gained in flexibility, the rescuers worked faster, yet with tenderness. He and others worked to massage their bodies. This tiring work was continued for half an hour.

Then Masters was startled. He jumped back from his patient and gasped in horror.

“What is it?” asked another.

Masters pointed. “Her fingers moved!”

Rescuers looked at the body with wonder and amazement and then at each other. 

“Keep working!”

Lydia was the first to recover. After hours of constant attention, she made small movements. Ingraham took an hour longer to come out of his coma-like state.

“Where are we?” he asked.

Masters told him the whole story.

Ingraham looked at Lydia, and she gave him a fragile and slight smile.

The two patients were covered in blankets and allowed to sip lukewarm water. By the next day they recovered sufficiently to eat a tiny meal. Weeks passed in painstaking rehab before they could walk around. Months passed before they made full recoveries.

Eventually, Ingraham and Lydia were married. The wedding was held in early spring of the following year, and their special day was visited by a late snowstorm.

Roger Elliot never went to sea again.

 

 

 

 

The Cindy Martin Story

An explosion left her broken, bloodied, and missing a leg. This devastating violence happened to a young girl who had spent her whole life up to that point overcoming heartbreak and adversity. Neglect, abandonment, and abuse overshadowed the childhood of Cindy Martin. But after joining the Air Force to escape her hardships, she could never have guessed that her new journey was leading her right into the middle of a terrorist attack that would shatter her life and change her future. Cindy had been forged by tough breaks all her life, and with the lessons she learned along the way, she was a natural survivor.

Cindy learned the necessity of diligent, hard work at a young age. She never enjoyed an ideal childhood with a supportive mother and father to guide her through life’s challenges and keep her safe from harm. In fact, Cindy was only three years old when she started caring for her younger sister. By first grade she was ironing clothes and helping around the house. But in addition, it fell upon her to get her brother and sister ready for school. And before she could do that, she had to feed her neighbor’s animals. The reason she took on the extra roles of mother and provider in grade school is that her mother and father were heavy drinkers. As a result, her mother slept in. Not only that, her father was often out of town on work.

Depression followed her and threatened to destroy her life, but Cindy learned to overcome her depression. She had a horse, so to get a rest from her burdens she often took long rides into the wilderness areas near her home. She would lie under the fruit trees and look at the clouds. She would cry in the foothills and orchards of Loomis, California. She took hikes with her dog. Years earlier, some childhood friends took her to summer Vacation Bible School. Now, as she rode in the hills and walked orchards with her dog, she found God in nature.

Danger of abuse and the threats of victimization taught Cindy to reach out for help. With an absent father, some saw it as an opportunity to take advantage of her. It began when a neighbor boy abused her and used threats to keep her quiet. Things got even worse when a creep approached her in the 7^th grade and tried to abduct her. She ran, and running probably saved her life. She called the police, but got no response. Then at school she was called to the principal’s office. The police were there and wanted to know what had happened. When her parents were mentioned, Cindy said she wasn’t going to get any help from her parents. Later, a man who knew her family tried to groom her to be a mistress. At first, Cindy was frozen in fear. Then she confronted him, and he backed off. Taking action and reaching out to others was proving essential, but that’s not all.

Around this time, the lessons of prayer touched her life. Cindy’s grandmother in Michigan often prayed for her. On a visit to her grandmother’s, she went to church. Seeds were planted that would be crucial to her later on when tragedy struck. And tragedy was going to strike very soon.

In high school, Cindy learned about herself and her place in the world—aside from her home life. She was blessed to have teachers that encouraged her because she was super shy. One of them told her, “Be more outgoing. You have a lot going for you. You need to get out and enjoy school.” Kind words like this gave her confidence that she desperately needed.

As a young lady, she also learned new kinds of responsibility. During high school, someone had to pick her mother up at the bar close to midnight, and Cindy was always there for her mother, who was fighting her own personal battles. However, it was not easy to shoulder this burden and also be up early for her other responsibilities and getting to school on time. After high school, she got a chance to work on a ranch in Oregon. She cooked pies and pot roast for the workers during harvest. She took her responsibilities seriously and always did her best. She was treated like part of the family, and she cared for the farmer’s kids. She taught them responsibility, making them clean their room. She was always very strict with the kids. When she came home past curfew one night, the farmer and his wife were not happy that she had misled them. For the first time outside of school, Cindy saw that there were grown-ups who cared about her and worried about her. From then on, she took her responsibility in communication to others seriously.

 Just as she was starting to find her way in life, she took a detour that would teach her new lessons that would carry her through extreme personal trials.

One day, her friend Patsy said, “Let’s join the military.” Cindy thought it was a good idea, but when the day came, Patsy backed out. Cindy, however, followed through. She joined the Air Force in May 1978. She was smart and did well in the military. She thrived in electronics at her airbase in Germany. She was the first woman in the microwave communication shop, dealing with communication from microwave towers. She went to fiber optics school and often worked all night installing fiber optics systems in the microwave shop. This was agreeable because she had married a violent alcoholic, thinking she could fix him. That didn’t work out, and her problems were just beginning.

In 1980, ten soldiers, including Cindy, went to Oktoberfest. There were thousands of people from all over the world, many flocking to cement buildings full of beer drinkers. On the third night, Cindy and four others were walking into the festival grounds. Outside, the atmosphere was much like a state fair in America. People were drinking, eating, and singing.

 

Cindy was about to learn to persevere through extreme pain and adversity. Also at Oktoberfest was a fascist extremist who wanted to kill innocents for political reasons on September 26, 1980. He was rigging explosives when the bomb went off prematurely. The terrorist’s body landed on a taxi. Over two hundred were injured. Thirteen were killed. The surprised taxi driver hurried over and put a tourniquet on Cindy’s severely bleeding leg, probably saving her life. Cindy landed in hospital with shrapnel in her back. Part of her nose was blown off. She was partially paralyzed. She had major shoulder injuries. She had a head injury, a major concussion. Most of her right foot was gone. And she lost a leg. She had no pain in her left side due to the shrapnel wound in her back; however, her right side was in constant pain for two years. She had major skin grafts on her back. Specialists built her prosthetic legs. She spent the next nine months in the hospital. Through it all, she persevered, always remembering the kind words of her high school teachers, the love of the people in her squadron, and the love of the ranch family.

Along with perseverance, she learned to have a sense of humor. Being a 23 year old girl in the hospital for nine months and having to use a bed pan and being assisted by young men was humiliating at first. Finally, she learned to laugh and not take herself too seriously. Also, the man who built her leg was a Vietnam vet, an amputee, who was a crazy-fun guy. In a way, he set the tone and helped her to have a sense of humor in the midst of her circumstances.

Along with her sense of humor, she learned to never feel sorry for herself. She would always read about someone who had it worse off than her. Therefore, she looked at the positive. She always remembered something her father had told her: “Only wimps whine.” It also became clear to her that complaining never did her any good. But even more important, all the ups and downs showed her a pattern with adversity—a pattern that could bring hope into darkness.

She learned that problems are temporary. She says, “So many people end their lives too quickly when they think they have problems. Everyone is so valuable. Everyone can do good for someone else. If I can convince others to believe that then evil doesn’t win.”

But there was another lesson that gave Cindy strength. After all she suffered due to the terror attack, after persevering through the pain, trauma, and heart break, she now felt there was nothing she couldn’t do.

Cindy went on to live a full life and overcome obstacles every single day with a great attitude. After raising a family and after her husband passed away, she went back to college at age sixty.

Just walking across the stage to get her degree was a challenge, but it was also another great victory in the school of life.

Check out Cindy's inspirational story on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPYTK8S6THM

 

The Orphan and the Kamikaze

The Leonard Blake Story

by Roger Weston

At age 15, the clock was ticking for an orphan named Leonard. He was moving toward a fateful day that would change his life forever.

In 1942, the Japanese and Germans were killing a lot of American sailors. The Germans were doing tremendous damage on the East Coast of the United States—in American waters. In the first six months after the Pearl Harbor attack and the US entrance into the war, German U-boat submarines sank nearly six hundred American ships, which was half of the US merchant ships. Meanwhile, the Japanese were waging a war of their own against merchant ships in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. They sank 125 merchant ships in 1942.

They were killing so many sailors that few people wanted to join the US merchant marine. Len, who was 15 at the time, saw a sign that said, “Serve your country. Join the US Maritime Service.” This looked good to him so he went to see the recruiter, who changed his age on the application. At Catalina, Len learned he was also in the Coast Guard.

In a 1945 press release, the deputy administrator for the War Shipping Administration, Captain Macauley stated, "Men are still needed to man merchant ships in excess of these presently available and will be needed for some months to come. The job of the war time Merchant Marine has not been completed. Millions of our armed forces must be brought home and supplies must be carried to the occupation forces throughout the world. Supplies must also be carried for the rehabilitation of devastated areas."

Fifteen year old Len finished his training in Catalina. He was offered a chance to become a trainer, but he said, “No, I want to go to sea.”

His first deployment was on a ship named the SS John Constantine, carrying 2,700 tons of bombs to Calcutta, India. Three ships sailed out of San Pedro harbor en route to Calcutta via the Indian Ocean and Australia, waters patrolled and targeted by the Japanese. Of the three ships, only one survived and completed its mission. Len was fortunate to be on that ship.

But it was not exactly smooth sailing. In the Atlantic, two men from his ship were lost overboard in storms. These men died serving their country by manning the supply lines. Throughout history, such duty has been carried out by soldiers and sailors.

Back in America, the captain and first mate of the SS John Constantine approached Len and said, “We want you to go to officer’s training school in Galveston, Texas.”

Len shook his head. “I want to go back to sea.”

Before that happened, he was thrown off a bus in Georgia for sitting in the back seat. Whites were not allowed in the back. He insisted on sitting where he wanted—and was thrown off. This was before Rosa Parks captured headlines for sitting in the wrong place.

In Los Angeles, Len boarded a new ship, the Marianne Livermore. Len was happy. This was how he wanted to serve. The clock was ticking for the young orphan. He was moving closer to the event that would change his destiny.

On April 12, 1945, President Franklin Roosevelt died. The paperwork was on his desk to make merchant sailors into official veterans, but he had not yet signed it.

On the Marianna Livermore, Len sailed out into the vast Pacific Ocean. He spent twenty days at sea, manning the 3” Fifty Forward gun. He was also trained in survival at sea since they were sailing through hostile waters and expected to engage in anti-aircraft combat if necessary—as well as survival in case their ship was sunken and they were adrift. Other sailors manned a 4-inch gun on the stern. The ship sailed from San Pedro to Hawaii and Okinawa.

Despite the dangers, Len enjoyed his cruise across the Pacific. The mood among the crew was happiness. They were just happy kids doing their duty. In Okinawa Harbor, Kamikazes attacked every day. Some of them dive bombed and hit other ships in the harbor. Gunners on Len’s ship took out three of the Kamikazes.

One day with the Marianna Livermore still in Okinawa Harbor, an airplane was sighted. Gunnery Officer Signorey gave the order not to fire on the plane because he thought it was an American Kingfisher recon plane. By the time the mistake was recognized, it was too late for corrective action. A Japanese Kamikaze plane carrying an armor-piercing bomb flew in and hit the wheelhouse. The captain was cut in half. Ten officers were killed. The armor-piercing bomb went through two decks.

At this moment, Len had been off duty and was catching a catnap in the foc’sle. He was jolted awake when the ship shuttered. He jumped up and ran for the foc’sle door, but shrapnel hit his legs and the detonation blew him through the escape panel in the foc’sle door. He lay in the hall in a pool of blood. His pants had been blown clean off of his legs. He was wounded everywhere. His eye socket was broken. His calf muscles hung outside of his legs; they were moving and twitching. He had lost part of his left foot, and the Achilles tendon was severed on his right foot. The bones in both legs were shattered, and he would later learn that he’d lost 2” of bone in his left leg.

Little did Len know then, but he would be in constant pain for 74 years.

He was taken to a hospital. He was bleeding all over his body, and as the weeks passed, he was confined to hospitals in Okinawa, Guam, and then Hawaii.

Before a scheduled surgery to close persistent bleeding wounds, the doctor wanted to amputate both legs.

“No,” Len said. “Forget about it. I’d rather die. Just roll me over there and let me die.”

“You’ll never walk again,” the doctor said.

“I don’t care. Swear to me you won’t amputate.”

“Alright, alright, I won’t.”

“Swear it.”

“Fine. I swear. We’ll see what we can do, son.”

After the surgery, the doc dropped by to visit Len, whose casts were red.

“We couldn’t close all the wounds,” he said.

The weeks passed slowly in hospitals in Okinawa and Guam. Len was in the hospital for his seventeenth birthday.

After being flown to Hawaii, he had two more surgeries. Nine surgeons all said he’d never walk again. With tears in her eyes, a nurse named Lieutenant Fru told him, “Lenny, you’re not in the armed services. We have to transfer you to a public health service hospital—the Oakland Naval Hospital.”

Len would spend 2 ½ months in that hospital. This was a painful transition for more than one reason. Not only had the armed services just turned their back on him, but in the Navy, they’d given him morphine to deal with the pain. In San Francisco, they prescribed codeine. He was allergic to codeine. 

Even worse, they called him psychotic. Why? Because he had recurring nightmares about his trauma. He dreamed about being blown through the foc’sle door and sitting in a pool of blood. He saw his friend T.J. Garner crawling through the door with 3- and 4-inch holes in his back. T.J. reached out for him and then fell dead. If the nightmares weren’t bad enough, Len could barely sleep because of the constant pain. 

The Navy guys on that ship got purple hearts, but Len and the merchant mariners—who served as back-up gunners—were denied the metal or any recognition or appreciation. Everyone got a Mariner’s medal.

Lenny’s good friend Bob Blake was killed topside on the flying bridge. He was an ordinary seaman and backup gunner for the 20mm gun. Bob was firing his gun when killed. All together, four navy men and seven merchant marines were killed in the attack.

He was discharged by the Armed Services of America of USA. He had always been told that he was in the armed services.

The parents of his friend Bob Blake came to see Lenny in the hospital, and they offered to adopt him.  After they left, Lenny begged the doctors to let him go.

Doc Jones said, “You’ll never walk.”

“Yes, I will.”

“If you can walk on crutches, I’ll let you go.”

“Give me the crutches.”

Lenny practiced on crutches, walking across the room.

The doctor said, “I thought you’d be bed-ridden for life.”

The doctor weighed him before his checkout. Previously, he’d weighed 160 pounds. Now he weighed in at 90 pounds.

The nurse gave him $20 to get to LA. He used canes and crutches to leave the hospital. He would need a cane for the rest of his life.

In Los Angeles, he went to public health where they put him in a gurney. Lenny heard one doctor say to another, “I have no sympathy for these merchant marines. They’re just a bunch of draft dodgers.”

Len fumed inside. Anger filled him with resentment.

One day, he was reading the newspaper and it said, “Vets admitted to Belmont High.” This caught his attention because, as an orphan, he’d left school at age 13 and worked in an iron foundry. So now he went down to the high school, and they told him to come back in a week. They told him this every week for six weeks. Finally, a guy growled at him, “We don’t want your kind here.”

This was painful. Once again he’d been insulted because of the rumors being spread in the media that merchant marines hadn’t served their country with honor. Articles said they didn’t help fight, but he was trained in gunnery and manned the guns at sea. His close friend Bob Blake had died firing at the Kamikaze. Len was discharged from the Navy after four years in the Naval Reserve.

Due to experiences like these, Len never asked the government for any help. He now hated the government with a passion.

The parents of his good friend Bob Blake had visited Len in the hospital and adopted him. Now they spent all their money trying to help him with his medical challenges. They had lost their son on that ship. Now Lenny was their son, and they gave everything they could. However, when Mr. Blake lost his job, they fell on even more hard times.

Len worked a number of hard jobs. He plucked chickens, pumped gas, and drove a truck. All the while he was bitter against the government and the way they’d treated him. He was angry at his father who’d left him as a child. 

He had always walked to work, but now he bought a Harley motorcycle and soon was running the Vagos Gang. One day he was pulled over on Hollywood Blvd. He got off his Harley, faced the two approaching cops, and challenged them to a fight.

The burly cop said, “You won’t beat us. Better join us.”

This caught Len off guard, and he decided to apply for a job in the police department. He ended up getting hired and went to work even though he was still dealing with open wounds from Okinawa. He always worked two jobs. He moonlighted driving an armored car or as a dispatcher for a trucking company or other jobs. He even worked for the district attorney. The PTSD was always with him, and every night he had dreams about the Kamikaze attack in Okinawa.

Meanwhile, news commentators like Walter Winchell and Westbrook Pegler spread rumors that the merchant marines were getting $400 per month in assistance, which was not true. One news reporter named Ernie Pyle was given the Purple Heart, but Len was denied. He was told, “No, your ship was owned by a company.”

What they avoided saying was that the War Shipping Administration was in charge of all shipping. A Coast Guard commander said, “No purple heart.”

Merchant Mariners finally got very-limited veteran status in 1988 after a long court battle.

However, Len had little interest in dealing with the government. His anger against the way that he’d been treated was always painful to think about.

One of his friends insisted that he “Go to the VA and get what’s coming to you!” Finally, Len was persuaded, but was disappointed by the limited assistance.

There was one benefit that gave him hope, however: at age 60, he qualified for the GI Bill and education. First, he had to visit a doctor to qualify. Len wasn’t too worried about this. He’d been in pain all his life and the wounds had never healed. They remained open until 2010.

A government worker asked him, “Were you wounded?”

“Yes, all over. My head was caved in, and my feet were destroyed.”

“Okay, you’ll have to see a doctor to qualify.”

So that’s what Len did.

A man walked into the doctor’s office.

The so-called doctor rudely said, “Let me see your left leg!”

“Want to see my right leg?” Len asked.

“What for?” the man blurted.

“The open wounds.” Len's wounds had remained open almost fifty years.

The doc said, “Those hammer toes and that cut didn’t come from that wound.”

“Maybe you want to hear what happened,” Len said.

The doctor shook his head. “I’m writing. Be quiet.”

Despite his anger, Len was quiet.

“Let me see you walk,” the doctor said.

Len limped across the office.

“Why do you walk like that?” the doctor said. “You’re through.” He left.

To this day, Len doubts that he was even a doctor at all.

Six months later, Len got a letter in the mail. It said, “Your wound doesn’t qualify you for any VA compensation.”

After another six months, he was informed that the government would cover 10%.

“That’s wrong,” his friend, Dr. Frank Rogers insisted. “You have to appeal it!” Rogers was an old field sergeant from World War Two.

Len was reluctant. He wanted nothing to do with the government, but finally agreed. After his appeal, he was awarded 30% assistance.

Doc Rogers was incensed and pushed him further and he got 40%.

When he appealed again, he was told by the VA in Los Angeles, “We gave you 40%. That nullified your appeal.”

Ultimately, $250 per month is not adequate for a man whose medical expenses have been far higher and have lasted for seven decades. At age sixteen, he served his country in the merchant marines and suffered terrible injuries. He could never run again. He is still in pain at age 90.

Every night, Leonard Blake dreams of the day when he watched his friend T.J. Garner die in front of him, the day when Bob Blake died firing the 20mm gun. Not a day passes when Len does not think of his old shipmates who gave their lives Okinawa. Every day, he says good morning to them.

POST SCRIPT

Len’s ship, the Marianna Livermore, was the last merchant ship hit by a Kamikaze in World War Two.

On Friday, March 13, 2020, President Trump signed into law: H.R. 5671, the "Merchant Mariners of World War II Congressional Gold Medal Act of 2020," which provides for the award of a Congressional gold medal collectively, to the U.S. Merchant Mariners of World War II.

The Doomed Steamship Lexington by Roger Weston

The Doomed Steamship Lexington

By Roger Weston

On the evening of January 13, 1840, the paddle wheels of the steamship Lexington thrashed the icy waters of Long Island sound. Originally commissioned by Cornelius Vanderbilt, the ship was carrying approximately 147 passengers and a cargo of baled cotton, which was stacked on deck. Running a route between New York and Stonington, Connecticut, she was one of the most luxurious steamers of her time. 

Midway through the ship's voyage, the casing around the ship's smokestack caught fire, igniting nearly 150 bales of cotton that were stored nearby. Crewmen reacted by rushing below decks to try and stop her engine. This failed mission gave the flames time to spread. Next, the crew made every effort to extinguish the flames. The neck muscles of crewmen bulged like ropes as they heaved buckets of water upon the flames. Unfortunately, the freezing wind fanned the blaze, and the crew fought a losing battle. 

With the paddle-wheeler still underway, panic and anxiety increased among the unfortunates onboard who were seeing their joyful cruise turn into a nightmare. Passengers piled into lifeboats, promptly overloading them. The crew then lowered the boats too fast, and worse yet, the lowering ropes were improperly cut so that the boats hit the moving water at a tilt, turning them into the equivalent of big spoons dipped into a punch bowl. The lifeboats promptly filled with frothing ice water, and clutches of frigid death took hold. Immersed in the freezing drink, the poor souls fought off hypothermia as long as they could, but they lost the fight and sank into the cold depths of the January sea.

The remaining desperate passengers realized that death was closing in on them too. They began heaving furniture and cotton bales into the water. These would have to do as makeshift rafts no matter how perilous the option. 

At 8:00 p.m., Passenger and experienced sea captain, a man called Captain Hillard, threw ten bales of cotton overboard and then jumped onto one of them. One of the ship’s firemen, a Mr. Cox, also gained hold on the same bale. Together these two men floated in the open waters on their substitute life raft. With a wind chill factor running below zero, they floated in the choppy sea as they valiantly tried to fight off the effects of hypothermia. The bale rose and fell in the pulsating waters of the dark night. Stinging cold waves continually splashed them, keeping their body temperatures at dangerously low levels. Around 4:00 a.m., Cox, overcome by hypothermia, slipped into the water and drowned. Hillard, also weakened, nonetheless, held on tight. At 11:00 a.m., a sloop named Merchant swung up alongside and rescued Hillard. The man they dragged out of the sea was insensible. He was clinging to life by a thread, but clinging fiercely. 

At midnight, Stephen Manchester, the ship’s pilot, and several other passengers were driven off the Lexington by the terrifying approach of intense heat and flames. Manchester and the others put to sea on a makeshift raft but the overloaded craft sunk beneath them. Driven by knifing cold and the desperation that ran through his blood, Manchester, clawed at a bale of cotton and dragged himself out of the water like a wet dog. He and a passenger named Peter McKenna held on for dear life, but after a grueling three hours, McKenna gave up the ghost. Despite having death for company, death beckoning him to give up the fight, death taunting him with her torments,

Manchester held on. He clung to life for hours beyond what mortal man could hope for. He was rescued by the sloop Merchant at noon.

Charles Smith, the ship’s fireman, had every intention of outwitting the fire and saving his life. He and four other people clung to the Manchester’s rudder where they had safe distance from the raging fires above them. Finally, as the ship began to sink into her watery grave, Smith and his fellow passengers climbed onto a piece of the paddle-wheel, which was rising and falling in the choppy ice water. Death climbed onto the paddle-wheel with them, and during the night she claimed souls one-at-a-time. Only Smith held out against her temptations. She offered an end to his suffering, but Smith had a purpose. Something drove him to endure the misery and share the night with hypothermia’s oppressive company. The next day at 2:00 p.m., the sloop Merchant eased up by the paddle-wheel and fished the half-dead fireman off his floating debris. 

Another man who spit in Death’s face was second mate David Crowley. On a bale of cotton, he drifted for 43 hours, pulling off the impossible, enduring beyond the accepted limits of human endurance, proving beyond all doubt that with grit and determination, man can accomplish far more than he realizes. Crowley also made a couple of key moves. He burrowed into his bale of hay and stuffed his clothes with cotton. After an amazing adventure, Crowley drifted ashore, 50 miles east, at Baiting Hollow, Long Island. Despite all weakness, despite the fragility of life, he’d hung on until Providence smiled on him. The torments of dehydration had failed to finish him off. Hypothermia had not finished her work. David Crowley crawled up the beach. Then he managed to stand on shaking joints. Breathing in gasps, he staggered down the beach for over a mile, collapsing several times along the way. At the home of Matthias and Mary Hutchinson, he knocked on the door and then fell against it, sinking to the porch floor, where he balled up and shook feverishly. The door was opened. The doctor was called.

In an ironic twist, it was reported that the celebrated poet Professor Henry Longfellow likely perished on the Lexington. Longfellow’s works included "Paul Revere's Ride." While his name was listed on the manifest, he in fact had backed out of the trip at the last minute to discuss a poem with his publisher, a poem about a shipwreck. 

According to one report, the Lexington had been condemned several months before the fateful cruise, but the owners ignored this bad news and kept her in service. In fact, she’d had a fire on her last run, but that one had been put out. Interestingly, the captain of that cruise had called in sick for this trip, a move that most likely saved his life. That captain was the brother of Cornelius Vanderbilt, the man who had originally commissioned the Lexington. 

The Lexington had small fortune in silver below her decks, some of which was later recovered. While those salvagers had reason to smile, the families of the over 140 lost souls carried the memories of their loss for a lifetime. 

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Chuck Brandt is living a quiet, peaceful life of service in a soup kitchen in Seattle when he gets a phone call from Maria Lazar. She tells a harrowing tale. A Black Cobra assassin almost killed her and Chuck’s old pal Jeff. Before he died the assassin reveals a plot against the USA. From Washington D.C. to Antarctica, Chuck Brandt is on the case. What he discovers is far worse than he expected, and his chance of either success or survival are slim.

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