A Survivor’s Last Battle

Vernon Lungrin

Sometimes those who seem ordinary live the most extraordinary lives. Such a man is Brother Vernon Lungrin, a retired member of Local 480, Jackson, Mississippi.

As this issue went to press, Brother Lungrin, who has survived more than most of us will ever experience in our lives, appeared to be in the final stages of his six-month battle with throat cancer, the one foe that may finally beat him.

Local 480 Business Manager Wayne Divine relayed to the Journal the amazing story of Brother Lungrin’s life. He is an 83-year old World War II veteran who survived capture by the Japanese in the Philippines and endured the infamous Bataan Death March, one of only three of the 60 prisoners from his 745th Air Corps Ordnance outfit to do so.

Then he went through a horrible chemical spill at Yazoo City, Mississippi, in 1980 that forced his retirement with part of a foot eaten away—after he marched purposefully through the acid to shut off the valve and prevent further deaths or damage.

He had been a journeyman lineman for 24 years at that juncture and three sons—Al, Samuel Vernon Jr. (Sam) and Gary T. (Ted)—all followed him into the IBEW. But there was still another tragic experience to come: in 2002 Al Lungrin died suddenly of a heart attack on a job on which he was foreman.

Samuel Vernon Lungrin Sr. enlisted a year before Pearl Harbor and with no basic training was sent straight to the Philippines, where he was taught on the job how to load planes with bombs. He was a prisoner from the fall of the Philippines in 1942 to the end of the war in September 1945. Of the estimated 12,000 American and 50,000 Filipino prisoners, more than 25,000 died in the first six months of captivity.

He saw it all—the weakened POWs bayoneted because they fell out of line during the six-day Death March, the thousands who died of dysentery and starvation in the makeshift prison labor camps. He was transferred with a few hundred survivors to the mainland of Japan to unload iron ore from rail cars until Japan surrendered.

The determination of Brother Lungrin makes him is a shining example of why people of his age group are often called “the greatest generation.”

IBEWCURRENTS

March 2004 IBEW Journal

Their Brother’s Body Comes Home 50 Years After He’s Killed in Action

PFC Lilledahl’s story so moved artist Timothy Eling that he sent this 16x20 portrait to the his brothers.

The body of Marine PFC Ronald D. Lilledahl came home and was buried in Minneapolis, Minnesota, attended by his identical twin Donald and two other brothers, all of whom are retired members of IBEW Local 292.

Burial came more than half a century after Ronald, then 21, was killed in action in Korea in November 1950.

For all those years, Ronald was “unknown Marine (Korea),” one of 866 U.S. servicemen killed in action whose remains could not be identified and were buried in Hawaii in the National Memorial Cemetery. But forensic methods were improved a lot in 53 years, and on March 25, 2003, the Lilledahl brothers were told the remains of their brother was the first of the 866 to be positively identified. Their deceased father, Anker Lilledahl, was also a member of Local 292.

PFC Ronald D. Lilledahl was interred with full military honors at Fort Snelling National Cemetery in Minneapolis.