Former Navy submariner and old-school Sonoma County teacher Frank Sennello, the region's best known and most garrulous survivor of the attack 70 years ago on Pearl Harbor, has died at age 90.
Sennello fell ill with pneumonia Dec. 6 as he made final preparations for the next morning's commemoration in Santa Rosa of the surprise bomb and torpedo raid on Oahu that drew the United States into World War II.
His absence at the well-attended Pearl Harbor observance was stark, as for decades he was a driving force of the organization. Over the past month he declined from the effects of pneumonia and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and he died Tuesday afternoon at his Larkfield home.
He outlived the national Pearl Harbor Survivors Association by three days. Old age forced officers of the organization, whose motto was "Remember Pearl Harbor - Keep America Alert," to disband it on Dec. 31.
Mere weeks ago, Sennello was still dancing. An energetic man with myriad interests, his chief passions included gliding across a dance floor and instructing children on the context, causes and world-changing ramifications of Imperial Japan's decision to attack American forces in 1941, when the U.S. was not at war.
"He was a terrific speaker. He made some very good presentations at the schools, I think some of the best," said fellow Pearl vet Herb Louden, 94, of Petaluma.
Louden is current president of the Santa Rosa-based Pearl Harbor Survivors/North Bay and Sennello, who'd served multiple terms as president, was vice-president. The group is the successor to the Luther Burbank Chapter, No. 23, of the former Pearl Harbor Survivors Association.
Another stalwart of the group, 89-year-old Jesse Love of Santa Rosa, said, "He was the backbone of the Pearl Harbor survivors."
No other local Pearl vet went into more classrooms to engage kids in dialogue about the long-ago attack than Sennello.
He explained the significance of Dec. 7, 1941, to many thousands of students throughout the North Bay. He was a natural for the task for several reasons: he was at Pearl Harbor, he cherished history and after the war he taught grade school for three decades, mostly at Roseland Elementary and other Sonoma County schools.
Sennello told a classroom of Montgomery High students in 1991, 50 years after the attack, that in 1941 the United States was "a peaceful country with big oceans on both sides and friendly neighbors north and south. A nation struggling out of the Depression.
"America was a third-rate power and not that involved in world politics, anyway," he told the class. He often remarked said the single most remarkable aspect of the attack was how it caused deeply fractured and war-ambivalent Americans to come together and gird for battle.
"He made every effort he possibly could to educate the youth and the community of the impacts of Pearl Harbor," said Bud Simmons, a Korea-era Air Force vet and honorary member of the Pearl Harbor group.
"He's one of the greats of the Greatest Generation," Simmons said.
Francis George Sennello Jr. was born June 25, 1921, outside of Queens, N.Y. In 1940, at 19, he enlisted in the Navy.
He trained as a radioman in the submarine service and was assigned to the USS Narwhal, which early in December of 1941 was docked with five other subs inside Pearl Harbor.
Sennello would become a prolific writer. He recalled in a short piece of non-fiction than on that Sunday morning he and fellow seaman 1st class "Red" Griffith were at bathroom sinks in a three-floor barracks near the sub docks. A nearby window allowed a view of the harbor and Battleship Row.
"I had barely started shaving when Red suddenly grasped my right shoulder, hard," Sennello wrote.
"&‘Hey, Frank," he said, almost shouting and pointing to a group of aircraft, &‘Watch those planes. They're gonna dive almost between the masts of the battleships.'"
Sennello peered out the window and saw the warplanes he assumed were American. He'd resumed shaving, he wrote, when his buddy grabbed his shoulder again.
"Frank! One of them must have crashed," Sennello recalled in the story. "Look at all the smoke! Let's go up on the roof so we get a better look."
Moments later, the pair realized Pearl Harbor was under attack. Sennello ran to the Narwhal and grabbed a rifle. An often-reprinted photo shows him crouched on the dock and holding the weapon, bayonet fixed, near his ship.
By that afternoon, he was helping to pull oil-coated casualties and corpses from the water.
Sennello served throughout the war and upon his discharge in 1946 returned to New York State. The following year he married Mary Jacqueline Green. They had four sons.
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