DOB/DOD: September 7, 1900 (Portland, ME) – November 13, 1984 (New London, CT); 84 years old
MARITAL STATUS: Married to Alice “Claire” Mills (1908-1997) on November 29, 1932, in New London, Connecticut.
CHILDREN: One daughter, Dianne Morgan Schonland Sims (1938-). One son, Rodney C. (1947-).
ENLISTMENT: June 9, 1920.
RETIREMENT: December 31, 1946.
OTHER: Graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1925.
FAMILY: Born to Richard R. (1861-1952) and Helene L. Geisler Schonland [born in Germany] (1862-1947). Two brothers, Carl (1886-1912) and Richard P. (1897-1968). Two sisters, Helene Schonland Mabry (1889-1974), and Mildred L. Schonland Keefe (1892-1974).
MEDAL OF HONOR CITATION
AWARDED FOR ACTIONS DURING: World War II
BRANCH OF SERVICE: Navy
ASSIGNED TO: U.S.S. San Francisco (CA-38)
AGE ON THE DAYS OF THE EVENT: 41
CITATION:
The President of the United States of America, in the name of Congress, takes pleasure in presenting the Medal of Honor to Commander Herbert Emery Schonland, United States Navy, for extreme heroism and courage above and beyond the call of duty as Damage Control Officer of the U.S.S. San Francisco (CA-38) in action against greatly superior enemy forces in the battle off Savo Island, 12 – 13 November 1942. In the same violent night engagement in which all of his superior officers were killed or wounded, Lieutenant Commander Schonland was fighting valiantly to free the San Francisco of large quantities of water flooding the second deck compartments through numerous shell holes caused by enemy fire. Upon being informed that he was commanding officer, he ascertained that the conning of the ship was being efficiently handled, then directed the officer who had taken over that task to continue while he himself resumed the vitally important work of maintaining the stability of the ship. In water waist deep, he carried on his efforts in darkness illuminated only by hand lanterns until water in flooded compartments had been drained or pumped off and watertight integrity had again been restored to the San Francisco. His great personal valor and gallant devotion to duty at great peril to his own life were instrumental in bringing his ship back to port under her own power, saved to fight again in the service of her country.
Presentation Date and Details: January 5, 1943, at the White House (Oval Office), presented by President Franklin D. Roosevelt
From the Kennebec (Maine) Journal March 17, 1920
Herbert Emery Schonland, Portland High School, 1919, will enter Annapolis Naval Academy in June, having passed examinations after fitting the past six months at Severn in Maryland. He made the school letter there also, as well as at Portland High, where he played football. He is a son of Mr. and Mrs. Richard R. Schonland, 54 Cumberland Avenue West. His sister married Lieutenant J.H. Keefe of Portland, a naval officer. Schonland received his appointment from Senator Bert M. Fernald.
From the Los Angeles Times November 19, 1984
HEROIC ADMIRAL HERBERT SCHONLAND DIES
NEW LONDON, Conn. – Retired Rear Admiral Herbert E. Schonland died Tuesday, 42 years to the day after a sea battle in which he opted to stay at his station rather than assume command of his sinking ship.
The Medal of Honor winner was 84. He was among the first to win the nation’s highest award after the start of World War II.
Schonland died at Lawrence and Memorial Hospitals here and was to be buried Friday with full military honors in Arlington National Cemetery.
He was the damage control officer on the cruiser San Francisco during a three-day naval battle off Savo Island in the South Pacific.
Brave and Humble
He was cited for bravery and humility when he passed up an opportunity to become commander of his stricken vessel on November 13, 1942, when all others above him in rank either were killed or wounded.
He chose Bruce McCandless [USNA, Class of ‘32], the ship’s communications officer, to command the ship and continued his successful efforts to remove seawater from the vessel. McCandless was also given the Medal of Honor, as were Rear Admirals Daniel J. Callaghan and Norman Scott, who were killed in the battle.
The major naval engagement near Guadalcanal resulted in the Japanese losing 2 battleships, 3 destroyers, and 11 transports. The United States lost two cruisers and seven destroyers. But the sinking of the Japanese transports meant that their garrisons on Guadalcanal could no longer be effectively resupplied., The battle ultimately was credited with speeding the Japanese surrender of that Solomon Island bastion in February 1943.
Schonland was a member of the U.S. Naval Academy’s Class of 1925 and helped start the Navy’s first damage control schools in Philadelphia and San Francisco.
Retired in 1947
He retired with the rank of Rear Admiral on January 1, 1947, with a medical disability because of an eye injury received in combat.
After retirement, he taught for several years at the University of Santa Clara and was the principal of the Drew School in San Francisco before moving in 1958 to New London.
A hall at the naval base in Newport, Rhode Island, home of the Surface Warfare Officers Damage Control School, is named for him. Only four other times in Navy history has the service named a facility for a living person.
From The Westerly (RI) Sun, April 4, 2020. Written by Steven Slosberg. Used with permission.
Postscripts: The Medal of Honor winner who once roamed the halls at Stonington High School
In the decades following World War II, it was not unusual to find retired military officers teaching in public school classrooms here.
At Norwich Free Academy, from which I graduated in 1965, the math department counted among its teachers retired Navy Capt. Frank Lynch of Stonington and retired Navy Cmdr. Arthur Jerbert of Ledyard.
Likely more unusual was to have a retired Navy flag officer — a rear admiral — teaching physics to high-schoolers, and it had to have been hands down unique to be taught by a retired Navy rear admiral who had been awarded the United States military’s highest decoration — the Medal of Honor.
But there was Herbert E. Schonland in the classroom at Stonington High School, teaching physics and science in the early 1960s.
Few of his students knew about his medal or how he earned it, and from what I’ve heard, he never talked about it. The nation tries to remember — March 25 was National Medal of Honor Day.
One of the students at Stonington High when Schonland was there but who didn’t have him as a teacher was William Previty, who, like Schonland, went to the United States Naval Academy, Class of 1965, and from 1982 through 1985 was commanding officer of the nuclear fast-attack submarine San Francisco (SSN-711).
Previty, who retired as a captain and settled in Boise, Idaho, did some research into the history of Navy vessels named San Francisco after he assumed command of the sub and read about the World War II heavy cruiser San Francisco and its involvement in the Battle of Guadalcanal in November 1942.
Four Medals of Honor, rare in itself, were awarded — two posthumously — to officers aboard the San Francisco, and among those decorated was a name that Previty remembered: Herbert Schonland.
“We were very fortunate to have such a distinguished person as a teacher at Stonington,” Previty said in a telephone conversation the other day. “I didn’t have him as a teacher, but I remember him as very friendly, never having a military air about him.”
What Schonland, as damage control officer aboard the San Francisco, did have about him during the battle was his wits.
According to the Naval narrative accompanying the award of the Medal of Honor, “While battling a greatly superior Japanese force that included two battleships, San Francisco was badly damaged by enemy gunfire. Rear Admiral (Daniel J.) Callaghan and the ship’s Captain, Cassin Young, were among those killed, leaving Commander Schonland as the senior surviving officer.
“Though command thereby devolved on him, he was already engaged in vital damage control efforts. Recognizing that Lieutenant Commander Bruce McCandless was skillfully conning the cruiser, Schonland remained at his post below, where his efforts were critical to saving the ship.”
Waist-deep in water and in the pitch dark, Schonland quickly assessed that the ship’s second-deck pumps were inadequate to pump out water pouring in from the shells fired by the Japanese. So he directed the seawater to be sent down to the lower decks where the higher-capacity bilge pumps would be able to handle the task. He first alerted the crew below that a wall of water was about to descend, then opened the hatches to the lower decks.
As another account of the battle put it: “Not only did his plan work, but sending the water to the bottom decks actually helped lower the center of gravity, giving the ship greater stability during the effort to save it.”
Medals of Honor were awarded by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to the two deceased officers, Callaghan and Young, and to McCandless and Schonland.
Ironically, the San Francisco had been docked at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, but was unscathed during the Japanese attack.
Schonland was promoted to captain in August 1944 and retired from the Navy in 1947, being promoted to rear admiral in recognition of his distinguished combat record.
He and his wife, Claire Mills Schonland, decided to return to New London, where they had met and married in 1932. Claire Schonland’s father was an Army officer stationed on Fishers Island, and Schonland was stationed at the submarine base here.
Diane Schonland Sims, the couple’s daughter who lives today in New London, said before moving back to New London, her parents had been in San Francisco where her father was a damage control instructor at the Naval Training School there and taught at the University of Santa Clara and at a private school in the city.
Back in Connecticut, he earned teacher certification at the University of Connecticut, eventually joining the faculty at Stonington High for several years.
He died of a heart attack in 1984 at age 84. Both he and his wife, who died in 2000, are buried at Arlington.
Bruce Greene, of North Stonington, a member of the Class of 1964 at Stonington High, took Schonland’s physics class.
“I knew him and liked him as any 17-year-old would,” said Greene. “We knew he had won the Medal of Honor, but he never boasted about it. He never mentioned his past.”
Schonland’s daughter suspects her father may never have gotten over the horror he saw that night at Guadalcanal.
“It didn’t make him a hard person,” she told me. “He was the most gentlemanly person. He never complained. He went through what no person should have seen or been through.”
WEBMASTER NOTE: Dianne Sims, Herbert Schonland’s daughter, shared with me that the sailors who served with him were dedicated and devoted to him, and he to them. They would call him later in life for advice or a job recommendation. She said he was “remarkable” and “a gentleman.” High praise.
Buried in Arlington National Cemetery, 1 Memorial Drive, Arlington, Virginia; Section 7A, Grave 168. Photo by Jeff DeWitt.
END