Pearl Harbor

Joseph Lloyd Alsop, who was stationed aboard a Navy minesweeper during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and later participated in the D-Day landing in Normandy, died Nov. 23 of respiratory failure at St. Joseph Medical Center. The longtime Towson resident was 88. Mr. Alsop was born and raised in Fredericksburg, Va., and after high school enlisted in the Navy in 1939. On Dec. 6, 1941, Mr. Alsop's ship, the USS Boggs, an old three-stack World War I-era destroyer that had been converted to a high-speed minesweeper, was steaming into Pearl Harbor after a week at sea towing targets for gunnery practice.

J oseph Lloyd Alsop, who was stationed aboard a Navy minesweeper during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and later participated in the D-Day landing in Normandy, died Nov. 23 of respiratory failure at St. Joseph Medical Center. The longtime Towson resident was 88. Mr. Alsop was born and raised in Fredericksburg, Va., and after high school enlisted in the Navy in 1939. On Dec. 6, 1941, Mr. Alsop's ship, the USS Boggs, an old three-stack World War I-era destroyer that had been converted to a high-speed minesweeper, was steaming into Pearl Harbor after a week at sea towing targets for gunnery practice.

Stanley R. "Pete" Gunther Sr., a Pearl Harbor survivor who later went on to a two-decade Navy career, died Nov. 19 of heart failure at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center. He was 92 and lived in Lodge Forest, near Edgemere, for many years. Mr. Gunther was born and raised at Fort Howard and later earned his General Educational Development certificate from Sparrows Point High School. Mr. Gunther, who quit high school, enlisted in the Navy in 1934 and was serving as chief boatswain's mate aboard the repair ship USS Vestal, which was moored alongside the battleship USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941.

Herman J. Travers, a retired postal worker who survived the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and later received two Bronze Stars for heroism during the Battle of Peleiu, died of complications from Alzheimer's disease Tuesday at Genesis Loch Raven Center. He was 89. Born in Baltimore and raised in Canton, Mr. Travers attended Patterson High School for a year before dropping out and going to work in waterfront packing houses in Fells Point and Canton to help support his family.

Malcolm "Mal" Sherman, a former Rouse Co. executive and real estate agent who battled blockbusting and worked tirelessly for integrated neighborhoods during the 1950s and 1960s, died Thursday of pneumonia at the Broadmead retirement community in Cockeysville. He was 87. Mr. Sherman was born in Philadelphia and spent his early years there. After the death of his father in 1927, he was sent abroad to a boarding school in Lausanne, Switzerland, where he lived until returning to New York City in 1932.

The Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor takes place only near the end of "From Here to Eternity" (1953). But it's an ideal selection for the Maryland Historical Society's series, "Patriotic Hollywood: World War II in Film." Stephen Ambrose once wrote, "What held [American GIs] together was not country and flag, but unit cohesion." "From Here to Eternity" is about the pain of building that unit cohesion and the rewards it gives to all who join it, be they selfless, selfish or damaged.

Charles William Winkler Jr., a retired Baltimore County employee who witnessed the bombing of Pearl Harbor while serving as a crewman aboard a Navy tugboat, died of Alzheimer's disease Tuesday at Good Samaritan Nursing Center. The Cub Hill resident was 93. Born in Baltimore and raised in Reservoir Hill and Gardenville, he attended Baltimore parochial schools. He joined the Navy at age 18 in 1934 and served aboard the USS Lexington, Chicago and Bobolink. In early December 1941, he was given the choice of remaining in Hawaii, where he was stationed at Maui, or returning to the mainland.

I still think about Saipan because it was the worst one," recalled Samuel A. Culotta, a Baltimore lawyer and frequent Republican candidate, who spent World War II in the Pacific as a Navy corpsman. Culotta, 84, was a veteran of nine island landings that stretched from Makin Atoll to Kwaajalein, Eniwetok, Okinawa and the Philippines. The hellish memories of five days on Saipan in the Mariana Islands are as fresh as they were 65 years ago, Culotta said. He likened the June 15, 1944, invasion, to an almost "forgotten D-Day," with 3,500 Americans killed and thousands wounded.