|
By Skip Hellewell
An explosion of happiness last Saturday night . Laguna Beach High won its first CIF football sectional championship since 1946 . It had been a long wait . Pictures of the team with their trophy captured the joy of youthful victory . Micah Chavez , who scooped up a blocked punt to score his first touchdown , said it best by saying nothing . “ I ’ m feeling so great . I don ’ t even know what to say .”
After the game , Coach John Shanahan shared an 8-by-10 photo of
|
that 1946 squad . It was a poignant look back ; those who might still be alive would be in their mid-nineties now . I made a note to track those players down , thinking there might be a good story . Then one name came to mind — Weston David Balfour .
Weston , a stand-out running back for Laguna High , wasn ’ t on the ’ 46 team . He graduated in 1940 . And he wasn ’ t alive for that first championship , which leads to a story . After graduating , Balfour played for the old Santa Ana Junior College ( today , Santa Ana College ), then joined the U . S . Army Air Force . During this time , Laguna Beach was used by Hollywood studios to film movie scenes and his enlistment form gave his occupation as “ actor .” He was stationed at March Air Force Base and was assigned to the 693rd Ordnance Company Aviation . Balfour was there when Bob Hope made the first of a lifetime of USO shows for our armed forces .
In response to Japanese military aggression in the Asia-Pacific region , Weston ’ s group was moved to the Philippines . It was a fateful move . The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec . 7 , 1941 , a day President Franklin D . Roosevelt declared
|
would “ live in infamy .” ( This coming Wednesday marks the 81st anniversary .) The following day , Dec . 8 , Japan invaded the Philippines , and though our numbers were greater , the invaders were elite troops , wellequipped and tested in prior campaigns . Despite heroic resistance , the Philippines fell five months later .
Weston survived the battle , the infamous Bataan Death March , which followed , and two-and-a-half years of hard labor in POW camps . In October 1944 , the U . S . Army and Navy began a campaign to retake the Philippines . As the campaign progressed , Japan , seeing future use for the POWs , began to pack them into ships returning to Japan . Balfour and 750 fellow prisoners were loaded into the freighter , “ Shinyo Maru .” The U . S . Navy had a picket line of submarines surrounding the Philippines , and the submarine “ USS Paddle ” sighted the freighter . Unaware the freighter contained POWs , it sank her with two torpedoes . Of the 750 POWs , just 83 survived the sinking and could swim back to shore . Within a few days , they were rescued by advancing U . S . forces .
Sadly , after all , he had endured , Balfour was not among the survivors .
|
In 1975 , I assisted at a funeral for Laguna resident John David Balfour . I didn ’ t know him , I was covering for his minister who couldn ’ t be there , but at the funeral , I learned of his life and the sad loss of a son during World War II — Weston . The father had never really gotten over the death of his son . A loss made even more painful when the family later learned how close Weston Balfour had come to surviving his ordeal . For Weston , there was no victorious homecoming . No wife , child or grandchild would ever call his name . No grave marks his passing ; his body remains within the restless sea .
Yet , in the way that all flesh must return to nature , Weston has surely come home , his essence borne to our beaches by the timeless gyre of ocean currents . Welcome home , Weston . You ’ re remembered and honored . The things you fought for have survived . And your alma mater has recently continued the sport you loved with great success . There ’ s meaning in that .
Skip fell in love with Laguna on a ‘ 50s surfing trip . He ’ s a student of Laguna history and the author of “ Loving Laguna : A Local ’ s Guide to Laguna Beach .” Email : skip @ lovinglaguna . com .
|