Memorial service for navy veteran
The life of a United States Navy veteran, who once narrowly avoided drowning off the Kapiti Coast, has been celebrated in Paekakariki.
Frank Zalot Jr died in Springfield, Massachusetts last week, aged 92.
He was remembered at a service at the US Marines Memorial at Queen Elizabeth Park on Tuesday.
Ten of Zalot ‘s crewmates drowned off Kapiti’s Whareroa Beach on June 20, 1943 after a training exercise went awry.
Zalot visited Paekakariki in 2012, and Kapiti US Marines Trust chair Jenny Rowan said he was muchloved.
‘He was just gorgeous from my memory ... he was still absolutely on to it.‘‘
Fellow trustee Allie Webber said the response to Zalot’s return in 2012 was similar to that reserved for visiting royalty.
‘‘Everyone was stopping in the street and hugging him. It was a very very fabulous time.’’
Zalot, a signalman, set off from Wellington on the USS American Legion for a training exercise delivering about 1600 sailors to Paekakariki.
All 35 landing ships were stranded by the slope of the beach. But while 34 were hoisted by crane into deep water, Zalot’s was capsized by breaker waves up to three metres high.
‘‘When I broke to the surface it was like a nightmare,’’ Zalot later recalled.
‘‘Men were screaming, ‘Help, help, I cannot swim’. I thought only women and girls screamed, but we quickly learned men scream too - scream as they are dying.’’
Zalot was born in Hadley, Massachusetts, to Polish immigrants on December 7, 1924.
He signed up for the navy after waking up to the Pearl Harbor disaster on his 17th birthday.
Outside of the navy he held numerous positions. In his youth he was known as Hadley’s best tobacco spearer, and he was the town’s postmaster for over 20 years before his retirement.
As well as surviving the Paekakariki tragedy, Zalot lived through a construction accident and was given months to live after being diagnosed with melanoma in 1984.
He said eating an onion every day was the secret to his longevity.
He is survived by his four children and his brother Joseph.