Butler sailor who died on lost sub not forgotten
A few months after his birth in November 1967, Russ Fennick's father, William, got some shore leave from the Navy and came home to Butler to collect his young family and move them to the naval base in Norfolk, Va.
He then boarded the nuclear attack submarine, the USS Scorpion, and headed east to the Mediterranean with 98 fellow sailors.
His wife and 6-month-old Russ would never see him again.
William Fennick remains on “eternal watch” some 9,800 feet below the waves near the Azores.
That wife and son — and the two grandchildren Bill Fennick never met — will travel to the Naval base in Norfolk this weekend to attend a 50th anniversary memorial of the Scorpion's loss on May 21 or 22, 1968.
Now 50, Russ Fennick is a blues musician in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.
He obviously doesn't remember his father, but his mother tells him he acts just like the old man.
“I got the similar sense of humor, apparently, and the same mannerisms and the way we say things,” Fennick said. “I guess we're two peas in a pod, even though I didn't grow up with him.”
After the trauma of the Scorpion's sinking, Russ's mother, Eileen, returned with her infant son to her home state of Wisconsin.
She remarried, and Fennick's stepfather proved to be a worthy dad and role model as Fennick aged.
Fennick said his family was unable to afford regular trips to Butler to spend time with his grandparents on Artlee Avenue or uncle and aunt, Bob and Carol Fennick, but he occasionally made the trip.
He took a solo Greyhound bus ride across the country as a young teen to visit his Fennick relatives; he flew to Butler once when he got older; his Uncle Bob and Aunt Carol flew to Wisconsin once to visit; and he came home to attend the funerals of his grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Fennick.
“We just couldn't afford to go out there all the time,” he said.
However, when his Aunt Carol called last year to tell him Uncle Bob had terminal cancer, he decided he would not visit another Fennick relative after it was too late.
“I came home to see him,” Fennick said.
While he didn't really talk about his father very often and felt uncomfortable when strangers would do so, Fennick's attitude changed when he began playing veteran gigs as the bass player in a blues band.“It got me in front of all these veterans that had lost friends and relatives in Vietnam, and it got me opened up to talking about it,” Fennick said.He now treasures the government file containing all the information the Navy learned about the loss of the USS Scorpion.“Nobody really knows what happened, but these are the things that the Navy knows happened,” he said.According to a notice in the Sept. 26, 1968 issue of the Butler Eagle, a memorial service for Fennick was held at Trinity Lutheran Church on Alameda Road.The article said Fennick was a fire control technician and gunfire control seaman who had completed submarine school in Connecticut before being assigned to the Scorpion on Oct. 21, 1967.Carol Fennick, who remembers Bill Fennick and considers him her brother to this day, called him a “character.”“He was a real cut-up,” she said. “He was a little imp, but so well liked.”She said his parents found out the Scorpion had sunk after one of Bill Fennick's aunts called Bob and Carol to say she had heard of a submarine going down on the news.“She said 'I think his sub was lost,'” said Carol, who chokes up at the memory even 50 years later.She said then-Pope Paul had blessed the 99-man crew of the Scorpion before it left the Mediterranean to return home.While the family held out hope at first, the obvious could no longer be denied and a Navy chaplain declared the men dead so their spouses could receive the Navy pay and benefits they were due.She said back-to-back military banners on East Jefferson Street memorialize both Bill Fennick and her husband, who served in the Marines during the Vietnam era.Carol said her family always talked openly about Bill when Russ — who she calls “Rusty” — would visit.“Anytime I come across anything (involving Bill Fennick), I sent it to him,” she said.Bill Fennick turned 21 aboard the Scorpion.Neither the damaged sub nor any bodies were ever recovered, although the Navy knows the location of the sub and searched it with a submersible vessel.Russ Fennick wrote a song about the Scorpion called “Brandywine,” which his band, Sons of Legend, recorded and are working to release.“My mom said he was a wonderful guy,” Russ said, “sweet, caring and with a great sense of humor.”
