Pearl Harbor survivor Sellentin passes away at 91
Pearl Harbor survivor Chuck Sellentin, 91, of La Pine, passed away Monday evening at Hospice House in Bend, surrounded by friends and family – just one day after he joined three other Central Oregon survivors to mark the 73 rd anniversary of the Japanese attack that drew America into World War II.
“A great American hero,” said veterans activist Dick Tobiason of his friend of 15 years. “Chuck was a smiling, happy person. He was always cheerful, always shook your hand and always remembered your name.
“I’m going to miss the phone calls. He would say, “Hey can we meet at the IHOP for pancakes? I’ll come up and help you put up some flags.'”
He said Sellentin’s wife told him the prospect of attending the Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day gathering at Jake’s Diner had kept him alive and energized.
Sellentin and his grandson, Curtis Moore, were scheduled to travel to the WWII Memorial in Washington, D.C., on the next “Honor Flight” next May, Tobiason said.
Many times over the years, Sellentin recounted how as an 18-year-old Coast Guardsman serving on the cutter USS Taney, he was on watch in the engine room the morning of Dec. 7, 1941 when his relief “came sliding down the rails (and) said, ‘The real thing is happening, right now!'”
The farm boy from Nebraska quickly went to battle station as the ship’s anti-aircraft fire blew out the windows of a nearby warehouse on the pier. A Japanese plane flew so low over the ship’s deck – not dropping any bombs – the pilot “actually waved at us,” he recalled, noting the pandemonium, the smoke and the bodies that brought all to tears.
Before traveling to the 70 th anniversary gathering at Pearl Harbor in December 2011, Sellentin told NewsChannel 21’s Kim Tobin his memories of that day.
“It made a man out of me — fast,” Sellentin said. “Before that, I was just a kid.”
Last Sunday at Jake’s Diner, Sellentin told how the ship patrolled the harbor’s entrance and dropped on the order of 100 depth charges into the water, to destroy or keep at bay any of Japan’s two-man submarines.
Before the Pearl Harbor attack, the Taney already had traveled the South Pacific, taking part in the fruitless search for the plane of aviatrix Amelia Earhart.
After the war, Sellentin returned to the military to serve in the Korean War, then worked in heavy construction in California, marrying and raising four children with his wife, Mary Ann.
He retired in 1978 and moved to La Pine, where he managed an RV park until 1991. He then became president of the Central Oregon Chapter of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association and visited many schools to talk about that fateful day and its message to the country of vigilance against foreign threats.
Services for Sellentin, who died three days before his 92 nd birthday, are planned next Monday at 11 a.m. at La Pine Christian Center, 52565 Day Road in La Pine.
