New USS Missouri to sail with a bit of Saline County aboard

Retired Navy men Stanton Thompson, left, and Charlie Guthrie hold a World War II brass shell filled with soil from Thompson's Saline County farm. The shell will be presented to the crew of the new U.S.S. Missouri during commissioning ceremonies Saturday, July 31. (Eric Crump/Democrat-News) [Click to enlarge]

Two retired Navy men from the area, Charlie Guthrie of Slater and Stanton Thompson of Higginsville, formerly of Slater, will present to the crew a shell casing filled with dirt from Thompson's Saline County farm.

"This isn't clean dirt. It has has some fertilizer in it. We wanted the ships roots to grow well," Thompson said with a chuckle.

The two old friends both serve on the commissioning committee, and they worked together to create the gift.

Guthrie obtained the shell from the estate of James Gary Neff, a Marine who served in the Pacific Theater during World War II. The shell has "1942" inscribed on its base.

It seemed appropriate to Guthrie and Thompson for the gift to be something a Missourian brought back from war.

"I wanted the submarine to have some dirt on it," Thompson said. "I wanted [the container] to be brass. I wanted some poor seaman to have to polish it, because as they polish it they'll read the inscription on the side."

Thompson said as far as he knows, no other Naval vessel carries soil from its namesake state.

"It's just a crazy thing we came up with," he said.

But the two hope the gift will help achieve a goal of the commissioning committee, to "establish a long-time relationship with the crew. We want to marry the citizens of the state with the crew of the state's ship."

To pursue that goal, the commissioning committee will not end its work with the ceremony Saturday but plans to continue building that relationship.

One example, Thompson said, is a program being developed at Grantham University in Kansas City to provide a full-ride scholarship to one crew member of the Missouri for each year of the life of the submarine -- probably 40 years.

The scholarship recipient will be able to study using computer courses from Grantham while at sea, Thompson said.

More efforts are under way, and some of them will require money.

Guthrie has coordinated local fundraising efforts, selling commemorative caps and coins, which are available at Community Bank in Marshall, State Bank of Slater, Slater General Store, City Pharmacy in Slater, Slater Main Street News and Meyer Motors in Concordia.

Coins are $10, plain caps are $15 and caps with "scrambled egg" insignia are $20.

The commissioning is the final step along the sub's way to joining the U.S. fleet. It's keel was laid in September 2008, it was christened in December 2009 and began sea trials in June 2010.

The Virginia-class sub is the fifth vessel to carry the name of Missouri.

The first, an early steam-powered warship, was commissioned in 1842, according to a booklet commemorating the commissioning. The second was a Confederate iron-clad steamer launched in 1863.

The third was a Maine-class battleship commissioned in 1903, and the fourth was the famous battleship, "Mighty Mo," that was launched in 1944 and was the site of the formal surrender of Japanese forces in 1945.

For more information or to contribute to the project, contact Guthrie at chasguthrie1947@sbcglobal.net or Thompson at jsthomps@ctcis.neta.

The inscription on the side of the 37 mm shell reads:

31 July 2010
RURAL SLATER MISSOURI FARM DIRT
THE ROOTS OF THE
USS MISSOURI SSN 780
WILL BE ANCHORED IN OUR SOIL AND STATE
PRESENTED BY
RDMU JOE STANTON THOMPSON USN (RET)
SH1 CHARLES RAY GUTHRIE USN (RET)

Contact Eric Crump at ecrump@marshallnews.com