RAYMOND W. STRASSLE, LTJG, USN
Raymond Strassle '44
Lucky Bag
From the 1944 Lucky Bag:
Raymond William Strassle
Bloomingdale, New Jersey
Ray was one of our finest athletes and stripers, but we will remember him best for the "jive" he was "hep" to and his brunette from Jersey. The fine sense of humor that springs from the plains of Paterson and Passaic carried him unperturbed through the dust of soccer and lacrosse scrimmages and the chalk-dust of the classroom. When we want to meet Ray after the war, we'll search among the Manhattan night spots. He will be remembered, too, for his part in designing the class crest and ring, and for the "Blue and Gold" in his nature that lay even deeper than his love of living.
He was named an All-American for the 1943 season.
The Class of 1944 was graduated in June 1943 due to World War II. The entirety of 2nd class (junior) year was removed from the curriculum.
Raymond William Strassle
Bloomingdale, New Jersey
Ray was one of our finest athletes and stripers, but we will remember him best for the "jive" he was "hep" to and his brunette from Jersey. The fine sense of humor that springs from the plains of Paterson and Passaic carried him unperturbed through the dust of soccer and lacrosse scrimmages and the chalk-dust of the classroom. When we want to meet Ray after the war, we'll search among the Manhattan night spots. He will be remembered, too, for his part in designing the class crest and ring, and for the "Blue and Gold" in his nature that lay even deeper than his love of living.
He was named an All-American for the 1943 season.
The Class of 1944 was graduated in June 1943 due to World War II. The entirety of 2nd class (junior) year was removed from the curriculum.
Loss
Raymond was lost when USS Bullhead (SS 332) was sunk, probably by Japanese aircraft, on or around August 6, 1945, in the Java Sea.
Other Information
From the Morning Call on December 23, 1939:
The Bloomingdale youth is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Ernest Strassle of Morse Lake. He was born in Union City and attended grammar school in Tenafly and graduated from Trenton Elementary school. Raymond spent his freshman year at Trenton High school, his sophomore year at Cranford High school and graduated after his junior and senior semesters at Montclair High school last June.
At Montclair, Strassle devoted much of his extra-curricular activity to the school publication, “The Mountaineer,” and having followed a college preparatory course desired to enter journalism as a profession upon graduation from college.
Raymond’s father dissuaded the youth from journalism and prevailed upon him to matriculate at Randall Naval Preparatory School as a stepping stone to Annapolis. Mr. Strassle was born in Switzerland and explains lack of any naval men in the family lineage due to the absence of the famed “Swiss Navy.”
Last summer Raymond experienced two weeks at sea on the heavy cruiser, U.S.S. Vincennes, sister ship student of naval lore, expressed a preference last evening to be attached to the grand fleet should he successfully pass through Annapolis. Destroyers particularly appeal to the academy appointee.
Met in Newark Pennsylvania railroad station last evening by his parents, Raymond had made the trip home with a contingent of plebes from Annapolis eager to spend their first Christmas with their families.
Mr. and Mrs. Strassle and their daughter, Frances, greeted Raymond at the station and the foursome happily drove to their Bloomingdale residence to pore for the happiest Christmas the family has experienced.
From researcher Kathy Franz:
Ray graduated from Montclair High School in 1939. "He had conniptions from getting subscriptions." “Mountaineer” newspaper Staff (4). The staff secured a record-breaking subscription enrollment of 862 subscribers and published sixteen issues, instead of the customary fifteen.
Ray was appointed to the Naval Academy by U.S. Senator W. Warren Barbour.
Wartime Experience
From the Boston Globe, July 2, 1945:
By Martin Sheridan, Boston Globe War Correspondent on the U. S. S. Bullhead and its split-second escape one Sunday
More Explosions Followed by Shellfire Above
Though the boat dove rapidly, it didn’t seem half fast enough. As we leveled off, we heard more explosions, not as close as the first, and 15 minutes later there came the pinging sound of strafing shells plunking into the water still father away. We took the hint and didn’t attempt to surface.
“It happened so fast I could hardly believe we were being attacked,” explained Lt (jg) Raymond W. Strassle, 387 East 36th st., Paterson, N. J., who was on the bridge at the time. “I was conning the horizon when a lookout yelled. A four-engined aircraft with double rudder had popped from behind thick clouds astern of us. All of us identified it as a probably Liberator (B-24).
“The plane was flying low, between 1000 and 1500 feet, and the pilot knew where he was going,” Strassle went on. “Only seconds elapsed before it made an instrument run on us, dropping a string of bombs. I was so damned excited that, subconsciously, I pressed the diving alarm three times. Jewell” – QM2c Fred J. Jewell of Roanoke, Va. – “was so spellbound that he just stood there on the bridge and watched the eggs drop; I had to shove him down the ladder.
“The plane crossed our starboard quarter and I heard the bombs splash into the sea about 75 yards astern of us. The explosions rocked us a moment later.”
Boat is Undamaged Despite Its Close Call
Men in the maneuvering and after torpedo rooms were shaken by the blasts. Scores of fuses rolled around the deck and a small trickle of water dripped through a relief valve that had been broken on a water circulating line. Dust fell from nooks and crannies, but the boat was otherwise undamaged. Needless to say we remained submerged all afternoon.
At Sunday services two hours later a capacity crowd of sober submariners jammed the forward torpedo room. Lt Strassle read the call to worship, while one of the lookouts on the topside during the attack, blond-bearded John L. Hancock, GM2c, of Orange, Calif., read a prayer.
Next day two zoomies, definitely identified as Japanese, drove us down twice within two hours, but they didn’t drop any bombs. That fact has been surprising all through the patrol; we have dived at least 20 times for enemy planes and they have never bombed or strafed us.
Ray is mentioned a few times in "Overdue and Presumed Lost: The Story of the USS Bullhead".
He was survived by his wife, Jean De Groat Strassle. They were married September 28, 1944.
Photographs
From his high school yearbook
Related Articles
John Windheim, Jr. '44 and John Adams, Jr. '44 were also on the lacrosse team.
The "category" links below lead to lists of related Honorees; use them to explore further the service and sacrifice of alumni in Memorial Hall.
