Vets visit students

The hundreds of Newport Harbor High School students who gathered on the football field to listen to World War II veterans tell stories in honor of Memorial Day Friday might have been too young to fully appreciate what it was like to fly a plane in the South Pacific, but they weren’t too young to be awed by the harrowing tale told by Col. Gene Wallace.

Dressed in his decorated uniform, Wallace talked about running off to war immediately after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and being shot down over the South Pacific.

“The radio announced, ‘Attention: Pearl Harbor has been attacked. All military personnel, report to your bases,’ and a few weeks later I was flying a B-26 aircraft, looking for submarines,” Wallace said.

Two men of the eight aboard his plane drowned; two of the survivors were later killed by the islanders when they made it to shore and another died of disease in the jungle, Wallace said. He escaped, but contracted malaria, according to his daughter Fran.

After the ceremony, while the other students all funneled through the gates and left the stadium, Derrick Ruiz approached the elderly veteran.

“Thank you so much for serving. You make our country safe,” Derrick said, solemnly looking into Wallace’s smiling eyes.

The ceremony, sponsored by the Student Political Action Committee, began in 1994, when World War II veteran George Grupe saw the names of 12 Newport Harbor graduates who had died in the war while reading through a 50-year retrospective about the school, he said.

Then-history professor and leader of the Student Political Action Committee, Phil D’Agostino — now the principal of Estancia High School — brought it to the attention of his students, who insisted that the school should do it, Grupe said.

Fourteen years later, Cameron Chase, a Newport Harbor student and president of the committee, still feels it’s important for the school to show its support of those who died protecting our country.

“My grandfather was a Purple Heart recipient in World War II,” Chase said. “As of a year ago, I didn’t know much about what my grandfather did, but I’ve been talking to my grandmother a lot, and it has showed me how much we owe to our veterans.”

Near the end of the proceedings, the names of the 37 Newport Harbor graduates who died fighting in wars from World War II and on were read by Al Irwin, who graduated from the school in 1936 and fought in World War II. A bell was rung after every name. The names are commemorated on a plaque that’s displayed on campus.

Newport Harbor graduates who died in wars since World War II:

David Allen

Sam Allen

Kent Anderson

Bill Brownie

Roy Coe

Wilford C. Durston

Vernon Fitzpatrick

Jim Harvey

Donald Heaston

Richard Henley

Bill Hourigan

Harold Imoto

Max Jordan

Jim Kennell

Jim Kimbrough

Brian R. Lighthart

Leslie Marshall

Michael R. Mangan

Martin E. Marzolf

Robert Meek

Galen L. Moore

James M. Nettles

Chris Perdomo

Robert Ramsey

Paul Reinhold

George Shaefer

Paul Shaefer

Tim Shafer

Jerry Shomaker

Gerald Smith

Floyd Tait

Duane Thornton

Ron Troyano

Phil Vaughn

Michael Young

Jose Garibay

ALAN BLANK may be reached at (714) 966-4623 or at alan.blank@latimes.com.