COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL July 1, 2015
Cottage Grove Retrospective
A look back at Sentinel stories from 60 and 70 years ago
Returning soldiers tell
experiences in German
prisons
June 30, 1955: Gus Heinrich, the oldest merchant who is still working in
Cottage Grove, sits at his desk in his jewelry store, which is located next to
the Arcade Theater. The 77-year-old is being honored on Tuesday, which has
been proclaimed “Gus Heinrich Day” by the Chamber of Commerce.
though they were carrying their packs, etc.
One American was shot when he stopped to
lighten his load.
Johnnie weighed 112 pounds when he
was liberated and now weighs 170.
He plans on leaving for California tomor-
row and will accompany his brother. He
will ask for a discharge and will enter em-
ployment at an airplane factory, where his
wife is employed. His brother Linzy, also
discharged, will seek employment with an
airplane factory.
POLICE BLOTTER
The Cottage Grove Hospital
sent a fax regarding a dog bite
that occurred in the evening on
June 20. An offi cer contacted
the victim, and also attempted
to contact the owner of the dog,
who was not at the location.
Criminal mischief — second
degree, E. Main St.
The complainant reported
damage to her personal vehicle
while it was parked in the rear
lot of the police station. The
damage was estimated at $1,500
and included a large dent and
Public hearing
scheduled
Summer grilling
safety
The Cottage Grove City Coun-
cil will consider an application
from Hayden Homes to amend
the Comprehensive Plan and
Zoning Map for property along
Highway 99 adjacent to its
River Walk development and
the fi re station from commer-
cial to high-density residential
zoning. The public hearing is
scheduled for the regular meet-
ing on Monday, July 27 at 7
p.m. in the Council chambers.
The Planning Commission
has held a public hearing and
recommended approval of the
zone change. The staff report,
public hearing minutes and pro-
posed ordinance will be provide
with the agenda prior to the
public hearing. Questions can
be directed to the Community
Development Department.
Now that summer is here,
Grovers may be looking to fi re
up the grill at their next family
gathering. While grilling is a
popular way to cook food, it
can increase the risk of home
fi res and injuries if not done
properly. According to the Na-
tional Fire Protection Associa-
tion, an average of 8000 home
fi res are caused by grilling.
Learn how to grill safely with
these tips:
Only use propane and charcoal
grills outdoors.
Keep young children and pets
away from the grill area.
Never leave a lit grill unat-
tended.
Maintain a clean grill by
removing grease or fat buildup
from the grills and trays below
the grill.
Cottage Grove Police Department 24-Hour Anonymous Tip Line: 767-0504
scratches on the passenger side
hood and fender. There was non
suspect info.
Animal bite, S. 3rd St.
BIG GARAGE SALE
745 Harding Place
Fri-Sat-Sun 8a - ?
Selling in bulk.
CITY BEAT
Pvt. Johnnie Palmer, son of Mr. and Mrs.
C.A. Palmer, was among the three return-
ing servicemen to arrive home last week,
who had been liberated from the Stalag A
camp 30 miles from Berlin by the Russian
army after being held a prisoner two years,
two months and two days. Johnnie doesn’t
stutter when he tells you how long he was
held prisoner. He recalls the time prob-
ably up to the minute. He was captured at
Casarena pass in North Africa in February,
1943, along with two others. Total number
of captured American soldiers was about
four thousand against 250,000 Germans, so
he fi gures this was a pretty good trade. The
Americans were kept in North Africa only
about two weeks before they were trans-
ferred to Germany and then moved to two
or three separate camps.
The food was not so bad at fi rst, but grew
progressively worse. The so-called death
march, where captured Americans were
marched 169 miles through snow, ice and
cold weather was one of the worst ordeals
Johnnie and his companions went through,
but even at that the Americans stood up to the
march better than the German guars, even
June 22
CLIP N' CARRY
GARAGE SALES
GARAGE SALE
241 Bear Creek Rd.,
CURTIN
Fri 9a-5p; Sat 9a-?
July 5, 1945
5A
June 23
Mental, N. 10th St.
The caller reported hearing
voices hearing voices since the
day before. She believes they
were brought on by her ex boy-
friend.
Unlawful entry into a motor
vehicle, Village Green
The caller said his vehicle was
broken into sometime during
the night, and that the suspect
stole camera equipment valued
at $1,820.
June 24
Reckless driving, Walmart
June 25
Unauthorized use of a motor
vehicle, The Flower Basket
The reporting person said that
three subjects had taken the mo-
torized carts out of the building
and were playing in the traffi c
areas of the parking lot, posing a
hazard to unsuspecting vehicles.
The subjects were contacted and
banned from the store for the
rest of the night.
The caller said that the deliv-
ery van for the business was sto-
len from the location sometime
after June 23. Another caller
reported seeing the vehicle at
18th St. and Pepper Tree Dr. in
Eugene. The Eugene Police De-
partment confi rmed the location
of the vehicle, and the business
owners went to retrieve it.
Animal info, East Regional
Park
Criminal mischief, Badoobaz
The caller reported seeing a
cougar near the fi shing pond.
The complainant reported
seeing a male subject throwing a
bottle at and breaking a window
Then, silence.
Back on the Rosecrans, the
situation was deteriorating rap-
idly. When the ship fi rst struck,
the skipper had ordered the en-
gines fully reversed, and called
for the pumps to start spewing
crude oil into the sea — the idea
being to lighten the load in an
attempt to get the ship free.
Under ordinary circumstanc-
es, this would have worked fi ne.
But these were not ordinary
circumstances. A 60-knot gale
was hammering the ship, the
tide was in full ebb and the seas
were piling up to Olympic pro-
portions. Soon those seas were
sweeping the decks, coming
from the direction the ship was
least equipped to handle: astern.
One of the fi rst of these fast-
moving walls of green water
burst the hatches, fl ooding the
engine room and putting out the
boiler fi res, plunging the entire
ship into helpless immobility
and darkness.
The crew gathered together
below decks, amidships, and lis-
tened to the relentless breakers
sweeping over the ship, wait-
ing for the help they hoped was
coming. By about 9 a.m. the wa-
ter rose so high in the hull that
they were driven out of their
shelter and into the open. They
struggled to make it up across
the deck to the bridge, atop the
wheelhouse, as colossal walls
of green water pounded down
on them, sweeping many away
to their deaths. But a number of
them made it to the bridge and
huddled there, waiting and hop-
ing and praying for help.
What they got was something
else. The massive breakers had
already torn the deckhouses
and lifeboats off the stricken
ship. Now a huge wall of water
bore down on the boat — and
tore the pilothouse and bridge
off the ship, carrying it and all
who’d sheltered there away into
the sea.
One of the men on the bridge
was John Slinning, one of the
at the business. The subject then
drove off, heading northbound
on Highway 99.
June 26
Information, Village Dr.
The reporting person said
he found a suspicious item de-
scribed as a piece of PVC pipe
capped on both ends near the
helipad. The Eugene Police
Department’s bomb squad re-
sponded and rendered the item
safe in their explosive unit.
June 28
Escape — third degree, Row
River Rd. and I-5 overpass
During a routine patrol, the
offi cer observed a wanted sub-
ject near the location. While the
offi cer was securing the sus-
pect’s dog in his patrol vehicle,
the suspect ran from the offi cer
and into a truck-parking area
behind the Vintage Inn. An ex-
tensive are check and K9 search
was negative. The suspect, who
was last seen wearing a red t-
shirt, blue jeans and white Nike
shoes, had an outstanding war-
rant for failing to appear in court
on charges of possessing meth-
amphetamine.
O FFBEAT
Continued from page 4A
was nothing out there but the
ocean, right?
The captain’s plan was to
position the big tanker to cross
the bar after dawn, at slack tide.
Having deduced from the posi-
tion of those two visible lights
that the ship was well out to sea,
and discarded or rationalized
away his inability to spot the
lightship, the captain held the
ship’s course until, around 5:15
a.m., moving into the scream-
ing wind under a slow bell, the
vessel suddenly shuddered to a
stop.
And that is how Captain
Johnson learned that he had
misjudged the Rosecrans’s po-
sition.
The exact circumstances of
6
what followed will never be
known, because none of the offi -
cers survived. But it appears that
the lights they’d been looking
at were the Desdemona Sands
light, and some other non-navi-
gational light being showed on
the shore nearby.
The distress call came in to
Cape Disappointment at 5:15
a.m.: “Steamer Rosecrans
on bar. Send assistance. Ship
breaking up fast. Can stay at my
station no longer.”
The life station replied: “OK.
Will send help. About where are
you?”
The reply was chilling — and,
from the standpoint of the res-
cuers, utterly useless: “Water
washing into the cabins — can’t
stay much longer — hel—“
-day
weather forecast
THURSDAY July 2
FRIDAY July 3
62° | 102°
58° | 98°
Sunny
Partly Cloudy
SATURDAY July 4
SUNDAY July 5
e
v
i
t
o
m
o
Aut
s
e
i
t
l
a
i
c
e
Sp
57° | 97°
58° | 97°
PRACTICING THE ART OF TRANSMISSION REPAIR SINCE 1991
Sunny
Sunny
MONDAY July 6
TUESDAY July 7
56° | 92°
58° | 93°
Sunny
Sunny
HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!
Manual & Automatic Transmission Repair
Tune ups
30-60-90K Services
Brakes, belts, hoses and cooling system
services
Muffl ers & Custom Exhaust
Drive-train repair such as clutches, u joints
and differentials
All makes and models.
MAINTAINING YOUR VEHICLE AFFORDABLY
LANDSCAPE AND
BUILDING MATERIALS
WE LIVE IN THE SAME TOWN WE WORK IN
“ NO MONKEY BUSINESS!”
Open 7 days a week!
79149 N. River Road
www.automotivespecialties.biz
541-942-4664
DUSTIN TULLAR & RUSS OWENS
541-942-8022 • COTTAGE GROVE
three survivors. Here’s his ac-
count of what happened next:
“As the big seas (waves) lifted
the bridge and pilot house off, I
fi rst grabbed the exhaust pipe,
held on to that for a while, then
got around the after part of the
smokestack,” he said. “A sea
struck me from there, and sent
me over the rail. I held onto the
rail until the sea had passed.
Then another sea took me to the
after rail, and I got up into the
main rigging.”
Only two other mariners had
made it to the rigging with Slin-
ning: carpenter Erick Lundmark
and engine-room crewman S.
Cagna. Every other member of
the crew — with the exception
of the ship’s other quartermas-
ter, Fred Peters, who made it to
shore on a fl oating plank — was
drowning around them in the
icy, foaming breakers off of
Peacock Spit.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Lifesav-
ing Service crews at Point Ad-
ams and Cape Disappointment
were frantically trying to fi gure
out where the wreck was. When
they found it, around 8:30 a.m.,
they immediately launched a
rescue effort that would go down
in Coast Guard history as one of
the most daring and hazardous
in its history. Two of the then-
new gasoline-powered lifeboats
set out on the mission; both of
them went to the bottom of the
sea — yet every man who went
out on those boats survived.
We’ll talk about that rescue in
next week’s column.
(Sources: U.S. Coast Guard
Historian’s offi ce; Gibbs, James
Jr. Pacifi c Graveyard. Portland:
Binford, 1950)
Finn J.D. John teaches at Or-
egon State University and writes
about odd tidbits of Oregon his-
tory. For details, see http://fi nn-
john.com. To contact him or
suggest a topic: fi nn2@offbe-
atoregon.com or 541-357-2222.