Bennington Memorial July 21 | Sons of the American Revolution

Each year a memorial takes place at Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery at the Benningtion Memorial. The graves of the 35 Bennington sailors buried at Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery will be decorated with U.S. Flags and red, white and blue carnations.

Chapter President, Jim McAdory the Ft Rosecrans ground keeper, Stephen McGuire, with the SAR Good Citizenship Certificate and Medal for his dedication to making this a successful event each year. DAR also presented Certificates of Appreciation and our Color Guard Commander presented him with the America250 Challenge Coin.

2024 Program:

Welcome (Jaime Salome, Assistant Director of Fort Rosecrans and Miramar National Cemeteries)

Invocation (Prayer by Certified Lay Minister Karen Scanlon will be read by Mary Ellen Cortellini in Karen’s absence)

Advance the Colors (Duncan Campbell – SAR Color Guard)

National Anthem

Pledge of Allegiance

Posting the Colors (SAR Color Guard)

Introduction of Main Speaker (Mary Ellen Cortellini – Fire onboard the USS Nimitz)

Main Speaker: LCDR Andy Hill, USN (Ret.) Director of Docents, USS Midway Museum

Gunner’s Mate/Master Chief John Henry Turpin, USN (Kathleen Winchester)

Paymaster Clerk Henry Otto Metius, USN (Kathleen Winchester)

Sons of Union Civil War Veterans (Fred Hall will be present in Civil War uniform)

Reading of poem “On Rosecrans Hill” (Douglas Wright in Civil War uniform)

Award presentation (Mary Ellen Cortellini – Bennington Historian, President – San Diego Chapter of Sons of the American Revolution President – Jim McAdory, Daughters of the American Revolution Regent – Judith Reale, and Daughters of Union Veterans of the Civil War – Kathleen Winchester)

3 volley salute (SAR Color Guard, Robert Welch Firing team Commander)

Taps (David Powell, Buglers Across America)

Benediction (Prayer by Karen Scanlon, read by Mary Ellen Cortellini)

Closing Remarks

Laying of Carnations (all participants)

Background:

On the morning of July 21, 1905, coal passers were stoking the boilers of the USS Bennington, and at 10:38 a.m. a low, rumbling roar crossed San Diego Bay, followed by two quick blasts as boilers in the engine room exploded. Clouds of black steam rose over the waterfront near where the USS Midway is now berthed. Army Captain Rolfe, crossing the bay in a launch on the way to Fort Rosecrans quickly boarded the ship. “The whole deck seemed to lift,” he later told a reporter. When the air over the bay cleared, 65 sailors and one officer lay dead and dying on the decks of the ship and in the surrounding waters. (Paraphrased from A Naval Disaster in San Diego: Inter-Service Cooperation in 1905, published paper by Karen Scanlon and Mary Ellen Cortellini in the Journal of America’s Military Past, 2005.)

More information on the USS Bennington