Remembering A Past Fourth Of July And The Amazing Roger Korner
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John Nelson graduated from the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point, New York in 1965 and enjoyed a long career at sea on commercial and military support ships. After retiring from his seagoing career, he continued working in various capacities in the maritime industry until a final retirement in 2012. Since then he has been active in researching local history and restoring and operating steam engines and antique mills.
He lives in neighboring Panola County and is a long-time member of the Yalobusha Historical Society. He is also the uncle of Herald editor David Howell.
A look back through my old journals reminded me that July 4th of 1994 was another Independence Day spent on Diego Garcia, that charming little atoll located in the middle of the Indian Ocean. As stated in a past column, the holiday celebrated on what is basically an American naval base situated on a British island could be a little strange.
My memories of the 94 holiday are less about good natured bantering between Britts and Americans and more about several events that took place about that time.
One occurred a few days after the Fourth with a gathering of senior personnel from the island and ships based there to meet the new Britt Rep as the senior British officer on the island is called. He has the unusual position of being not only a Royal Navy Commander in charge of the small contingent of British sailors and marines on Diego Garcia, but also the highest civilian authority on the island.
A few days before the holiday, we gathered at the seamen’s club for a ceremony marking a change of commodores of Maritime Prepositioning Squadron Two. The squadron of five ships loaded with all the supplies required to support a Marine Expeditionary Force for thirty days was a prominent presence on the island, and serving aboard one of those ships was my reason for being there.
For those not familiar with seamen’s clubs, or seamen’s centers as they are sometimes called, they are operated by the United Seamen’s Service (USS) and have been a fixture in some major ports since the organization was established in1942. The clubs are unique in that they cater to civilian and navy sailors of all allied nations, and to U.S. military and civilian personnel.
There was yet another special function at the seamen’s club about that time to welcome the president and executive director of the USS who were visiting the island. Of particular interest to me was that Roger Korner, the executive director, was someone I knew from the days of the Viet Nam sealift when he managed the club in Newport.
After the escalation of the war in 1965, existing port facilities in the country were totally inadequate to handle the huge volume of war materials flooding into Viet Nam. Newport, as the name implies, was a new facility constructed a few miles upriver from Saigon that provided additional dock space to supply ships.
Roger was instrumental in setting up the center at Newport, but at our chance meeting in 94, I was more interested in hearing his account of how he had shut the club down in the spring of 1975 when it became obvious that the city would soon fall to North Vietnamese troops. That was a challenging task as the facility housed everything from a library to a sizable restaurant.
There was no chance of getting the furnishings and equipage out of the country, so Roger gave some of the smaller items to Vietnamese employees and friends and managed to have larger items like cooking ranges and refrigeration equipment trucked to a local orphanage. After terminating the business of the club as best he could, Roger was among the last Americans to evacuate Saigon in April of 75.
Recalling Independence Day in 1994 has made me think about Roger and to remember that he was to experience another hasty evacuation. That one was from the office of the USS located on the 21st floor of Tower 1 of the World Trade Center. He was in the office with seven other employees when the first plane hit at 8:45 a.m. on the day we all now refer to as 9/11.
Those of us with ties to the USS waited in suspense to learn the fate of those who might have been in the office until a three-page, email narrative of their escape went out on September 18th to all the seamen’s centers. A few days later it was forwarded to me by a friend who then managed the club in Bremerhaven, Germany.
Though separated during their escape, all eight managed to get out of the tower by making their way down a crowded stairwell and exiting through the Marriott Hotel located between the towers onto Liberty Street. After harrowing experiences dodging falling debris in an atmosphere clogged with concrete dust, ash, and smoke, they managed to board rescue boats that took them across the Hudson River to safety in Jersey City.
The USS has been through lean times lately beginning with Covid lockdowns that kept seamen aboard their ships. Merchant ships are spending less time in port, and both naval and military support ships have recently been deployed away from Seamen’s centers, and some clubs have been temporarily closed .
With that in mind, I got the number of the USS office now located in Jersey City, and called a few days ago to check on Roger. Though he was unavailable at the time, an associate told me that he is still the executive director of the organization.
So ole Roger is still out there in the world of shipping and might be doing something cool this July Fourth while I will be landlocked at home just trying to keep cool.
