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Iowan’s long search finds WWII memorial honoring his uncle
An Iowan’s 15-year search for a long-lost World War II memorial with his uncle’s name on it has ended, and the plaque is now hanging in a Michigan museum.
Jeff Ortiz of Ames grew up in Detroit. His dad, a World War II veteran, never really talked about his brother, who died after the USS Indianapolis was hit by a Japanese torpedo and sunk in the Pacific on July 30, 1945. Ortiz has pieced the story together himself. “I have a very strong feeling that anybody who has been killed in the line of duty for our country, that their stories should not be forgotten,” Ortiz said during an interview with Radio Iowa.
Orlando Robert Ortiz, whom the family called Bobby, enlisted in the Navy when he was 18. He was 20 when the USS Indianapolis was hit. “I was lucky enough to meet two of the survivors — there’s still one alive — and they both concurred that because of his position he probably had like a day shift kind of a job and it was so hot that night that anybody that didn’t have to be in the ship was probably sleeping on deck, so he probably went into the water,” Ortiz said. “That’s about the best I have for what happened to my uncle.”
Ortiz knew about the plaque that listed his uncle and the other USS Indianapolis shipmates from Michigan who died because he had a copy of the program on the day the plaque was dedicated. “In this program, there was a picture of this,” Ortiz said, “and then about 15, 16 years ago, I started wondering: ‘Whatever happened to this thing?'”
Ortiz spent part of every trip back to Detroit searching VFW halls, museums, and even Detroit City Hall. “Last December I was back there for my 50th high school reunion, and there were two places I hadn’t checked out yet. One was the convention center…I walked every square inch of it, looking to see if it got hung in there. I went to another place called the Dossin Great Lakes Museum, and it was closed because it was Saturday,” Ortiz said, “which ended up being a blessing.”
Ortiz called the museum later when he got back to his home in Ames and got a tip that the Detroit Historical Museum might have the plaque in storage. “Sure as shootin’ there it was in this dark corner, leaning up against a wall, dirty — no archive of when, how, or why they got it,” Ortiz said.
A ceremony was held in August for a rededication, and the plaque now hangs in the Arsenal of Democracy section of the Detroit Historical Museum. “Fifteen years of looking and digging for it and almost giving up — and not giving up and finding it,” Ortiz said. “Now it’s on permanent display.”
Ortiz said his uncle made his last trip home to Detroit in the spring of 1945 as the USS Indianapolis was being repaired in California after being damaged in the Battle of Okinawa. That July, his uncle and the rest of the crew headed back to the Pacific, carrying top-secret cargo. Not even the captain of the ship knew what was inside the crates. “They loaded key components of the atomic bomb on the ship,” Ortiz said.
On July 26, the USS Indianapolis dropped off the crates on the island where the bomb that struck Hiroshima was assembled. Four days later, the USS Indianapolis was hit by torpedoes from a Japanese submarine. Ortiz has learned that 27 Iowans died in the sinking of the USS Indianapolis and three survived. The survivors were Seaman First Class Charles O. Wells of Camanche, Seaman Second Class Glen Laverne Milbrodt of Akron, and Electrician’s Mate Second Class Edward Koche of Denison.
Ortiz’s uncle was a Yeoman Third Class and, according to his obituary, he was a veteran of five sea battles in the USS Indianapolis and had planned to become a CPA after the war. Ortiz gave photos of his uncle to the producers of the 2016 movie about the USS Indianapolis that you can see as the film’s credits roll. Ortiz also noted a character in the 1975 movie “Jaws” mentions his hatred of sharks began when he was floating in the Pacific for four days, waiting to be rescued after the USS Indianapolis was sunk.
Ortiz has created an online scrapbook about his uncle and the U.S.S. Indianapolis.
