We’re Going to Meet in Philadelphia in 2010

The USS Tarawa Association will hold its 2010 annual reunion in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The city was selected over Pensacola, Florida, and Williamsburg, Virginia, by the membership at our 2008 meeting in Charleston, South Carolina, in May.

The members also elected Shipmate Cliff Gardner as our president for the next two years. Cliff previous served as our leader in 1998-99. He will take over from Frank Grosey who had served multiple terms. Two members volunteered to take on two important organization roles and were accepted by the membership. Doug Harding will be secretary and Bill Maltais will handle marketing. Harding succeeds Jim Putnam and Maltais takes over from an ailing Jim Hoopingarner.

Gardner served in Tarawa from 1953 to 1957 as an AK/2 in S-1 Division. He is a deacon in the Episcopal Church and has led the Sunday morning service at our reunions for many years. Harding was an AK/3 with Fighter Squadron 671 during the 1951-52 Med Cruise. Maltais was a corporal with the ship’s Marine Detachment from 1952 to 1955.

The Association will meet in Buffalo, New York, next year. Members are urged to apply for a passport because we expect to go into Canada to visit sites of interest. Until June, 2009, a birth certificate and a picture ID (ex a drivers license) are the only documents necessary

Chaplain Bob Hutchison reported that 23 shipmates had died since our last reunion in Dayton. He conducted an outstanding Memorial Service at the closing banquet, honoring those who died at the Battle of Tarawa and those who have passed on from the crews of CV-40 and LHA-1.

Historian Bob Atkinson learned upon returning home from the reunion that the Navy Has agreed to loan us the Tarawa’s bell, now housed at a church in Connecticut. The church had agreed to give it up provided we found them a replacement. The Navy said the bell is ours without a replacement to the church. The only condition imposed is that it be safely housed and displayed in the USS Saratoga when that ship becomes a museum and educational center at Davisville, Rhode Island.

Gardner reported that the last hurdle to saving the Saratoga is the Army Corps of Engineers demand that any contaminated material dredged from the ship’s new home be disposed of in an environmentally safe manner.

It was also revealed that the USS Tarawa LHA-1 is to be decommissioned in 2009. It will go into mothballs, ready for reactivation if needed.