Evan Fenn, the last surviving sailor from the destroyer Monaghan (DD-354), which sank in a deadly typhoon in the Pacific on Dec. 18, 1944, died at age 84. Evan was one of the Greatest Generation that I felt honored to have talked to during my research for DOWN TO THE SEA. A rough-and-tumble cowboy from Arizona, Evan somehow made it off the capsized ship that horrible morning when 256 of his shipmates perished. Evan was one of only six Monaghan survivors to be pulled from the storm-tossed sea two days later.
Books by Bruce Henderson
While ‘trolling’ the internet looking for info re circumstances surrounding the deaths of several sailors from our rural community in NE Mississippi, we discovered the story of the USS Monaghan. One of those locals, Sherman Higginbotham, was one of the many victims of this typhoon. He’d made it thus far through the war to be killed by the weather. How sad.
My great uncle was Lt. Robert C Mills, engineer on the Monaghan. I recently came into possession of letters and papers related to his service and death upon the death of my father, his nephew. Among the papers is a letter from Joseph C. McCrane, Water Tender 2c to my great-grandparents. The letter is on Navy Department stationary and describes the events of the sinking and the survivors. It also listed the names and (at that time) addresses of the six survivors. I started Googling tonight in hopes that maybe one was still alive, and found this blog. I am saddened that I did not attempt to do this sooner (I have thought about it over the years, well before I had this letter) and get to talk to one of those brave men before they passed.