Dec. 7, 1991, is the 50th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Mortally wounded in that attack was a Latter-day Saint naval captain, Mervyn S. Bennion, commander of the battleship USS West Virginia. Of Capt. Bennion, the New York Sun said on June 20, 1942, that when the annals of war in the Pacific are written, he will take his place among those of other heroes. . . .
Devotion to duty won for Mervyn Sharp Bennion the respect and honor of his family, friends, associates in the Church and colleagues in the U.S. Navy. That same devotion led to his making the ultimate sacrifice for his country at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.Capt. Bennion, 54 at the time of his death, was one of many heroes and victims in the Japanese air attack 50 years ago that precipitated the involvement of the United States in history's most devastating war. A distinguished officer with a 31-year career, he was commander of the battleship USS West Virginia.
The night before the attack, he had dinner at the home of Ralph Woolley, president of the Oahu Stake, and his wife, Romania.
"We knew them very well; he was my father's cousin," recalled Capt. Bennion's widow, Louise, 92, who lives in Salt Lake City. "Mervyn had dinner with them, and they wanted him to spend the night and then go to Church with them the next morning. Mervyn said no, he'd meet them at Church, but he had better be back on the ship."
Capt. Bennion never got the opportunity to attend Church that Sunday morning. At 7:55 a.m., the first wave of 183 Japanese planes attacked the U.S. fleet on "Battleship Row" in Pearl Harbor. In the ensuing two hours, 2,403 American sailors, soldiers and civilians were killed or fatally wounded. The Japanese lost 129 Navy sailors and pilots.
In a biographical sketch, "Mervyn Sharp Bennion, One of the Lord's Noblemen," his younger brother, Howard S. Bennion, detailed the final hours of Capt. Bennion's life, based on conversations with officers and other men who were with him or who had been at Pearl Harbor.
". . . At a few minutes before 8, Mervyn was in his cabin shaving, preparatory to leaving the ship to go to Sunday School and fast meeting in Honolulu, when a sailor on watch from the bridge nearby dashed in to report a Japanese air attack approaching at hand," he wrote.
"Mervyn instantly gave the command, `. . . To your battle stations!' Then he ran to his own - the conning tower on the flag bridge. . . . In a minute Japanese torpedo planes flew in close from the outside, letting go three torpedoes that struck the West Virginia in rapid succession, tearing a great hole in the exposed side. Almost simultaneously, Japanese bombers flew overhead, barely clearing the masts, and hit the West Virgina, once in the region already damaged by the aerial torpedoes and once a deadly blow in the magazine. Fortunately that bomb did not explode; otherwise the ship would have been blown up as was the Arizona, immediately astern of the West Virginia."
To survey the damage, Capt. Bennion stepped out of the door at the rear of the conning tower.
"He had scarcely taken two steps when he was hit by a splinter bomb, evidently dropped from a high level and exploding on a turret of the battleship Tennessee, alongside the West Virginia. This splinter tore off the top of his stomach, and apparently a fragment hit his spine and the left hip, for he lost the use of legs, and the hip appeared to be damaged."
A pharmacist's mate put a simple dressing on the wound and tried to ease the pain. Lying on the deck, Capt. Bennion refused to be evacuated and continued to give orders and instructions to his well-trained crew. The ship brought down 20-30 enemy planes. Capt. Bennion and a seaman were the only crew members on the ship to die.
"He talked only of the ship and the men, how the fight was going, what guns were out of action, how to get them in operation again, casualties in the gun crews and how to replace them, who was wounded, what care the wounded were receiving and provisions for evacuating them from the ship, the fate of other ships, the number of enemy planes shot down, the danger of fire from burning oil drifting around the West Virginia from the exploded Arizona, satisfaction over the handling of the ship, satisfaction with the effectiveness of the gun crews in shooting down attacking planes, satisfaction with the conduct under fire of officers and men on the ship."
Two hours after being wounded, Capt. Bennion died. Braving a fire on the ship, devoted crew members moved his body to a safe area. The body was removed the next day.
Sister Bennion, living in Salt Lake City, heard of the attack on Pearl Harbor after she returned from Church that day. "It was awful. The radio was just full of reports," she remembered. But she did not hear of her husband's death until the following Thursday because of the confused state of affairs.
She said their temple marriage was a comfort to her after his death. "That just carried me along. Temple marriage is for eternity, and that just kept me up."
Capt. Bennion was lauded for his courage. President Franklin D. Roosevelt posthumously awarded him the Congressional Medal of Honor. Adm. David Foote Sellers later wrote to Sister Bennion: ". . . His complete forgetfulness of self, and devotion to duty to the last has given us a memory and set an example that will forever serve as an inspiration in years to come to the officers and men of the United States Navy."
A camp at the Farragut Training Station near Sandpoint, Idaho, was named Camp Bennion in his honor. On July 4, 1943, a destroyer was launched at the Boston Navy Yard and christened the USS Bennion by his wife. Their only child, Mervyn Bennion Jr., was not present for the ceremony, because he had been inducted into the Navy a few days before.
Capt. Bennion's dedication during the fateful battle was consistent with his life, according to his brother's account and the memories of others who knew him. Born May 5, 1887, in Vernon, Tooele County, Utah, he learned to work hard on a family sheep ranch.
He attended LDS High School in Salt Lake City, graduating in May 1906, although lack of funds prevented him from attending during the winter months. During that time, he taught school at home for his younger siblings.
Mervyn entered the Naval Academy at Annapolis a month after his high school graduation. He led his class for the first two years, Sister Bennion recalled. After that he became known as a willing and able tutor for many of his friends.
"So many of his classmates would tell me that it was Mervyn that pulled them through," Sister Bennion reflected. "Then he went from the first in his class to the third. But he didn't care about that."
Mervyn and Louise met early in his naval career, while he was stationed in Washington, D.C. Louise was the eldest daughter of J. Reuben Clark Jr., a distinguished statesman who later became a member of the First Presidency. Their wedding took place Feb. 5, 1920, in her parents' home. A few months later, when Mervyn could get leave, they were sealed in the Salt Lake Temple.
Like many military families, the Bennions moved frequently. Capt. Bennion's schedule alternated between sea duty and shore duty. "He had three years of sea duty and then two years of shore duty," Sister Bennion remembered. "He loved the Navy, and I think he loved going to sea."
"Wherever he went, he sought out the nearest branch or ward of the Church," Howard S. Bennion wrote in his sketch. "It was his custom to introduce himself - and his wife and son when they could be with him - to the presiding officers. He deeply appreciated and enjoyed taking his place quietly in the congregation, whether there were many members or few. When he was asked to address the group, teach a class, or assist at the sacrament table, he was genuinely pleased, and took his part in reverent humility."
In 1940, while in Washington D.C., he was called to be first counselor to Pres. Jesse R. Smith of the Chevy Chase Branch.
Brother Smith, who still lives in the Chevy Chase Ward, recalled: "We had about 100 families in our newly created branch. We divided them up so that each one of us in the presidency had responsibility for 33 families. Mervyn said, `I want to personally visit each one of my families.' So he personally visited each family each month for two months. He would go out at night, in between the time he spent as fiscal officer in the Bureau of Ordnance."
Brother Smith remembered Mervyn Bennion as a "tall [he stood 6 feet 2 inchesT, friendly sort of person. You could tell he was always thinking faster than his words could come."
During this period of time in their lives in Washington D.C., the Bennions became "very good friends" with President Ezra Taft Benson and his wife, Flora. "I was president of the Relief Society," remembered Sister Bennion, "and Flora was my counselor." Capt. Bennion was also the Bensons' home teacher for a time.
Sister Bennion recalled that during those years in Washington, they would climb into the family auto "and visit nearby Civil War battlefields. We did that for recreation. We saw all those Civil War places. It was very interesting for us to see, and it was good for our son."
She also remembered her husband being "really fond of candy. We always had a box of chocolates in our home."
In his sketch, his brother quoted several acquaintances who referred to Mervyn Bennion's humility. A classmate at Annapolis, W. E. Brown, was quoted as saying, "Those who served with him admired him inordinately. Those who hadn't served with him usually didn't even know of him. He never called attention to himself."
Brown also wrote: "The thing that exasperated me most about Mervyn Bennion was his complete self-effacement. One of the best all-round brains in the Navy, never afraid of or seeking to excuse himself from any job, he tried to give the impression that he was the least well-informed person around, yet acquaintances soon learned that when he made a statement of fact, it was so. The only spectacular thing he ever did in his whole life was his manner of dying. And he did all in his power to make that unspectacular."
