Sailor worth his salt

Deepa Bharath

U.S. Navy combat veteran Norm Loats can share more than the routine

war story or sea tale. At the tender age of 20, he experienced one

the deadliest attacks and most harrowing survival episodes in the

Pacific Theater of World War II.

The 82-year-old Corona del Mar resident, also a top administrator

for the Newport-Mesa Unified School District, was a storekeeper for

the Navy in 1944 and one of 768 shipmates who survived the biggest

naval battle in American history.

Loats and his fellow sailors, who were unintentionally caught in

the Battle of Samar during World War II, spent two nights and close

to three days in the shark-infested South Pacific waters off the

coast of the Philippines after their ship, the U.S. escort carrier

Gambier Bay, was hit 27 times by the Japanese. The men, who

free-floated in the water without food or water, hoped for a miracle.

They got it in the form of a ship that rescued them shortly after

sunrise on their third day in the water.

This weekend, Loats and his shipmates will get together in San

Diego to commemorate the 60th anniversary of that kamikaze attack in

Leyte Gulf and their survival and the American victory over the

Japanese in that battle.

They’ve had close to 15 reunions so far, but every time, the

conversations are cathartic, Loats said.

“We just sit down and reminisce,” he said. “And we do laugh,

because you can’t be all maudlin.”

The survivors at the reunion talk about “old friendships,” said

Jack Turner, one of the organizers.

“We also end up making new friends and meeting people we never

knew before,” he said.

This year’s reunion will feature a memorial service and a luncheon

followed by visits to the Taffy Three Memorial monument and the

Midway Museum.

“It’s going to be a busy, exhausting day,” Turner said.

Taking a typical path

For Loats, each one of these reunions is like a flashback, which

sometimes infuses him with positive energy and other times fills his

heart with unbearable sadness.

His path to the U.S. Navy was nothing out of the ordinary. Born in

Buffalo Center, Iowa, a town of 1,100, Loats joined the Navy in 1942.

He reported to boot camp in Idaho and to storekeeper school in Ohio.

He boarded the Gambier Bay in February 1944 as a storekeeper.

Loats basically took care of supplies, handing out toiletries,

cigarettes and candy to his shipmates during the day, giving spare

parts to the mechanics when needed. He was also a gunner.

Loats often thinks about the night of Oct. 24, 1944. He had dinner

with a few men whom he would never see again. He remembers he looked

at young, happy faces that would be lifeless just hours later.

When the sun rose that October morning, men aboard the Gambier Bay

and six other small American warships saw the pagoda masts of

Japanese warships on the horizon. The Imperial Navy armada consisted

of four battleships, two light cruisers, six heavy cruisers and 11

destroyers, Loats recalled.

“We were just light ships, and the Gambier Bay was basically there

to provide air cover for General [Douglas] MacArthur’s visit to the

Philippines,” he said.

The seven American ships were a lightly-armed force assigned to

protect six equally undersized aircraft carriers, Loats said. They

were nothing more than slow cargo ships with a flight deck mounted

atop them.

“We just weren’t built for a surface battle,” Loats said.

But the Japanese fleet attacked them with fury.

“They really let us have it,” Loats said. “Fortunately for us,

most of the 8-inch shells exploded in the water. A couple exploded on

board and that’s why so many of my shipmates were killed.”

At first, Loats and the small group he was with didn’t hear anyone

yell: “Abandon ship!”

But soon enough, they saw the widespread chaos around them, and

jumped overboard.

“We were three of us, and we tried to get on a raft,” he said.

They started paddling vigorously but weren’t going anywhere.

“The raft was still tied to the ship,” Loats said, smiling. “You

have to laugh about things like that.”

Then they cut off the line and paddled out into the ocean, and

what ensued was a three-day struggle for survival.

Struggling to stay alive

That afternoon, Loats saw his cousin, Fred Albers, float by. He

was not badly hurt, but the two decided to split up to increase the

chance for at least one of them to survive.

The first night was the most chaotic, as the groups of men

flailing in the water tried to get organized, Loats said. They had

only life jackets -- known as Mae Wests to combat sailors and

Marines.

“We floated by a Japanese cruiser, and I thought that was the end

of it,” he said. “I thought they were going to shoot at us.”

But they didn’t. The Japanese sailors just stood around on their

cruiser and laughed.

It was a struggle to stay afloat and stay focused. The sharks

didn’t make it any easier.

“Any time a shark came by, we’d just thrash around, yell, make a

lot of noise and scare it away,” Loats said. “Still, the sharks got

35 or 36 people. One guy had his bottom completely bitten off. He

bled to death.”

The surviving men were lucky not to get attacked by four or five

sharks at once, he said.

“No amount of noise we could make would’ve scared them,” Loats

said.

On the first night, they sang songs such as “Yankee Doodle Dandy”

and “God Bless America” to keep their spirits afloat. In Loats’ group

was a man he only remembers as “Berryman,” who used to be a clown

with Ringling Brothers.

“He was just cracking jokes all night,” Loats recounted. “He’d

ask: ‘Can you see that ship coming? Can you see it? It’s right

there?”

No one could see anything that even resembled a ship in the

distant horizon. But they laughed anyway.

Most of the next day was spent getting organized. The men formed

into groups of 35 to 37, tore off their shirts and link up, so no one

would drift away, Loats said. The first person in the link was tied

with a shirt to a raft, he said.

Food they could do without. But Loats remembers that it was

unbearably hot. Their lips were chapped and their throats dry.

Relief came in the form of rain the second night.

“Oh, it was like manna from the heavens,” Loats said. “It was a

godsend. We just opened our mouths as far as we could and let it rain

in there.”

One last night

But that night, their hopes dwindled. That’s when Loats said his

final prayers.

“I asked God to take care of my mom, my dad and my brother,” he

said. “Today I’m here. They’re not.”

The following morning, shortly after dawn, Loats and his group saw

a ship. It was an American ship.

“I don’t remember how I felt,” he said. “I just remember thinking

how huge the ship looked to me.”

Just to make sure they were picking up the right group, people

from the rescue ship asked the men a key question.

“Who won the World Series, they asked us,” Loats said. “And the

men yelled out ‘the St. Louis Cardinals.’”

After recovering in Brisbane, Australia, Loats returned to San

Francisco on a ship two months later. He called his mother from

there.

“She thought I had died in the battle,” he said. “She fainted when

she heard from me.”

When he returned to his hometown, he went back to Central College,

where students and staff had already held a memorial service for him.

“My English teacher fell down to her knees when she saw me walk

in,” he said.

Looking back, Loats attributes his survival to his “faith and

self-confidence.”

“You need to have faith in yourself and your creator,” he said. “I

also believe in predestination. I believe I was sent to this world

for a purpose, and I’m still here fulfilling it.”

A perspective on serving

Most people who survived the battle took to helping others, Loats

said. He pursued his passion -- teaching. After serving as teacher

and principal in different high schools for close to 20 years, he

came to Newport Harbor Union High School District in Newport Beach as

assistant superintendent in charge of instruction in 1961 and became

the district’s superintendent four years later.

Loats then served as deputy superintendent when the district

merged into Newport-Mesa Unified, and he retired as a consultant for

the district. Newport Harbor High School’s auditorium is named after

the Navy and teaching veteran.

Apart from a career in education, Loats said he made it a point to

volunteer with many community organizations. In 1981, he was given

the honor of presenting President Ronald Reagan -- in the Oval Office

-- a book entitled “The Men of the Gambier Bay.”

Loats’ struggle for survival didn’t stop at Leyte Gulf. He also

survived cancer three times.

“My experience in the South Pacific helped put things in

perspective for me, surely,” he said.

Loats’ basement office is filled with World War II memorabilia,

photos and framed newspaper clippings.

And his fallen shipmates? He carries them in his heart everywhere

he goes.

“They made the ultimate sacrifice, so we can have our liberties

today,” he said.

It was a life-changing event that occurred early in his life,

Loats said.

“It made me appreciate life more,” he said. “It’s so true, that

saying about living each day to the fullest.”

More importantly, Loats said, he now “takes the time.”

“I take the time to watch the sunrise,” he said. “I take the time

to watch the beautiful sunset. And I take the time to watch all the

beauty in between.”

* DEEPA BHARATH is the enterprise and general assignment reporter.

She may be reached at (714) 966-4625 or by e-mail at

deepa.bharath@latimes.com.