LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – One of Lake County's best known World War II veterans and a survivor of Pearl Harbor has died.
Walter Urmann died on the evening of Sunday, March 25, with Alice Darrow, his constant loving companion of the last five years, at his bedside. He was 88 years old.
He was born on Nov. 27, 1923, in Windsor, Calif., and resided there until he joined the US Navy at age 17 in January 1941.
He was a young sailor aboard the destroyer USS Blue DD387 at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii when the Japanese Imperial forces attacked the U.S. base on Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941.
In recent months Urmann had suffered a stroke and had remained hospitalized until his death last weekend.
Urmann is the fourth local Pearl Harbor survivor to die in the past year and a half. Chuck Bower of Clearlake Oaks, US Sub Base, died Nov. 12, 2011; Jim Harris of Lucerne, USS Dobbin, died Jan. 8, 2011; and Floyd Eddy of Kelseyville, mine sweeper USS Trever, died, May 14, 2011.
Now, there are three local men who served on that day who remain: Clarence “Bud” Boner, USS Tennessee; Bill Slater, USS Pennsylvania; and Henry Anderson, USS Tennessee.
In a 2007 interview with Lake County News, which can be found in its entirety at http://bit.ly/Hc3JC8 , Urmann – who had just turned 18 by the time of the attack – recalled being on watch that morning.
He said he had taken the flag from the quarter deck to the stern, where he was waiting for the ship's whistle to blow, which he said was the signal to raise the flag.
“At about seven minutes to eight I heard a horrible explosion over on Ford Island,” he said.
Urmann said he looked up to see a Japanese plane, flying so low over the Blue's deck that he could see the pilot waving at him, and the big red suns on the side of the plane.
“I knew we were at war,” he said.
He and his fellow sailors rushed to their battle stations, and found the magazines locked. They had to break the locks to get at the ammunition for the Blue's anti-aircraft guns. He said the Blue's guns started firing at 8:05 a.m.
It would be nearly 35 minutes later before the Blue got under way to leave the harbor, returning fire, shooting down two planes belonging to the Japanese. “They tried to bomb us all the way out,” Urmann said.
The Blue, the third ship to get out of Pearl Harbor, would hit a Japanese submarine with depth charges, and later met with the USS St. Louis, the USS Helena and three other destroyers, and spent the rest of the day looking for the Japanese.
“Luckily, we never found them,” Urmann said
The Blue would move to Wake Island on Dec. 8, 1941, and returned to Pearl Harbor that same day.
“We couldn't believe the damage that we saw,” said Urmann. “It was a mess.”
Urmann and the Blue would later make their way to the Marshall Islands and then the Solomon Islands, where the ship was struck by three Japanese torpedoes on Aug. 22, 1942, in “Iron Bottom Sound” near Guadalcanal.
“I saw 'em coming,” he said.
The Blue's stern was blown off. Urmann would recount that the torpedo hit the area where his bunk was and had he been there he would have been among the deceased.
The Blue was scuttled on Aug. 23, 1942, near Guadalcanal. Urmann remembered, “The last I saw was 387 on the bow,” before she sank into 3,600 feet of water.
Urmann got out of the Navy in January 1946, after five years of service. He would later return to the Navy for a year and a half during the Korean War. When he left the Navy for the final time in 1951 he had the rank of first class petty officer.
After the war, Urmann worked for Pacific Telephone for 33 years. He eventually retired to Clearlake Park with his wife Iris in 1982.
Since coming to Lake County 30 years ago he had been active with the Pearl Harbor Survivors Chapter 23 North, participating in many presentations to local college classes concerning his witness to history.
During his retirement in Lake County Urmann became well known, and was a favorite with the California Highway Patrol, where he was a volunteer in the 1990s, and officers from the Clear Lake CHP office have consistently had a presence at the Pearl Harbor commemorations in recent years.
Urmann always liked to sing and didn't care too much whether you wanted to join him or not, according to Ronnie Bogner, who along with wife Janeane organizes the annual Pearl Harbor commemoration events in Lakeport.
Bogner said Urmann would spontaneously break into song with no particular warning if the mood struck him. His singing is recorded in the video above, during a 2010 visit to Pearl Harbor.
Urmann is preceded in death by his wife, Iris, who died in 2005, and his daughter, Patricia, who died in 2011.
The local Pearl Harbor Survivors group also is composed of members known as “sweethearts,” and that's how Urmann met his own new sweetheart and companion, Alice Darrow.
She had been a Navy nurse and was the widow of Dean Darrow, who served aboard the USS West Virginia. Darrow died in 1991.
Urmann and Alice Darrow proved an energetic duo. They were fixtures at Pearl Harbor Survivors events, and together traveled around the world, making trips in the last few years to Sydney, Australia, where Urmann had been on leave during World War II.
They also traveled with Bill Slater and the Bogners to the final Pearl Harbor Survivors ceremony in Hawaii in December 2010.
Urmann is survived by two granddaughters, seven great-grandchildren and numerous nieces and nephews. Jim Darrow, son of Urmann's companion Alice Darrow, thought of Walter as an adopted father and affectionately referred to him as “Pops.”
A memorial is planned for April 21, Ronnie Bogner said.
Bogner said more details will be made available closer to the memorial service.
Donations in Urmann's name for preserving the Pearl Harbor Survivors Memorial Mast and Library Park in Lakeport can be made by calling Janeane Bogner at 707-998-3280.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .