The Journey of Jess Claude Lines: Part 3

May 28—In San Diego, Jess Claude Lines stopped for the night at a motor lodge near the base; he wanted to present himself at his very best when driving onto the base, Nancy Lines said. She is Jess' granddaughter, and the story of his journey, collected from letters and family conversations, is now an important part of the family story.

He paid for a haircut and shave. He showered and wore his Sunday best shirt, jacket, pants and shoes — all of it terribly outdated, she said. He'd last worn them at his wife's funeral years earlier. He ate a lunch, something called the "fish sampler," which offered every type of fish under the sun but the one Jess truly loved — catfish. Rubbing oil into his hair and smoothing it back, he left the motor lodge in his Ford and made his way to the naval station fronting San Diego Bay.

Two armed and uniformed military police immediately stopped him at the guard post, arms raised. One of the men asked him his business.

Like clockwork now, Jess silently reached into his shirt pocket and handed the man the telegram he had received days earlier.

"The Navy Department deeply regrets to inform you that your son Walter Ellsworth Lines, motor machinists mate second class US Navy, is missing following action in the performance of his duty and in the service of his country. The department appreciates your great anxiety but details not now available and delay in receipt thereof must necessarily be expected. To prevent possible aid to our enemies, please do not divulge the name of his ship."

"He thought the (telegram) meant he could be there on the base, which of course it didn't, but that's the way he had interpreted it," Robert Isaacs, Jess' grandson, said. "In his mind that's what the telegram was — an invitation from the Navy."

As the guard read the telegram, he was clearly puzzled. Did Jess have an appointment with someone on the base, he asked the Joplin native.

"No," Jess answered. "I want to find out if my son is alive."

That son, Ellsworth, had been serving aboard the USS Triton, which in March of 1943 went missing, prompting the telegram to Jess Lines a few weeks later.

The guard left Jess inside his idling car to speak to his partner. Soon, one of the men was on the phone, speaking to a superior. The conversation lasted several minutes.

Eventually, the guard approached the car and told him to drive onto the base and park at a nearby lot; there, a chaplain would meet with him.

Nancy said the guard paused at this point before saying to Jess, "Good luck to you, sir."

Inside the car, Nancy said, her grandfather seethed with anger. He didn't want to speak to a chaplain; he didn't need to be comforted by a man of the cloth. He wanted to speak to someone in command — someone with authority, someone who would give him the answers he sought concerning the whereabouts of his missing son.

When the two men met, Jess handed the chaplain his telegram. The man read it, head bowed. He asked the Joplin man what he could do to help.

"I want to know what the Navy is doing to find my missing son," Jess replied, according to stories passed on in the family.

Inside a submarine

Jess had another son, Richard — Ellsworth's brother — who had survived the grounding of the USS Worden in the Bering Sea in early 1943. Jess was hoping Ellsworth might have survived, too.

The chaplain attempted to explain to Jess what a submarine was, and the dangers inherent in submarine duty.

When none of this registered, the chaplain shifted gears, telling Jess that a submarine was docked nearby, and its crew would allow him to tour its interior.

Accepting the invitation with a silent nod, Jess was led to a moored submarine that was flanked by much larger destroyers. According to Nancy, her grandfather was shocked speechless by how small the sub was. He'd expected something larger — maybe the size of a cruiser, maybe even a battleship. He hadn't expected such a tiny, thin, streamlined boat.

"When they went aboard the sub," said Pauletta, Robert Issacs' wife, "Jess kept looking around and saying, 'This is too small for people! How do people live in here? How do they move? How do they eat?' and I guess as he went around to each of the compartments he just kept saying, 'I can't believe people can live in this thing.'"

His tour included all the key parts of the sub — the radio room, the galley, the forward torpedo room, the control room and engine room. Jess inspected each part of the boat without comment, though his eyes missed nothing, Nancy said.

"Once Jess got what a submarine was in his head — that the (men) were sealed up inside the boat with no way to get out — he finally understood," Pauletta said. "It all just clicked."

His youngest son — Walter Ellsworth Lines — had gone down with the submarine, Nancy said, with no means of escaping.

Only later would Jess learn more details about the USS Triton and its 74-man crew, which was last reported in the Caroline Basin, northwest of the Admiralty Islands, on March 15, 1943, according to the U.S. Navy.

"Investigations of Japanese records recovered after the war showed that a submarine was depth-charged by three Japanese destroyers in that area on 15 March," U.S. Navy documents released later confirmed. "Officials (witnessed) a great quantity of oil and debris came to the surface, including manufactured goods inscribed 'Made in USA'."

The Triton's last message, from Lt. Cdr. George K. MacKenzie, Jr., went out on March 11, 1943: "Two groups of smokes, 5 or more ships each, plus escorts. Am chasing."

Nancy said the last letter Jess received from Ellsworth was dated February 1943 — less than a month before his death.

After seeing for himself the dangerous war role a submarine played in the deep waters, "It was enough for him," Isaacs said of his grandfather. "It satisfied his grief."

"What amazes me," he continued, "is that he got the time with the Navy to show him around and answer his questions because I'm sure they had far better things to do then to escort him around on a submarine.

"But he touched a lot of souls of a lot of people."

Heading home

Back inside his rented San Diego motor lodge, Jess couldn't find the strength to drive the more than 1,500 miles back home to Joplin. Nancy said he stayed at the motor lodge for several days, coming to grips with the fact that Ellsworth was now dead. He drove his well-traveled Ford to a used car lot and sold it then and there. Cash in hand, he walked to a nearby train depot and purchased a train ticket home.

During the three-day journey back to Southwest Missouri, Nancy said Jess stayed mostly in his seat, eating his meals there and leaning against the wall to sleep. She said he spent most of his waking hours staring silently out the window, watching the terrain flash by outside.

Back home in Joplin, the first thing Jess did "was to seal the telegram in an envelope and place it in a wooden box with his other important papers" and cherished keepsakes belonging to his wife. The box, Nancy said, "held all his memories — the happy ones and the ones too painful to forget."

Today, the Isaacs have several huge binders filled with pictures, Naval documents and scores of letters penned by Ellsworth to members of his family, a majority of them to his sister, Golden.

On the living room wall of their Joplin home hangs a picture of Ellsworth's sub, the USS Triton, as well as a certificate for the Purple Heart that was awarded posthumously. That Purple Heart was later buried with his uncle Richard.

"We put these albums together for our grandkids," Pauletta said. "What we are trying to do with all this is to save it for history. If our granddaughter doesn't want them, I've asked her to donate them to the (Joplin History & Mineral Museum) for history. It has to be done.

"I think it's important that we keep this going," she said, "so future generations will look back and say, 'This is how we got to where we are at today.'"

Kevin McClintock is features editor for The Joplin Globe.