Navy veterans honored at boat show

The Newport Boat Show kicked off Wednesday by honoring six veterans from one of the most celebrated boats in U.S. Navy history.

Six men who served on the U.S. battleship Missouri ? the site of the formal Japanese surrender on Sept. 2, 1945, to end World War II ? were presented with plaques at a ceremony held amid the hundreds of yachts on display at the Newport Boat Show.

“They’re veterans and they’re a part of history,” said Jim Bras, national chairman of legislative affairs for the Navy League, a group founded by President Theodore Roosevelt to educate the public about naval matters.

This is the third year boat show organizers and the Navy League have honored veterans, Bras said.

The show, held at Lido Marina Village through Sunday, features about 300 boats that are collectively valued at about $300 million.

The veterans spent Wednesday morning looking at old photographs and sharing stories of their time aboard Missouri.

“It’s marvelous, just to see somebody’s still around,” said Dr. Frank Mancini. A doctor aboard Missouri, Mancini was present for the Japanese surrender ceremony.

Mancini remembered hundreds of planes flying over the ship after the treaty was signed. The waters surrounding Missouri were filled with Allied ships there to mark the historic occasion, he said.

“It was the most awesome thing in the world,” Mancini said.

For some of the veterans, Wednesday’s visit was the first time in many years they had had the opportunity to share stories with their Missouri comrades.

Veteran Stephen Pahulick said it’s not often he gets the chance to get together with other Missouri veterans. He served on Missouri from 1944 to 1946 in the Brooklyn shipyard, before the ship was commissioned.

Bod Edmond, who served two years aboard Missouri during the late 1940s, said he attends a reunion every year.

“It’s great; it’s memory time,” said Edmond, who lives in La Palma.

Edmond remembered being aboard Missouri when the ship carried President Harry Truman from Rio De Janeiro to the East Coast.dpt.04-missouri-1-CPhotoInfoGR1QJL0820060504iypoejncJAMIE FLANAGAN / DAILY PILOT(LA)Frank Mancini, left, and other veterans who served aboard the U.S. battleship Missouri gathered Wednesday in Newport Harbor.