A treasure returned

Moses Lake man Monte Holm returns lost bell to Navy submarine

MOSES LAKE — Steve Rimple remembers ringing the bell that sat on his grandfather's volunteer fire truck while he was growing up.

Ephrata resident Wayne "Lynnie" Barger often drove past the House of Poverty Museum owned by Rimple's grandfather, longtime Moses Lake businessman Monte Holm, but said he never really went in to look around.

If he had, he would have recognized that bell.

It used to be on the U.S.S. Rasher, a Navy submarine launched in December 1942 and commissioned in June 1943, where Barger served from 1962 to 1965.

Al Stevens, who served as an engineman second class on the Rasher and is now newsletter editor for the U.S.S. Rasher Association, explained that the Rasher was a highly decorated World War II submarine, decommissioned in June 1946 and put in "mothballs" status.

Stevens explained that the bell was used for ceremonial purposes or if a high-ranking naval officer would come aboard. It would have been hung just in front of the sail on deck, and then taken below deck when the Rasher went to sea, because there couldn't be anything on deck that might make noise.

He added that it is a Navy tradition to have a bell aboard.

"It's an important part of the history of the Rasher," he said of the bell.

Late in the war, the Navy was working with early-warning radar, and found it might be advantageous to use submarines, since they could dive to get out of harm's way.

The Rasher was one of eight submarines converted, with 30 feet added, into a combat information center and given the designation of SSR. It had height-finding radar, long-reaching radar and was working in conjunction with super-constellation airplanes, Stevens said.

"It was an era when there were major sea battles between fleets," he said.

In about 1967, the Navy found the Rasher's radar picket was obsolete and sought other ways to use radar. When the Rasher's designation was changed to a general service auxiliary submarine, the radar was taken out and bunks were put in, as the submarine was used to transport Marines and Navy Seals if it had extra room aboard.

"I don't know if the bell was taken off then and (the submarine) given a new bell, or it just stayed with the submarine," Stevens said.

The Rasher was decommissioned in 1972 and sold for scrap in Portland, Ore.

Stevens said that there were old wives tales that the Rasher was turned into razor blades, because its steel was so good.

The assumption was that the bell had been lost.

Holm believes he purchased the bell from a scrap outfit in Portland, Ore.

"I don't know what connection the fella had, whether he could have been one of them that helped wreck the ship or something, I don't know," he said. "But I've had (the bell) 30 years."

The association found out about the bell being in Holm's possession when a member spotted it in his museum, Stevens said, and brought it to their attention.

"He sent me an e-mail and said, 'Hey, I know where the ship's bell is,'" Barger said.

Holm presented the bell to Barger Thursday afternoon in his museum.

"At first I kind of took an offense to it because the letter I got was like I stole it or something from the Navy, and I don't steal nothing," Holm said. "It did bother me, and it's had a wonderful home. It couldn't have had a better home. But I sympathize with the people off of the Rasher, naturally. I was in the service too, and I finally decided — they'd offered different things — I'd just give it to them."

Holm said he hopes the Navy will take care of the bell as well as he did.

"I wouldn't have parted with it for any money; no matter how much money they would have offered me, I wouldn't have taken it," he said. "But in a case like this, and being I've been in the service, I know they get attached to things and it's very understandable. I just made up my mind, I said, 'I'm going to give it to them.' So they got it, and they better take good care of it."

Barger and Stevens said the bell will be used for the tradition called the tolling of the boats and the next Rasher reunion in May 2006.

"There have been 52 U.S. submarines sunk, and so we toll the bell 52 times to commemorate the men that lost their lives in submarines," Barger said. "So at our annual meeting of all the Rasher sailors in May next year, we're going to use this to toll the boats."

The May 2006 reunion will take place in Silverdale. The year following, the bell will go back to Manitowoc, Wis., where the Rasher was built and a Rasher museum is being constructed.

"To the guys that served on it, and the people of Manitowoc, it's going to mean a lot," Barger said. "We appreciate (Holm) letting us have the bell back."

"The surviving members of the Rasher are very grateful to get it back," Stevens said. "We don't have very many of those WWII vets left. Their attrition rate is pretty dramatic. We're grateful to Monte for donating this to us, making sure we get it back and preserving it for so long."

Barger said anyone who served on the Rasher and lives in the area can contact him at (509) 754-1387. For more information on the U.S.S. Rasher, access the Web site at http://ussrasher.org.