THE WALL OF FACES

On the remembrance of your 67th birthday, your sacrifice is not forgotten.

Forever 18.

Semper Fortis.

Today would have been your 66th birthday. You were still 18 years old when along with many of your comrades you met with your fate. Because of your birth date, you would not have been called by the draft. Thank you for enlisting in the Navy to serve your country. Peace to you always.

Thank you for stepping up and answering your country's call. Thank you for your service and your sacrifice. Rest easy knowing you will never be forgotten.

Shortly after midnight on October 1, 1972, the heavy cruiser USS Newport News (CA-148) commenced a gunfire support mission from her station off the South Vietnam coast against NVA troops and bunker positions in the vicinity of Quang Tri City, RVN. At 0059 hours, an in-bore explosion, caused by a defective projectile, tore through the inside of Turret II, burned more than 700 pounds of powder in the hoists, and ignited fires within the turret. All men in the turret and the upper and lower shell decks died instantly at their stations. One lower shell deck man, apparently transiting the lower handling room at the moment of the casualty, escaped the turret but died outside of chemical pneumonitis from fume inhalation, as did two others from the lower handling room. One man not part of the turret crew died from the same cause, bringing total deaths to 20. Many others, including officers and men from various below-deck stations outside the turret, were given medical treatment for various degrees of exposure to fume inhalation. The lost crewmen included GMG1 Tommy M. Hawker, GMG1 Wesley H. Rose, BM3 William Clark Jr., GMG3 Charles W. Clinard, SN Jack S. Bergman Jr., SN Terry W. Deal, SN Edward R. McEleney Jr., SN Ralph L. Robinson, SN David L. Scott, SA Herman C. Acker, SA Ronald P. Daley, SA William H. Harrison III, SA Robert M. Kikkert, SA Robert T. Moore, SA Stanley G. Pilot Jr., SA Ricky L. Rucker, SA Jeffrey L. Scheller, SA Richard C. Tessman, SR Raymond R. Davis, and SN Joseph Grisafi. [Taken from unm.edu]

SA Herman C Acker is resting at Pearlington Cemetery, Pearlington, MS