Mesa Musings:

The average age of the honored guests was slightly older than 85. But the crowd was enthusiastic and vibrant.

Saturday I had the privilege of attending the 34th Santa Ana Army Air Base Reunion at Orange Coast College. It was an honor to sit among esteemed representatives of America’s “Greatest Generation.”

Santa Ana Army Air Base, in operation from 1942 through 1946, encompassed 1,336 acres and covered one-fifth of what today is Costa Mesa.

The base covered what would become OCC’s campus, the Orange County Fairgrounds, Costa Mesa High School, Vanguard University, TeWinkle Park and the Costa Mesa Civic Center.

Nearly 150,000 pilots, navigators and bombardiers trained at the base — including my father.

Saturday’s event, sponsored by the OCC Foundation, drew more than 80 guests and was staged in the Captain’s Table. Proceeds benefited the college’s Santa Ana Army Air Base Scholarship Fund.

The featured speaker was to have been an 87-year-old former U.S. Army Air Corps aviator who later became a commercial airline pilot. He was forced to withdraw, however, due to a non-life-threatening medical condition.

“When you schedule an 87-year-old guest speaker, I suppose it’s good to have a backup plan,” quipped Doug Bennett, the OCC Foundation director who coordinated the reunion.

OCC has hosted the event since its inception in 1977. It’s always attracted substantial audiences, though numbers have decreased in recent years.

“We’re proud of you veterans, we’re proud of the college and we’re proud of the Costa Mesa Historical Society for keeping this event alive,” OCC President Dennis Harkins said in his welcoming remarks.

“We lose 1,000 World War II veterans every day,” Bennett said, so the number of surviving Santa Ana Army Air Base veterans diminishes by a certain number every year.

“We hope to stage a reunion again next spring, but we’ll have to wait until early next year to make that decision, ” Bennett said.

Saturday’s replacement speaker was Dr. Carl H. Marcoux, an OCC alumnus and World War II veteran of the Merchant Marine.

Marcoux told the audience that during the war the Merchant Marine operated in all oceans, delivering men and equipment to staging areas and battlefronts.

“Where the action was … that’s where Merchant Marine ships could be found throughout the war,” he said.

Marcoux saw extensive front-line duty during the invasion of the Philippines, and was preparing for the invasion of Japan when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945.

“We were serving aboard ship when that happened and were greatly relieved that we wouldn’t be invading the Japanese home islands,” he said. “It was projected at that time that we’d lose a million men.”

Marcoux introduced the audience to Liberty Ships, the 442-foot-long cargo vessels operated by the Merchant Marine during the war. Though of British design, 18 U.S. shipyards built 2,710 Liberty Ships from mid-1941 through 1945.

Manufactured in assembly-line fashion, the ships could be constructed in six weeks and were designed to last five years. They were the largest number of ships of a single design ever produced.

The ships had a capacity of nearly 11,000 metric tons, and were outfitted with 20 mm cannon for defensive purposes.

“It wasn’t until 1943 that we were able to build the ships at a faster rate than we were losing them,” Marcoux told the audience. “In total, about 1,500 Liberty Ships were sunk. Approximately one in every 20 merchant seamen failed to return home after the war.”

Marcoux said the Liberty Ships worked through mid-1946 “hauling men and materiel back to the U.S.”

The ships performed extraordinarily well throughout their service, though three broke in half without warning in rough seas during the war. Only two ships remain operable today.

On hand for Saturday’s affair were 25 former Santa Ana Army Base cadets. Several luncheon attendees had fathers who’d been stationed at the base. Also in attendance was Mitch Higginbotham, a Tuskegee Airman and B-25 pilot during World War II. Higginbotham, who trained at Tuskegee Army Air Field in Alabama, received a rousing ovation.

I’m casting my vote early for a 35th Santa Ana Army Air Base Reunion next year!

JIM CARNETT lives in Costa Mesa. His column runs Wednesdays.