By Gretchen Wing
They call Rex McNees’s generation “The Greatest.” Hearing his stories, one appreciates the truth that World War II was won through the sacrifices of teenagers, thousands of them, who reached a swift adulthood on battlefields. Rex’s “field” of battle was the South Pacific, but it shaped his life no less.
The youngest of seven in a Parma, Idaho farm family, Rex lost his mother at age four. His father, overwhelmed, left Rex “on my own a lot,” forging his independence. After fighting fires for the Forest Service, Rex planned a career in forestry. But, despite a “hardship scholarship” from the University of Idaho in Pocatello, Rex found himself unprepared for college math and chemistry. Discouraged, he dropped out, went home and signed up with the Navy. It was 1940, and Rex was ready to see the world.
After basic training, Apprentice Seaman McNees shipped aboard the cruiser Salt Lake City, escorting ships to the Far East. The European war concerned him and his buddies not at all; they were “having the time of our lives.”
On leave in Australia, they got called back to find their 585-foot ship stuck in the Brisbane River mud. The captain fired her up, but couldn’t get to deep enough water. “So he made his own river,” Rex says. “He got those propellers going, and he hit the Shell Oil dock.” The dock caved in, “but the captain kept going till he fought his way out.” Thereafter, “we had a terrible vibration at the back end, ‘cause he’d bent one of the propellers.”
In December, 1941, the Salt Lake City was due to re-fuel at Pearl Harbor when it was delayed by a typhoon. The next day they learned of the attack on Pearl – where they would have been. Arriving on December 8, “We saw all the burning, the battleships tipped over… a terrible sight.” Everyone expected another attack. “A Pan American [civilian] plane almost got shot down, everybody was so nervous.” Rex’s captain stationed men with fire axes to chop the gas lines after fueling and take off as fast.
Criss-crossing the Pacific, Rex’s crew “chased whales –we were so inexperienced, we thought they were Japanese submarines.” Along with hunting subs, they bombarded islands to prevent their use by Japanese planes. Rex manned the 55-caliber guns, but in between offensives, he worked on the ship’s observation planes, a skill that led to his civilian career.
Soon, his own ship became a target. In fact, the Salt Lake City saw more battle than any U.S. ship. In one nighttime fight, “the ships were so close together, the shells were coming straight across the water…There was shrapnel all over the deck, large chunks of steel.” During that long night, Rex relates, “a friend, I was right beside him, got hit…that was a weird feeling.”
Next morning, several buddies were laid out on the deck. Rex’s crew “had to make burial bags, heavy canvas and we had to sew in these dead sailors, with a heavy weight by their feet. They lined ‘em up on the deck, about 20 bags. We were ordered to stand at attention. We were all pretty much in shell shock.” He goes on to describe his first mass sea “burial.”
“They fell into the water and disappeared. One by one…To see those bodies, going down into the sea…so many of ‘em …” Rex was 19.
By 1944, Rex’s crew had fought so much, the Navy excused them from further war duty. Rex was sent to Wichita, Kan., where he was thrilled to see “no salt water anywhere.” He celebrated V-J Day there – “People went crazy!”—before heading back to Boise. There he married his girlfriend and started an airplane repair business.
Rex and his first wife raised five children in Boise, and his business provided a decent living. But after a time, tired of repair work, Rex took a management job in Wichita with Beechcraft. His family followed and they lived awhile in Kansas. But when a climb up the management ladder took Rex to Denver, and a life replete with entertaining and alcohol, his marriage fell apart. Rex moved to Portland, where Beechcraft had another office.
In Portland back on V-J Day, a girl named Lois McMahon had celebrated her 18th birthday. In 1970, now divorced and working two jobs to put her kids through college, Lois went out dancing with friends, and met the newly divorced Rex. Their first date: skiing on Mt. Hood.
But further adventures delayed the romance. A buddy of Rex’s invited him to be chief mechanic aboard a surplus Navy ship he’d bought in Baltimore, to sail down the Intracoastal Waterway, across the Caribbean and through the Panama Canal. In the Yucatan, they were forced ashore by the Mexican navy. Running short of rations, they sampled local fare – tortuga steaks: “delicious.” The resulting medical conditions, however, wore Rex out, and he “jumped ship” for the airport, where all his mechanic’s tools were stolen. Lois met him at the Portland airport—“What a sight!” Rex remembers. Soon after, he proposed.
Married 42 years, the McNeeses have lived full-time since 1995 in the house they built after discovering Lopez on vacation. Between them, they have eight kids, 14 grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren, who all visit. But none plans to move to Lopez, leaving Rex and Lois contemplating where to spend their remaining years. As this question arises in the conversation, an eagle wings across the yard – a fitting salute.
