LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – One of the men who made up the little band of Lake County’s Pearl Harbor survivors has died.
Clarence Adam “Bud” Boner of Clearlake Oaks died on Wednesday, Nov. 21. He was 90 years old.
Shortly before he died, Boner drove himself to a local hospital rather than calling anyone for assistance, according to his brother, Melvin Boner, of East Wenatchee, Wash.
“He was stubborn,” Melvin Boner said of his brother.
“Bud,” as he was known to his friends, was a familiar face at regular gatherings of the local Pearl Harbor Survivors Association, whose members had survived the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor on the morning of Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941. An estimated 2,400 lives were lost that day.
While Boner frequented the commemorations, he rarely spoke about his experiences, although friends noted that his eyes often filled with tears during the solemn ceremonies.
Boner was born on April 22, 1922, in Dodge City, Kansas, to parents Clarence “Clyde” Boner and Pearl Medley. He was one of seven children, with three boys and four girls.
He decided to enlist at a “bad time” for the country and, at the same time, wanted to get out of school, said his brother.
“He was 17 when he got permission from my mother,” Melvin Boner recalled.
Assigned to the U.S.S. Tennessee, the 19-year-old Boner reportedly was below deck when the attack started at 7:55 a.m. He would remain below working in the ship until 3 p.m. that day.
According to the Naval Historical Center, the Tennessee was one of eight battleships present for the Pearl Harbor attack.
The ship, which was moored inboard of USS West Virginia and next in line to the USS Arizona, was hit twice within minutes of the beginning of the bombardment.
A Pearl Harbor chronology noted that a bomb hit the second of the four gun turrets on its face, and another bomb penetrated the third turret. The Tennessee also was scorched by the burning oil from the USS Arizona, which was blown up by the raid.
The Naval Historical Center history said that the Tennessee underwent temporary repairs before going to the Puget Sound Navy Yard in Washington for an overhaul, returning there in 1942 for modernization. The ship eventually would be scrapped in 1959.
Another local Pearl Harbor Survivor, Henry Anderson of Lakeport, also was aboard the Tennessee at the time of the attack.
While Anderson remained with the ship while it went to Washington for repairs and upgrades, Boner would be assigned to the destroyer DD-466 U.S.S. Waller, and would spend the rest of the war with the ship, his brother said.
His brothers Melvin Boner and Arthur Alpers both also served in the military during the war. Melvin Boner recalled seeing his older brother Bud in San Francisco in 1945, when the U.S.S. Waller came in for repairs.
“They had rammed another ship and tore up the bow,” Melvin Boner said.
Once the war ended, Bud Boner was discharged – on Dec. 7, 1946, his brother recalled.
Bud Boner was placed in the Navy Reserve, and in 1951 was called back when the Korean War started, Melvin Boner said. He received a Purple Heart during that war and was discharged in 1954.
On Sept. 17, 1952, Bud Boner married June Citrino in Reno, Nev. Melvin Boner said the couple made their home in the Bay Area, where they moved in 1954. Bud Boner worked for Lincoln-Mercury.
It was during a visit to see friends that the couple became acquainted with Lake County and ended up buying a “weekend hideout,” Melvin Boner said.
Bud Boner retired from Lincoln-Mercury in 1985 and he and his wife moved to Lake County. June Boner had been ill, and her husband “took care of her continuously,” his brother said. She died in September of that same year.
Melvin Boner said his brother enjoyed the outdoors. “He didn’t care about fishing but he liked to hunt.”
Bud Boner had continued to be an avid deer hunter until only four or five years ago, according to friends.
He had been in good health up until this last year. Melvin Boner visited his brother this past September, and said he wasn’t doing well at that point.
Bud Boner was a good man, his brother said. “Everybody in town that knew him liked him.”
In addition to wife June, Boner was preceded in death by two sisters, Lorene Smith of California and June Meyer of Ulysses, Kansas.
Besides brother Melvin, Boner is survived by brother Arthur Alpers of Milbrae, Calif.; and sisters, Dora May Broberg of Midvale, Utah, and Patsy Robertson of Montezuma, Kansas.
There will be no services for Boner, his brother said. “He wasn’t the kind of guy that wanted that.”
Boner is the fifth local Pearl Harbor survivor to die since May of 2011. He was preceded by his fellow sailors Walter Urmann, USS Blue DD387, March 25; Chuck Bower, US Sub Base, Nov. 12, 2011; Jim Harris, USS Dobbin, Jan. 8, 2011; and Floyd Eddy, mine sweeper USS Trever, May 14, 2011.
Henry Anderson and Bill Slater, both of Lakeport, are the county’s last remaining Pearl Harbor survivors.
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