THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, September 16, 1994 TAG: 9409140122
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 04 EDITION: LYNNHAVEN
SOURCE: BY GARY EDWARDS, CORRESPONDENT
LENGTH: Medium: 63 lines
More than 500 former crewmen of the aircraft carrier Hancock mustered earlier this week for a reunion at the Cavalier Hotel, marking the golden anniversary of the ship's launching.
Ed Orchowski, who served on the carrier from its commissioning in 1944 until the end of World War II, organized the first reunion in 1978 and has been involved in getting the group together every year since. But this year's reunion held special meaning, he said, because of the 50th anniversary.
Orchowski, 75, said he thought of the idea of an annual reunion in 1978, when his wife, Betty, asked him what he wanted for his birthday.
``I told her, `A Hancock reunion.' ''
Betty Orchowski got busy and presented her husband with the first reunion of carrier crewmen in 1978. That year, 194 former Hancock hands showed up in Atlantic City.
``In Atlantic City, guys were crying, hugging each other,'' said Orchowski, who now lives in Pittsburgh.
The old shipmates may have been less tearful Saturday as they checked in at the registration desk in the hotel lobby, but they were still visibly emotional for this year's gathering, which concluded Wednesday.
Former pilot Jim ``Red'' Morey of Granville, Ohio, talked about fellow flier Lt. R.L. Hunt, whose plane crashed on a bombing mission in January 1945. Hunt was taken prisoner and later died in a prisoner-of-war camp in Japan.
Retired Capt. John Ford, former commanding officer of Oceana Naval Air Station and a Virginia Beach resident, remembered the day the Hancock was hit by a kamikaze plane.
``7 April 1945. I was there,'' said Ford, an ensign at the time. The Hancock suffered heavy damages from the exploding Japanese suicide-mission plane. Twenty-seven crewmen were killed, 35 were reported missing in action.
Aragona Village resident John Stephens won the Distinguished Flying Cross after being shot down in the Leyte Gulf in 1944. The 23-year Navy veteran and two other flight-crew members spent 31 days with Philippine guerrillas before being picked up by the Navy.
The building of the Hancock was financed by the John Hancock Insurance Co. with money collected through the sale of war bonds. It also saw action in Vietnam. The Essex-class carrier was decommissioned in September 1976.
John ``Jack'' McElwee arrived with his wife, Barbara, late Saturday afternoon. A pilot during the later stages of World War II, McElwee served on the Hancock from its commissioning until he left active duty in November 1945.
He was greeted with special fondness by his former shipmates. McElwee left the carrier Hancock and went to work for the company that built it. He rose to chief executive officer of John Hancock Insurance and retired as chairman of the board in 1993.
Remembrances and memories updated, the old shipmates repaired to their rooms to ready themselves for reunion activities that included golf at Oceana Naval Air Station, a tour of Williamsburg and visits to the MacArthur Memorial and the Norfolk Naval Base. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by GARY EDWARDS
John Schultz is registration chairman for the Hancock's 50th reunion
and served on the ship in the early '60s.
by CNB