OnMemorial Day 2011: Marvin McMillan (1922-1944) is remembered. Born in Morton County, Kansas, on 26 Mar 1922, Marvin McMillan joined the US Navy Reserve at 18. When he reached the Pacific, it was the first time Marvin had seen the ocean.
The fourth of five children of Lee Roy Jonathan Vincent McMillan and Lena Saul McMillan, Marvin labored on the family farm with his father and two sisters. His older brother had died at the age of 10. His mother followed on 17 Feb 1940, a few months before the 1940 census seen below.
McMillan, Marvin, 1940 US Federal Census, Year: 1940; Census Place: Harmony, Stevens, Kansas; Roll: m-t0627-01263; Page: 2B; Enumeration District: 95-3
Marvin McMillan Joins the Navy
On 5 Sep 1942, Marvin enlisted in the US Navy Reserve in Kansas City. By 11 May 1943, he was serving aboard the USS S-28 (SS-133), a submarine of the S-class. Patrolling the waters around Dutch Harbor, Alaska, Marvin McMillan served as a Radioman Third Class. By summer, they were reassigned to Pearl Harbor.
Marvin McMillan Lost at Sea
According to Wikipedia:
On 3 July 1944, [submarine S-28] began training operations off Oahu with the United States Coast Guard cutter Reliance. The anti-submarine warfare exercises continued into the evening of 4 July. At 17:30, the day’s concluding exercise began. Contact between the two became sporadic and, at 18:20, the last, brief contact with S-28 was made and lost. All attempts to establish communications failed.
Assistance arrived from Pearl Harbor, but a thorough search of the area failed to locate the submarine. Two days later, a slick of diesel fuel appeared in the area where she had been operating, but the extreme depth exceeded the range of available equipment. A Court of Inquiry was unable to determine the cause of the loss of S-28.
Marvin McMillan Remembered
Marvin’s father and sisters placed the memorial stone (seen above) in the Dermot Cemetery, Stevens County, Kansas, where the family had homesteaded several generations.
FindaGrave, Courtesy David Blewster Wright
My husband and I found this memorial stone in 2010 on a marathon road trip. This is when we first learned of Marvin’s service and loss. On a subsequent trip to Oahu, Hawaii, we found his marker at the Courts of the Missing at the Punchbowl Cemetery on Oahu, Hawaii .
On Memorial Day 2011: Marvin McMillan (1922-1944) is remembered.
Thank you, Jerry. I’ll add this information to our family tree.
The S-28 and its lost crew members are remembered every July by the US Submarine Veterans, Inc. (USSVI) Furthermore, the official memorial to the S-28 is located in Riverside Park, adjacent to the Battleship USS North Carolina (BB 55) in Wilmington, NC. It was dedicated by the NC Submarine Veterans in May 2007. See the following website for pictures:
http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM8PP2_USS_S_28_and_all_other_WWII_Submarines_Wilmington_NC
Jerry “Patch” Paciorek
USSVI Tarheel Base
http://www.ncsubvets.org