California man risked his life in WWII, Korea. Now 98, the Navy veteran serves in other ways
On Thursday, Melvin “Gabe” Gabelhaus was busy working on his sourdough starter and the bread-baking that would follow. He also had a cake to bake for a birthday party during the Labor Day weekend.
Nothing remarkable.
Until you consider the 98-year journey that brought him here. And the other ways the veteran of three wars continues to serve.
The Nebraska-born oldest of three children, Gabelhaus had a childhood that included the Great Depression and the start of World War II.
Still, he remembers being full of hope and optimism, which is why he decided to change the date on his birth certificate so he could serve his country starting at just age 16.
His mother was aware of his aspirations and even let him quit high school to pursue his dream of being in the Navy. Gabelhaus said his goodbyes in January 1942 and headed off to boot camp, then gunnery training after that.
All told, he spent 20 years in the Navy, 1941-61, serving in WWII, the Korean War and the early days of the Vietnam conflict.
His first assignment was as part of the armed guard on the SS Samuel Q. Brown, an oil tanker. He and his crewmates were just two days into their duty on the ship when it was torpedoed by a German submarine on May 23, 1942.
A deafening boom and the heat as the tanker went up in flames jarred Gabelhaus awake. “I was up on one of the decks next to the ridge, it was early morning. I was asleep at the time, but I was one of the lucky ones that got to a lifeboat,” Gabelhaus recalled during an August interview, sitting in his armchair in his living room. “A lot of people didn’t, but I got to a lifeboat,” in which he was adrift for two days.
According to Wikipedia, the torpedo explosion killed two crew members, and the resulting fire destroyed the main mast and the antenna, preventing the radio operator from sending a distress call. “The engines were reversed but the fire spread very quickly, forcing the captain to order everyone to abandon ship,” the Wikipedia entry reads. “Two lifeboats and two rafts were launched but due to the speed with which the fire spread, the entire crew was forced to jump overboard.”
The survivors were taken to Cuba, Gabelhaus said, where they were put on another ship and sent back to the United States for 30 days of home leave.
Another war, another brush with death
His life spared during WWII, Gabelhaus some years later was able to save two shipmates during the Korean War.
On a training mission off the Oregon coast the destroyer escort USS Gilligan was entering the channel into Coos Bay Harbor when its stern was engulfed by a huge wave. On deck when the wave hit, Gabelhaus locked his arms through a rail and held on for dear life.
He spotted two shipmates about 15 feet away who’d been knocked down and injured. They were about to be swept overboard by a second wave, Gabelhaus recalls, so he let go of the safety of the railing to reach them.
He got as close as he could, threw something to them to stay afloat, and then helped pull them to safety.
A news clipping included in “All Hands,” a January 1951 publication by the Bureau of Naval Personnel, says the boatswain’s mate was given a letter of commendation for his actions.
From 1954 to 1957, Gabelhaus served on the transport ship USS General A. E. Anderson, carrying troops back and forth to Korea. During the early years of the Vietnam conflict, he was stationed in Washington and Oregon.
After 20 years, a return to civilian life
After leaving Navy life, Gabelhaus gave the next 20 years to Montgomery Ward, where he was a shipping and receiving manager, said his daughter, Phyllis Gabelhaus.
“Then he went to work at Emanuel Hospital in Turlock as a maintenance engineer, retiring, once again after almost 10 years,” she said in an email to The Bee. When his wife, Mary, mother of their three children, became ill, “my sister and I needed his help in caring for her, or he would have continued to work,” Phyllis added
Gabe and Mary reared Phyllis and her brother and sister, Dale and Suzi. He knows the pain of losing Dale in 1995 and then Mary in 2003.
Today, Gabelhaus lives with Phyllis in the home he and Mary bought in 1967. Suzi and her husband, Butch, also live in Modesto. “Dad has two grandchildren, four living great-grandchildren, had one great-grandchild who passed away in 2021, and he has one great-great granddaughter,” Phyllis reported.
He spends time baking and helping his neighbors fix whatever needs fixing.
“He bakes pretty much every day,” Phyllis said recently while at home with her dad. “Bread, cookies, pies, cinnamon rolls, you name it.”
Asked what he does with all the baked goods he’s made, he said he just gives them away. “I enjoy baking, and I enjoy giving to others,” he said. “Why not give away the things I’ve made?”
Fixing things and baking keep himself active and young, Gabelhaus said. Doing nothing has never been an option for him, and age hasn’t changed that.
He’s currently working on restoring antique dining-room chairs — “gluing and screwing them to make them more stable,” Phyllis wrote in her email. “He recently repaired our sprinkler valve. I tried to get someone to fix it for us, but as usual, while I was gone, he went out and fixed it. So pretty much if it breaks, he can fix it, but he prefers to bake.”
Ron Maher told The Bee that his friend is a quiet and reserved gentleman who doesn’t believe — or boast — that the things he does, from baking to fixing lawn mowers or clothes washers, are anything special. But the many people who know Gabelhaus “think quite the opposite!”
