Ashes of twin lead to survivors of 'the forgotten memorial'

PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii -- Nancy Lynne Wagner died three days after she and her twin sister, Mary, were born in 1937.

Her body was cremated and her ashes stayed with her father, Chief Yeoman Albert T.D. Wagner, through tours of duty in China and then aboard the USS Utah at Pearl Harbor as he waited for a Navy chaplain to perform a burial at sea.

When Japanese torpedoes hit the Utah, Wagner escaped -- but the baby's ashes remained entombed in the ship, along with the remains of 54 of the Utah's men.

"I've always thought it was an absolute beautiful thing," said Nancy's twin, Mary Kreigh, 64. "I could not have wanted more than to have my sister's ashes guarded by all the men of the U.S. Navy."

Kreigh has become the Utah survivors' adopted "first daughter," their public relations director and their reunion organizer. She's especially excited about this year's 60th anniversary: For the first time, a ceremony will be held aboard boats near what survivors call the forgotten memorial, the sunken Utah.

After a bell ringing ceremony, the survivors will throw orchids onto their fallen shipmates and a bagpiper will play as the flag is lowered at sunset.

Access restricted

Unlike the USS Arizona Memorial, a large structure straddling the sunken battleship that draws thousands of visitors each year, few people know the USS Utah Memorial exists.

Dedicated in 1972, the simple white L-shaped pier is on the west side of Ford Island, overlooking the rusted hull of the ship breaking the harbor surface. Access to the memorial pier, which is next to a working Navy pier and is less visible from Honolulu, is restricted because of its location on a Navy base.

The National Parks Service operates tours from a large visitors center for people wishing to see the Arizona, but civilians who want to visit the Utah must be escorted by a member of the military.

Bill Hughes, a Utah survivor who maintains the group's Web site, said the ship doesn't get credit for its contribution to the Navy.

"We trained dive bombers. We trained people to shoot down aircraft. We were also a submarine target ship," said Hughes, 79, of Grand Prairie, Texas. "Some of the most advanced technology available was on the Utah.

"But we've been forgotten because we're on an active naval base."

The Utah was first commissioned in 1911 as a battleship with a crew of 900, and was recommissioned in 1932 as a target ship. It decks reinforced with timber, the Utah had a crew of about 500 in 1941 when Japanese torpedoes tore through her hull, killing 58 men. Fewer than 140 survivors remain today.

The bodies of 54 men remain entombed on the sunken ship.

Kreigh, who lives in Lompoc, Calif., has brought a renewed enthusiasm to the Utah survivors and attention to the memorial, even getting a hotel to sponsor the trip to Hawaii for one survivor who couldn't afford to pay his way to the anniversary.

"She represents the sprit of the people who support her," said Chief Phil Eggman of the Navy's public affairs office at Pearl Harbor, who is organizing the 60th anniversary ceremony.

Kreigh's husband, David, who was in the Air Force, died in 1995 and she lost her mother in 1997. Her son Daniel, 40, and daughter Nina, 42, will be with her in Honolulu in December, along with the men of the Utah.

Kreigh's father died in 1975. At 34, he was one of the older men at Pearl Harbor, she said.

"I can just hear him saying 'my oh Mary, I'm so proud of you.'

"The Utah is my family," she said. "The men are my family. It has been delightful."