"Submarine Killer" Remembers

From the Oct. 6, 2010 Wisconsin Rapids (Wi) Tribune.

Will Lehner of Stevens Point, Wisconsin was on an honor flight along with 103 World War II veterans to Washington, DC, to view the World War II Memorial. He got his nickname in the opening moments of the war.

Just hours before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941, Lehner's ship, the USS Ward spotted the cunning tower and periscope of a submarine and attacked it immediately. Lehner was an ammunition handler on one of the ship's guns and on their second shot, hit the mini sub where the cunning tower joins the hull.

Sadly, the message the Ward sent off did not reach the proper authorities until later in the morning when it was too late.

"Nobody believed the story for 60 years. They wanted proof, and that was at the bottom of the ocean," according to Lehner. Later, he joined a National Geographic-sponsored search for the submarine with Bob Ballard. Two years later, a University of Hawaii team found it.

First at Pearl Harbor. --Cooter