James & Lillian Rinesmith

James E. Rinesmith was born 16 Apr 1918, Huntington, Indiana died 2 Sep 2003 ,Marashall, Indiana. and buried Culver Masonic Cemetery Culver, Marshall, Indiana. son of Edward Eugene Rinesmith and Bertha Pearle McPeak. (Rinesmith Family history) He married Lillian H. [-?-] born 7 Dec 1919 died 30 Nov 2007 Culver, Marshall, Indiana and buried Culver Masonic Cemetery Culver, Marshall, Indiana.

Retired Navy Man Opens The Country Store

The Country Store which for business last Thursday, June 4, on the L. G. Walker Corner at 138 W. Shore Drive, is owned and operated by Mr. and Mrs. James E. Rinesmlth, formerly of Chula Vista, Calif.

Mr. Rinesmith, who spent his boyhood summers at Lake Maxinkuckee, is a nephew of Mrs. Ora Rovell, who resides with her father-in-law L. G. Walker.

The Rinesmiths moved to Culver on May 1, 1963, and have since remodelled the Walker home and built The Country Store which boasts a complete line of groceries, meats and fishing tackle.

Mr. Rinesmith retired from the Navy in Jan. 1960, and the following is a reprint from a Chula Vista newspaper at the time of his retirement:
After a varied Navy career, which included being at Pearl Harbor when it was attacked, participating in the invasion of Mindoro when his ship the USS J Haraden was attacked by a "kamakazi" plane and the crew was blown over the side, and later serving on the Higbee, which had its bow torn off by another American destroyer in an accident, Chief Torpedoman James Edward Rinesmith recently ended his 20 year of Navy service. Fifteen of those years were spent on destroyers .

Born in Huntington, Ind., Rinesmith attended schools In Marion, Ohio, and was graduated from Harding High School. Later he served as a car apprentice on the Erie Railroad prior to his enlisting in the Navy in 1940. After going through boot training at Newport, R. I . , he served for three years on the Bagley,during the bombing of Hawaii, the Solomon Islands and Australia campaigns.

After being picked up by the Twiggs and spending three weeks in the hospital during the invasion of Mindoro, Rinesmith went to Bremerton, Wash., while his ship was overhauled. The next year he served on the Higbee in China and the Far East protecting American rights and property during the Chinese Communist push to conquer China. During this period of time the Higbee backed 600 miles into Pearl Harbor when she was involved in the accident with another American destroyer while personnel was transferred from one ship to another.

The next two years Rinesmith did recruit duty in LaFayette and Crawfordsville, Ind.

In March 1950, Rinesmith was transferred to the USS Fetchler, which transported a group of NROTC students to Pearl Harbor for training. Unfortunately the Korean War broke out soon after and the Fecthler returned the students to the States and then went to Korea.

During the next three years Rinesmith was stationed in Korea except for a seven month tour of duty in San Diego., The ship helped in the evacuation of Hungam. When the Fechtler was converted to a radar picket ship, Rinesmith was transferred to the Tingey

The next few years were spent at the Naval Recruit Training Center at San Diego for three years; touring the Far East, stopping at Australia on a good-will tour on the USS Kidd, spending a short time in Long Beach when the ship was overhauled, transferred to the Hamner, which was also overhauled in Long Beach and a hospital stay at Balboa Hospital, before his retirement.

His brother, Cmdr. Robert Rinesmith, has spent 26 years in the Navy








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RIENESMITH, JIM   CULVER, IN.  1946-47 &nsbp; One of the The Crew of the U.S.S. Higbee DDR/DD-806

To quote - Jeff Kenney on the pages of the Culver Library site - "Famous Boat Houses on the Lake": "Jim Rinesmith passed away in 2001, shortly after the Culver Citizen ran a feature on his memories of life on the lake." but by official records found Jim did not die until 2003!

U.S. Public Records Index, Volume 1
Name: James E Rinesmith
Birth Date: 16 Apr 1918
Address: 732 E Smith St, Warsaw, IN, 46580-4541
[138 W Shore Dr, Culver, IN, 46511 (1993)]
[423 State St, Culver, IN, 46511-1129 (1992)]

Social Security Death Index Name: James E. Rinesmith
SSN: 276-09-5781
Last Residence: 46511 Culver, Marshall, Indiana, United States of America
Born: 16 Apr 1918
Died: 2 Sep 2003
State (Year) SSN issued:

Indiana Births, 1880-1920
Name: James E. Rinesmith
Father: Edward E.
Mother: Pearle McPeak
County: Huntington
Gender: Male
Birth Date: 16 Apr 1918
Reference: Huntington County, Indiana Index to Birth Records
Volume I A - L Volume 2 N - Z 1875 - 1920 Book: CH- 4 Page: 55

Lillian Rinesmith
Nov 30, 2007
CULVER — Lillian Rinesmith, 87, of Culver, died Friday, Nov 30. Arrangements are pending at Bonine-Odom Funeral Home in Culver. - Plymouth Pilot

Lillian H. Rinesmith, 87, died Friday at Miller's Merry Manor, Culver.

There are no immediate family survivors.

Her funeral service will be at 2 p.m. Tuesday at Bonine-Odom Funeral Home, Culver, with visitation one hour before the service. - 3 Dec. 2007 Rochester Sentinel

Social Security Death Index
Name: Lillian H. Rinesmith
Last Residence: 46538 Leesburg, Kosciusko, Indiana, United States of America
Born: 7 Dec 1919
Last Benefit: 46511 Culver, Marshall, Indiana, United States of America
Died: 30 Nov 2007
State (Year) SSN issued:

Culver Man Remembers Pearl Harbor
By: Bill Freyburg, P-N Staff Writer
This article was originally published 30 years ago in 1994.
The story of Rinesmith’s stint in the Navy during World War II is interesting, especially as so few people are alive today who lived through that time.

Jim Rinesmith of Culver served on three U.S. destroyers during a 20-year career as a torpedoman in the U.S. Navy. He was blown off the side of one of them, thanks to a kamikaze. The bow of another was practically sheared off by a destroyer in the U.S. fleet and from a third, Rinesmith loaded shells into a five-inch gun, firing at Japanese planes during the attack on Pearl Harbor.

By now, not as much is made of “Pearl Harbor Day” – December 7, 1941. The 53rd anniversary of the “day that will live in infamy” in the words of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, passed rather quietly this week.

But Rinesmith remembers it vividly. He was a 23-year-old and serving aboard the USS Bagley at Berth 22, across Pearl Harbor from “Battleship Row,” that Sunday morning in the Hawaiian Islands. The Bagley was in for repairs of a keel; it was receiving electricity, steam and fresh water from the dock.

Rinesmith had finished breakfast in the mess hall and was going back to his bunk when he looked out a porthole and saw an airplane strafing the area and dropping a torpedo. “I woke the guys up in the bunks and shouted, ‘There’s a war going on!’, Rinesmith said in an interview from his home at 423 State St. this week.

“I saw the Oklahoma get hit. We started firing. I was on the five-inch gun, loading shells. I don’t know if we hit anything, but the ship got credit for five torpedo bombers.” The attack came in at 7:50 Honolulu time, and it ushered the United States into World War II.

It took a little over an hour for the Bagley to build up its own steam and get underway. She was not damaged. The crew was relieved to find the Pacific Ocean free of Japanese war ships once the ship cleared the harbor.

During the next 18 months that Rinesmith was aboard, the Bagley provided cover screening for larger ships and participated in a number of big operations including the American landings at Tulagi and at Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands.

“We never got a scratch in all that time,” despite numerous battle actions, the Culver man said. One of those came in February 1942 as the Bagley helped escort two convoys on their way from the Panama Canal into the Southwest Pacific.

After a foray against the enemy stronghold of Rabaul was aborted when the U.S. task force was discovered, Japanese planes attacked the Americans. The Bagley fired away and as she did so, crew members including Rinesmith watched as one daring U.S. fighter pilot darted about the sky shooting at and hitting the attackers.

He was Lt. Edward “Butch” O’Hare, and he downed five enemy bombers in four minutes of action, becoming the first U.S. Ace of the war and winning the Congressional Medal of Honor. O’Hare International Airport is named for him.

Rinesmith left the Bagley on May 31, 1943, to attend torpedo schooling in the States. He had served on the ship since October 20, 1940. During part of that period, his brother was also a torpedoman on the ship. Robert D. Rinesmith was a member of the original crew when the Bagley was commissioned in 1937 and served until October 13, 1941. “He left just in time,” said the 76-year -old Jim of his 78-year-old brother, who lives in Phoenix.

In Septembr 1943, Rinesmith was assigned to the USS Haraden, another of the hundreds of sleek, fast destroyers that protected larger ships and hunted submarines. He was a crew member until 1946 when the ship was decommissioned. The Haraden saw considerable action, including island landings in the Marshall and Gilbert islands in the Pacific. She wasn’t as lucky as the Bagley. On Friday, the 13th of December, 1944, the Haraden was in a task force that came under attack in the Marshalls. Rinesmith was at his battle station in the No. 1 torpedo mount when a Japanese plane came through a barrage of anti-aircraft fire heading straight for the ship. “We were one of the first ships in the war to be hit by a kamikaze (suicide plane),” said Rinesmith.

The wing of the plane swept the starboard side of the Haraden, and the body of the plane plunged into a smokestack near Rinesmith. “The chief (torpedoman) on the other side of the mount was killed,” Rinesmith said. “I was blown over the side into the water. I looked around for another ship, and there came an aircraft carrier right at me.”

“At the last minute, she did a hard right and threw a lift raft, but I couldn’t get to it. There was a kid with me. We looked around for sharks, but didn’t see any, but we had seen sharks before the battle. We were in the water for about an hour when another destroyer picked us up. We found out later that 14 were killed, and 67 were wounded on the Haraden.”

Rinesmith was hit by some shrapnel and had minor burns. He spent Christmas of 1944 in a Navy hospital on Manus Island, got out on December 26 and rejoined the Haraden. The ship was repaired at Bremerton Navy Yard in Washington state and served out the war in the Pacific.

After the Haraden was decommissioned, Rinesmith was assigned to his third destroyer, the USS Higbee. He said the ship was the only one at the time named for a female, Lena Higbee, a Navy nurse.

It was peacetime, but Rinesmith’s adventures weren’t quite over. The Higbee was bound for China in 1946 when another destroyer cut across her bow. “Three days later, the bow fell off, and we backed 900 miles to Pearl,” he said.

Rinesmith has the Navy to thank for his marriage. He met his wife of 51 years when he was attending torpedo school in Newport, RI, in 1941. She was a civilian payroll clerk there. They corresponded after he returned to ship duty. When he was sent to Newport for more schooling in 1943, he popped the question, and she gave the right answer. They were married on September 14, 1943, with a crewmate as his best man.

Rinesmith attended the reunion of the Haraden in Twin Mountain, ME, last July (1993). Forty-three men of the 325-man crew were there. He says he recognized only two or three of them at first look but remembered many of them by name.