The elderly lady stands alongside the water at Pearl Harbor, her legs a little unsteady and her hands firmly gripping the safety railing. Her gaze moves across the water, coming to rest on the battered hull of the USS Utah, partially submerged in the shallows about 50 yards offshore. Her name is Mary (Wagner) Kreigh , and she returns to Hawaii every year to be with her sister. Ironically, she never sees her sister, and she never speaks with her . . . but that has not deterred her from visiting annually for the past few decades.
Mary and her twin sister, Nancy, were born prematurely 85 years ago, August 29, 1937, in a Catholic hospital in Makati, a suburb of Manila in the Philippines. Their father was an American sailor, Chief Yeoman Albert Wagner.
The girls were born prematurely, and they weighed only three pounds apiece. It was a difficult delivery. The umbilical cord was tangled around Nancy’s neck, and she died two days later. Mary was pronounced dead three times . . . but three times she fought back. Four months later, her mother was finally able to take her home.
Chief Wagner had his deceased daughter cremated, and he placed her ashes in a small, copper urn. When he was later assigned to the battleship USS Utah, he took the urn with him and placed it inside his locker.
It was a Wagner tradition to bury loved ones at sea, and Chief Wagner awaited the day when a chaplain would be assigned to the ship so that a proper burial ceremony could be held. Those plans went awry when Pearl Harbor was attacked on December 7, 1941. The Utah, anchored offshore of Ford Island, was one of the first ships to be struck.
Chief Wagner had just finished breakfast when the first wave of Japanese torpedo planes appeared in the early-morning sky and began their fiery attack on Pearl Harbor.
"Suddenly,” he recalled, “the air was rent by a terrific explosion. Rushing to a porthole, I saw a huge column of black smoke billowing high into the heavens." As he rushed to his battle station, the Utah was struck by two torpedoes dropped by the planes.
With its hull torn open, the Utah began to flood and was soon listing dangerously. Chief Wagner discarded any hope of reaching his battle station, and he took his one remaining option. He leaped over the side and swam to Ford Island, where he scrambled into a trench and watched the battle unfold.
"Shells and bombs bursting everywhere with puffs of smoke and flame filling the atmosphere,” he wrote in his journal.
At 0812, only 17 minutes following the start of the attack, the stricken Utah rolled ponderously onto its side. Not everyone had time to escape. Crew members who had barely managed to free themselves could hear their trapped shipmates hammering on the inside of the hull. A quickly-mustered rescue party secured an acetylene torch from the USS Raleigh, which was moored alongside the Utah, and eventually freed ten sailors.
Four-hundred and 61 sailors survived the sinking, but 6 officers and 52 enlisted sailors died. Four bodies were recovered, but the other 54 were never removed from the twisted wreckage. Today, the Utah remains their final resting place, and the Navy has designated the ship as a war grave.
Two weeks following the attack, Navy divers attempted to retrieve the urn that held the ashes of Nancy Wagner, but they were thwarted by the crumpled wreckage. To this day, the urn remains in Chief Wagner’s locker.
Chief Wagner was not upset by the unsuccessful attempt to retrieve his daughter’s ashes, and he told several people that he couldn't think of a better place for her to lie in rest than aboard the Utah, watched over by the sprits of his old shipmates.
Today, Mary Kreigh echoes that sentiment: "I don't think there is a better tribute to my twin sister than to have all those wonderful and brave men guarding her," she said. “I feel nothing but pride and pleasure that she is in such magnificent company. I could not ask for anything better than for her to be tenderly, carefully looked after by America’s finest.”
“I’m now 84 and have had four heart attacks. I hope that my ashes can be put on the ship with hers. We started life together and I would like to think that we can go into eternity together. I have the request in my will.”
Mary lives in California and returns once a year to visit her sister and release a lei into the water. As readers might expect, it is always a touching, teary-eyed moment. Mary likes to stand at the edge of the water and imagine the sailors are singing lullabies to her twin.
"It is so peaceful and quiet. I wouldn't want her any place else. The scene is breathtaking. Nothing could be so beautiful. Nothing could be so wonderful.”
“And, as I quietly release a fragrant floral lei out to her as an offering of gratitude and love, I can’t help but whisper, 'Aloha, my little sister. Thank you my brave Warriors for taking such good care of her'.”
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