OREGON
8A — THE OBSERVER
State bans
guns from
Capitol
Bill also mandates
the safe storage
in homes
By ANDREW SELSKY
The Associated Press
SALEM — Legisla-
tors have brought guns
into the Oregon State Cap-
itol for personal protec-
tion. Protesters have carried
semi-automatic rifl es onto
the grounds and into the
building.
Later this year, doing so
will be outlawed under a bill
signed Tuesday, May 1, by
Gov. Kate Brown that was
earlier passed by the Leg-
islature, with Democrats in
favor and minority Repub-
licans opposed. The new
law also mandates the safe
storage of guns.
“Today, I am signing SB
554 with the hope that we
can take another step for-
ward to help spare more
Oregon families from the
grief of losing a loved one to
gun violence,” Brown said
on Twitter.
The bill was named for
Cindy Yuille and Steve For-
syth, who were slain in a
shooting at a Portland-area
shopping mall in 2012 by
a man who stole a friend’s
AR-15 rifl e. A third person
was seriously wounded.
Among those who testi-
fi ed in favor of the measure
was Paul Kemp, Forsyth’s
brother-in-law.
“I will never forget the
screams I heard when we
had to tell my teenage
nephew that his father had
been killed at the mall,”
Kemp said.
Backers of the new law,
which takes eff ect three
months after the Legislature
adjourns this summer, said
it will prevent accidental
shootings by children, sui-
cides and mass shootings.
It requires that fi rearms
be secured with a trigger or
cable lock, in a locked con-
tainer or gun room.
Opponents said a delay
in accessing a fi rearm for
self-defense could cost lives.
Jim Mischel, of Sheridan,
provided written testimony
to lawmakers describing
how his wife woke up when
he was away one night in
1981. She heard a noise,
went to investigate and saw
a stranger in their home.
She tried to get a pistol
that was in a locked gun
box in the nightstand out
but was unable to before the
man got into the bedroom
and threatened her with his
gun, Mischel said.
“She has never recov-
ered,” he said.
The bill also bans guns
from the Oregon Cap-
itol, changing a law that
allowed concealed handgun
licensees to bring fi rearms
into the building.
In a related development,
an interfaith movement
plans to present signatures
May 2 to the staff of Oregon
Secretary of State Shemia
Fagan, a step in an attempt
to get two initiative petitions
onto the ballot.
IP 18 would ban the sale
of assault-style weapons in
Oregon. IP 17 would ban the
sale of large-capacity mag-
azines and require a permit
to purchase any gun and
a completed background
check before a fi rearm is
purchased.
The movement has
gathered the signatures of
2,000 voters for each initia-
tive petition and will hand
deliver them to Fagan’s staff ,
said Pastor Mark Knutson
of the Augustana Lutheran
Church in Portland.
“We hope to get the go
ahead by early fall, which
will give us almost 10
months to get 140,000 sig-
natures to ... place them
both on the November 2022
general election ballot,”
Knutson said.
The debate over guns
is being resurrected as the
number of mass shootings
climbs again in America,
with increased eff orts to ban
assault rifl es and large-ca-
pacity magazines.
THURSDAY, JUNE 3, 2021
Hermiston man died a classifi ed death in World War II
By JADE MCDOWELL
Hermiston Herald
HERMISTON —
Kermit Belles’ parents
never knew how he died.
The Hermiston man,
serving his country during
World War II, died in one
of the worst naval calam-
ities in United States his-
tory. But the sinking of the
HMS Rohna was classifi ed,
and so details of its demise
didn’t become public
knowledge until the 1990s.
Instead, the Herm-
iston Herald reported on
Jan. 6, 1944, that Mr. and
Mrs. Claude Bellles had
received the following
telegram:
“The Secretary of War
desires me to express his
deep regret that your son,
Pvt. Kermit A. Belles, has
been reported missing in
action since November 26
in the North African area.
If further details or other
information are received
you will be promptly
notifi ed.”
Further details were not
forthcoming.
Robert Sutton said over
time, the family decided he
must have been killed in
the sinking of the USS Lis-
come Bay, which a Japa-
nese submarine torpedoed
in the Pacifi c the same
week. Sutton’s mother,
Jack Ballo/Contributed Photo
The sinking of the HMS Rohna, pictured here, is the subject of the
“Rohna: Classifi ed” documentary. A Hermiston man, Kermit Belles,
was one of the more than 1,000 American troops who lost their lives
on the ship on November 26, 1943.
Gloria Belles, was Kermit
that was part of a convoy
Belles’ younger sister. She
moving Allied troops
died in April 2000 — just
off the coast of northern
six months before
Africa.
Congress offi cially
According to an
acknowledged the
account by the Naval
sinking of the Rohna
History and Heritage
for the fi rst time.
Command, Germans
“It was pretty
attacked the convoy
devastating to her to
on November 25,
Belles
lose her big brother,”
1943, and again the
Sutton said, noting she was next day, using new Hs-293
just 12 when he died.
radio-controlled, rock-
She didn’t talk about it
et-boosted glide bombs.
much, he said. It was too
Forty-one of them missed
painful.
their mark, thwarted by
After his mother’s
smoke, radio jamming and
death, Sutton discovered
extensive anti-aircraft fi re.
that Belles was not on the
But one was a direct hit.
Liscome Bay but on the
“The bomb hit Rohna’s
Rohna, a transport ship
port side, penetrated deep
into the ship on delayed-
fuse, and blew holes in
the starboard side, quickly
causing the ship to list to
starboard,” the account
states.
Most lifeboats were
destroyed or trapped under
debris. Others made it into
the water but were quickly
swamped by troops and
sunk. As neighboring ships
attempted to rescue sol-
diers hanging on to debris
on rough seas in the dark,
some were sucked under
ships or were unable to sur-
vive the exposure for the
hours it took to be rescued.
Altogether, by the U.S.
government’s count, 1,050
U.S. soldiers and more than
100 Allied troops from
other countries were killed
in the sinking or died from
their wounds afterward.
The exact number of sur-
vivors is unknown but
thought to be somewhere
between 900 and 1,000.
Not wanting the Ger-
mans to know that their
new radio-guided missile
technology had worked,
the Army classifi ed the
entire event indefi nitely,
ordering survivors and res-
cuers to stay quiet under
threat of court martial.
Gold Star families like
the Belles were simply
told their loved one was
missing in action.
According to the Rohna
Survivors Memorial Asso-
ciation, a few survivors
began to start sharing the
story of the Rohna with
their local newspapers in
the early 1990s. It gained
wider public attention in
1993, when CBS com-
mentator Charles Osgood
shared the story on his
nationally syndicated radio
program, “The Osgood
File.”
People who heard the
broadcast began to wonder
if that was what hap-
pened to their relative, and
slowly an unoffi cial data-
base of survivors and vic-
tims began to take shape.
In October 2000, Congress
passed a resolution pub-
licly acknowledging the
sinking of the HMS Rohna.
The resolution stated that
the men who died on the
Rohna had been “largely
forgotten by the Nation”
and acknowledged that
“many families still do not
know the circumstances
of the deaths of loved ones
who died as a result of the
attack.”
Sutton said after he
found out, it was strange to
realize his uncle had been
killed by Nazis and not
Japanese soldiers as he had
grown up believing.
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