LIMA — Howard Wellman, 95, of Lima has had a series of fortunate events in his life. He will say that he’s blessed. He is a Navy veteran of World War II, and he fought in one of the most prestigious naval battles that occurred during WWII.
He was born May 29, 1922, in New Bremen, an only child.
“I graduated in 1940, and then I worked for Bell Telephone in Dayton,” said Wellman. “I was there in December of 1941 when Pearl Harbor was attacked.”
Wellman, 20, decided to enlist. His first thought was to go into the Army, but fortunately for him his mind was changed.
“A friend that I worked with in Dayton was in the reserves, and he had been called up. When he came back on leave, I was all set to go in the Army. They needed telephone men, and he said with what I know about electric, he recommended I go in the Navy where I would get valuable training. So, I went to the Navy and went to boot camp in Chicago. From Chicago I went to computer school in San Diego. I never had heard of a computer before that,” Wellman said.
A NEW SHIP
While he was in San Diego, he was assigned to a new ship being built in Boston.
“I went to radar school in Portland, Maine. From one corner of the United States to the other corner,” Wellman said. “Because of the training I had, I was assigned to this destroyer because I could help with the alignment of all of the new equipment on the destroyer,” Wellman said.
Wellman had never before been on a big ship before going into the Navy.
“I loved the water,” said Wellman.
Wellman traveled on a “shake down cruise” to Bermuda on the U.S.S. Haraden 585. A shake down cruise is a short cruise taken to ensure that there are no immediate bugs in the system of the ship.
“While we were down there (Bermuda), we went through a hurricane, and then we went back to Boston. Then we went to Norfolk, Virginia, where we picked up what they called the Intrepid. It was a new aircraft carrier. We escorted it down to the Panama Canal. The Intrepid was the largest ship to ever go through the Panama Canal at that time. It hit something on the hull of the ship, on the bottom of the ship, and we were there for a week for temporary repairs,” Wellman said.
No worries for Wellman, as he had a cousin stationed in Panama.
“While I was there, I had a first cousin, his name was Richard Wissman, he was in the Air Force in Panama. So we were able to have a week that we were able to visit. He showed me all about Panama and took me all over,” Wellman said.
The Intrepid needed further repairs, so back up to Long Beach, California, Wellman and his ship went.
ESCORTING TROOPS
“Then we went to Pearl Harbor, Hawaiian Islands,” Wellman said. “We started our escort program with the troop ships, to escort the Marines to various islands in the Pacific like the Marshall Islands. We did that, we did that for a year and a half or two years, that’s what we did. We’d go back to Pearl Harbor, take the troops out to another island, just keep going back and forth.”
“Every place we went to drop troops off, it was an invasion, and we were there and involved. One time after things were settled, we were told to go in and see if there was any activity on those islands. We would go in, and we would go around the island and see if there was any activity on that island or living people or anything. We were going along one time, and all at once they had artillery on that island and they started firing on us, and of course we went full speed out of there.
“We cranked the hatch, and we would stick our head out there and we could see, and I mean to tell you their artillery was just dropping all around us. How we got out of there without being hit with one shell, and we got out of their range as quick as we could,” Wellman said.
Wellman and his shipmates did have down time from escorting the troops. At that time, the Navy had taken over a golf course in Pearl Harbor.
“I was able to play golf, one of my favorite sports,” Wellman said. “Also while we were in Pearl Harbor, we had three days at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel. So we played golf and swam at Waikiki Beach.”
THE LEYTE GULF
Little did Wellman know at that time that he and his ship were headed for one of the largest naval battles of World War II, the battle of Leyte Gulf in the Philippines.
“So then the last battle I was in was Leyte Gulf in the Philippians. This is after the (Japanese) had taken over the Philippians, and Gen. (Douglas) MacArthur was taken out of the Philippians by a submarine,” Wellman said. “When MacArthur left, he said, ‘I shall return.’
“In Leyte Gulf we had an encounter with the Japanese fleet coming up. They were coming up the Surigao Strait. We performed the ultimate battle maneuver in the Navy, and it is the crossing of the T. That’s when we can shoot with all our broadside guns, and the enemy can only shoot with their forward guns.”
The Navy had taken some action prior to the Japanese fleet arriving.
“The day that we got word that the Japanese fleet was coming up Surigao Straits, Mindanao Island, the ships went around dividing their ammunition so everyone would be able to, when they had their turn to making the pass on that Surigao channel, with the (Japanese) coming up the channel, we could shoot with all our broadside guns,” Wellman said. “We were all lined up, carriers, battleships, I’d say there were probably 20 ships in the Navy in this encounter. We had bad weather.
“It was nighttime when we encountered and the Japanese came within range. I was up in the director of the ship up above the bridge; we had the antenna on the director. The battle started late at night, and we sent PT boats in with torpedoes and they went up the channel, fired the torpedoes, and it was like the fourth of July. Their tracers were a different color than ours, so you could see.
“But it didn’t last very long. We were standing by for torpedo run also. So it was early in the morning, and we were told to go up the Surigao Straits channel and finish everything off, I mean anything that was living or moving. The channel was filled with dead bodies. And we more or less got in there, and evidently communications they said what the situation was and they said, go out of the Leyte Gulf and head north and escort two of our carriers, our converted carriers had been damaged in the encounter.
“See now, the (Japanese) thought they had us in the Leyte Gulf because the one fleet came up Surigao Straits and the other one was coming up from the north, and they were going to close off Leyte Gulf so nobody could escape. So we escorted those two carriers to a place in the Admiralty Islands for repairs.”
A NEW DIRECTION
“While we were there, my gunnery officer came to me and he said, ‘Wellman’ — we called each other by our last names — ‘Wellman,’ he said, ‘how would you like to go to school in Washington, D.C.?’ Well you know a remark like that, I mean the gunnery officer and myself, I was an enlisted man and he was an officer, and I said, ‘If you’re not kidding, I would take that offer.’ As much as I would like to stay with the ship, I was ready to go home.”
It took Wellman 30 days to get back to the United States.
“He was seven days off that ship, and a Kamikaze hit his ship and killed a lot of people,” said Wellman’s wife, Althea.
“The Kamikaze cut the ship right in the middle,” Wellman said, continuing. “It was a terrible thing. I guess when it hit, it just blew that ship wide open. It was still in Leyte Gulf in Philippians. Lots of lives were lost. I heard about it quite a bit later.”
Wellman ended up back in Washington, D.C., for school for training on new equipment on the new destroyers. Once again, the Navy had taken over a golf course, so Wellman was once again able to play is favorite sport.
“My two golfing buddies were assigned to the President Roosevelt carrier, and I went up to the department for reassignment, and I said I’d like to get on the President Roosevelt too,” Wellman said. “They said well, they had all the fire controllmen they needed. I was assigned to go to Boston and be assigned to a new destroyer, in the process of being built, the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. that was in January of 1946. I had enough points to get out and leave the service. And so then I came home.”
INSTALLING TVS
Wellman came back to New Bremen and went back to work for Bell Telephone. He came to Lima in 1953 after requesting a transfer. The schooling he had while in the Navy proved to be a valuable asset.
“When television came in, I was in the television department with Bell Telephone,” Wellman said.
Althea Wellman added, “He was one of the first people to know television. My dad had a store, Howell Electric, and he said I’m going to sell TVs. Dad said he heard about a fellow by the name of Howard Wellman that knows more about TVs than anyone else. Howard put the first television in in New Bremen, and he put one in in Fort Loramie and then he put one in my dad’s store. That’s how I met him.
“It was funny because I talked to him and didn’t think a thing about it. One evening when the doorbell rang, I answered it, and it was Howard. I said, ‘Daddy isn’t here,’ and he said, ‘I didn’t come to see your dad, I came to see you.’ We got married in 1949. We’ve been married almost 68 years now. If you’re married 68 years, you go through a lot together.”
WINONA LAKE
The couple have two children, daughter Winona and son Mark. It was in 1965 that Althea was looking at the paper, and an ad popped out at her.
“The paper said, take your acreage and turn it into recreation. I said look at this Howard,” said Althea. “It’s the craziest thing we’ve ever done.”
Winona Lake, located at 5675 W. Breese Road, Lima, has been in business since 1966.
The couple’s children, Winona and Mark, are both instrumental in the business, however Howard and Althea are still working throughout the summer.
“Howard’s had cancer now for 10 years. He has multiple myeloma. He refused chemo after a while, and he’s still living. He just prays about it,” Althea Wellman said. “He keeps having close calls, and they all turn out great.”
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