As we observe Veterans Day this week, it is so important to honor the service and sacrifice of 16 million living Americans who serve or served in the armed forces and countless millions more who served before them. Among these American heroes was Legion of Merit winner Lt. Comdr. Henry Lee Plage, who became captain of the Destroyer USS Tabberer before his 30th birthday. His courage and leadership saved the lives of 55 sailors.
The Tabberer was part of the Navy’s Third Fleet in the Pacific. Late in World War II (December 1944), the fleet was caught in Typhoon Cobra. The storm killed 790 sailors and sank three destroyers. The Tabberer was significantly damaged in the storm, including the ship’s radio. As the Tabberer sought to sail for calmer waters, a sailor spotted a light in the ocean, which turned out to be a survivor of one of the sunken destroyers. Acting on his own initiative, Plage directed the crew to commence a box search for further survivors. For the next 50 hours the damaged Tabberer continued its search. The search saved an additional 54 sailors—two thirds of the sailors saved that day.
In his excellent book “Halsey’s Typhoon,” Bob Drury recounts seemingly limitless stories of heroism and self-sacrifice as the Third Fleet sought to survive the storm. One sailor, mentioned several times, is 31-year old Lt. Gerald “Jerry” Ford. Yes, that Gerald Ford.
However, the quality of Plage’s leadership was evident long before the Tabberer and its crew encountered Typhoon Cobra. As Drury recounts:
Two months out of port, a twenty-five-year-old shipfitter named Leonard Glaser caught Plage’s eye. Glaser was pale and drawn, bordering on emaciated. He looked, a crewmate observed, “like he was walking around just to save funeral expenses.” In fact, he had lost a pound a day in the sixty days the TABBY had been at sea. Plage found Glaser alone one day and pulled him aside. “What’s wrong with you?” he said. “You look like you’re wasting away.”
Glaser explained that he had been raised in a kosher household and could not eat much of the galley’s mess, including the copious servings of bacon and ham.
“This is war, son,” Plage told him. “I know your religious decrees, but I also know your rabbi says you can eat anything and everything.”
Faith had nothing to do with it, Glaser said. His stomach just couldn’t hold down the food to which his system was so unaccustomed. Plage placed his hand on Glaser’s shoulder and marched him straightaway to the galley. There he instructed “Cookie” Phillips that Shipfitter Third Class Leonard Glaser hereby had the run of the galley. He turned back to Glaser. “Anytime there’s food served you don’t think you can eat, you come up here and find yourself something you can,” he said.
Shortly thereafter, as the TABBY steamed for the Panama Canal, she made another brief port of call in the Caribbean. The crew was given one-day shore leave. When Glaser returned to the ship, he found a carton of sardines, peanuts, and other kosher foods on his bunk, compliments of the captain.
Perhaps moved by Plage’s compassion and leadership, subsequently it was Glaser who volunteered to go on deck at the height of the storm with an acetylene torch to fully sever the ship’s partially detached masthead that threatened its survivor.
To the Veterans—God Bless You and Thank You. God Bless America.
