By JAN LARSON McLAUGHLIN
BG Independent News
Elmer Long’s home for four years during World War II was in the belly of a Navy oil tanker.
A small version of that ship, which became a big part of Long’s life, will soon have a new home at the Naval Academy Museum in Annapolis.
Betty Long, Elmer’s widow, is donating a detailed replica of the USS Mattaponi tanker to the museum later this month. The model was a Father’s Day gift to Elmer in 1997 from the couple’s sons, Wes of New Rochester, Chuck of Perrysburg Township, and Dana of Gibsonburg.
“Elmer would be excited,” Betty said.
Elmer and Betty Long grew up in the tiny town of Hoytville, in the southwest corner of Wood County. Elmer enlisted in October of 1942 and served until April 1946.
“He was on the ship the whole time,” Betty said. “He was down in the boiler room,” serving as a machinist mate.
The oilers, as they were called, were important because they allowed other Navy ships like destroyers, cruisers and aircraft carriers, to have greater range. The ships could be refueled while underway, rather than having to come into port for fuel, according to Dave Chilson, retired Navy captain from Bowling Green.
“He talked about it all the time,” Betty said. “He was proud to have been in the service.”
Betty Long holds Navy photo of her husband Elmer.
When Elmer returned from the war, he and Betty began dating, and married in February of 1947. The couple moved from Hoytville to even tinier Scotch Ridge. Elmer worked in heating and air conditioning in a federal building in Toledo, and as custodian at Webster Elementary for 28 years. He retired in 1986.
His sons, recognizing how much his Navy service meant to Elmer, asked Andy Trummel, of Lorraine, to build a replica of the USS Mattaponi. It took Trummel a year to build it to scale.
“He couldn’t even talk,” Betty said of her husband, when his sons presented the ship to him on Father’s Day.
The ship sits in a glass case in Betty’s Bowling Green home, next to the map showing all the places Elmer traveled on it during the war.
“He almost made it around the world,” she said.
When Elmer passed away in 2012, the family debated what to do with the tanker replica. “We didn’t know what to do with it,” Betty said.
So officials at the Naval Academy Museum were contacted, and replied they would very much like to display the ship.
“They didn’t have an oil tanker in the museum,” Betty said.
That makes it so important to the site, since World War II was such a defining period in America’s history, Chilson said.
The replica will be presented to the museum later this month by Betty, their three sons, and Chilson.
Though many World War II veterans are still living, most are in their upper 80s or 90s, so some will still be able to view the replica of the ship that made a big difference in the Navy’s wartime operations, Chilson said.
