Medal awarded to WWII sinking victim

VANCOUVER, Wash. – Relatives of a man who died in the sinking of a submarine chaser off Maine in World War II have been told he will be awarded the Purple Heart.

The medal for the late Edwin Frederick Mathys, who died when the USS Eagle was sunk by a German U-boat in the closing months of the war, will be presented sometime around Memorial Day, said Matthew Beck, an aide to Rep. Brian Baird, D-Wash.

“It’s just too bad it took so long,” said his half-sister, Pat Bauer, 72, of Vancouver.

One of the dead man’s brothers, Harry Mathys, also deceased, served in the Navy for 32 years.

“It’s too bad Harry wasn’t able to know,” said their brother, Ken, 76, of Vancouver, who expects to receive the medal from Baird in the ceremony.

The Purple Heart, given to all U.S. military personnel who are injured or killed in combat, was presented to three survivors and relatives of most of the other 60 Eagle crew members in June.

Relatives of Ed Mathys family said they learned of the belated awards only from an Associated Press report that was published early last year.

No one who died when the Eagle went to the bottom three miles off Cape Elizabeth, Maine, on April 23, 1945, received the medal for more than half a century because, until 1999, the Navy claimed the Eagle sank from a boiler explosion rather than a U-boat attack.

Ed Mathys, a Vancouver High School graduate, was a 42-year-old chief machinist’s mate with 24 years in the Navy at the time. Two weeks after the sinking, Nazi Germany surrendered.

“His bunk was right where the torpedo hit. It just blew it to bits,” Ken Mathys said.

Only after years of investigation and demands for official documents by Paul Lawton, a lawyer and historian in Brockton, Mass., and by two of the 14 survivors did the government release a 76-page document dated June 1, 1945, which proved the ship was sunk by the German submarine U-853.

Bauer might never have learned what happened to her half brother had she not been a genealogist.

While researching his life online, she got in contact with Phil Cohen of Camden, N.J., who maintains an extensive Web site about veterans in his area and sent her the article by AP special correspondent Helen O’Neill.