Finding Meaning

Remembering Weston Balfour

This column is about meaning, and nothing means more than a cause for which young men, and women, are willing to die.  On Monday, we’ll pause to remember the honored dead of America’s wars.  This marks Memorial Day’s sesquicentennial—150 years of wreaths, parades, and solemnity since the 1868 beginning, following the Civil War.  Lagunans will gather in Heisler Park for the American Legion and VFW Memorial Day ceremony at 11 a.m.  The ceremony is as old as our town, both dating to 1927.

People, on this occasion, can present flowers in remembrance of certain dead.  I’ve never done this, but I will bring a bouquet Monday for a long forgotten Laguna Beach boy who died in World War II.  He had an unusual story.  I’d like to share it, as a way of honoring him.  By reading this, you remember and honor him also.  But first a bit of Laguna history.

Life got busy in the sleepy art colony of Laguna Beach with the 1926 opening of Coast Boulevard.  The town incorporated the following year, igniting a burst of growth. The automobile brought new mobility and in the post-war recession people were moving west, leaving the farm, seeking opportunity.  The release of the “Jazz Singer,” the first movie with synchronized sound, caused a local buzz when Lagunans promoted their town as a filming location. Laguna’s growth can be seen in the decennial censuses: the 363 inhabitants in 1920 jumped to 1,981 a decade later, and swelled to 4,460 in 1940.

In the burst of construction, an electrician moved his family here in the early ‘30s.  David and Sylvia Balfour, with children Weston, Margie, and Jean, settled into a home on Vista Drive, near the town’s two-room schoolhouse (now the American Legion Hall, relocated to Legion Avenue).  The high school opened in 1934 and their only son Weston starred on the football team, graduating in 1940.  Weston played football at Santa Ana Junior College and then made a fateful decision:  In February of 1941 he joined the U. S. Army.  (His enlistment record gives his civilian occupation as actor.)

The air corp was part of the Army then and Weston was assigned to the 693^rdOrdnance Company Aviation, stationed at March Air Force Base.  He may have been present on May 6, 1941 when entertainer Bob Hope performed the first of a lifetime of USO shows.  In response to Japanese military expansion in the Asia-Pacific region, the U.S. moved forces to the Philippines, including Weston’s company.

On Dec. 7, 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, and the following day the U.S. declared war and Japan invaded the Philippines. The Battle of the Philippines lasted until the May 8 fall of Corregidor, but organized resistance effectively ended with the surrender at Bataan. Weston, once a carefree son of Laguna Beach, was now a prisoner of war.  He survived the Bataan Death March and two-and-a-half years as a prisoner. Anticipating a U.S. invasion of the Philippines, the Japanese Army began to move surviving POWs away, crowding them into the holds of returning ships.  Weston and 750 fellow POWs were crowded into the holds of the freighter Shinyo Maru.

On Sept. 7, 1944, the U.S. submarine Paddle, unaware the ship carried POWs, attacked the Shinyo Maru, sinking it with two torpedos. In the fighting that followed, just 83 of the 750 POWs managed to swim to a nearby island.  Weston was not among the survivors.    After all he had endured, Weston died just days short of rescue.  There would be no victorious homecoming.  No grave marks his passing.  No wife, children or grandchildren would ever call his name. His body remains within the restless sea.

Still, in the way that all flesh must in time return to nature, perhaps Weston has come home, his essence borne to our beaches by the timeless gyre of ocean currents.  Welcome home Weston; you’re remembered.

Skip fell in love with Laguna on a ‘50s surfing trip.  He’s a student of Laguna history and the author of “Loving Laguna: A Local’s Guide to Laguna Beach.”  Email: [email protected]

Correction:

An earlier publication of this story misspelled Weston’s last name. Weston Balfour is the correct spelling.

Places to worship (all on Sunday, unless noted):

Baha’i’s of Laguna Beach—contact [email protected] for events and meetings.

Chabad Jewish Center, 30804 S. Coast Hwy, Fri. 6 p.m., Sat. 10:30 a.m., Sun. 8 a.m.

Church by the Sea, 468 Legion St., 9 & 10:45 a.m.

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon), 682 Park Ave., 10 a.m.

First Church of Christ, Scientist, 635 High Dr., 10 a.m.

ISKCON (Hare Krishna), 285 Legion St., 5 p.m., with 6:45 feast.

Jehovah’s Witnesses, 20912 Laguna Canyon Rd., 1:00 p.m.

Laguna Beach Net-Works, 286 St. Ann’s Dr., 10 a.m.

Laguna Presbyterian, 415 Forest Ave., 8:30 & 10 a.m.

Neighborhood Congregational Church (UCC), 340 St. Ann’s Drive, 10 a.m.

United Methodist Church, 21632 Wesley, 10 a.m.

St. Catherine of Siena (Catholic), 1042 Temple Terrace, 7:30, 9, 11, 1:30 p.m. (Spanish), 5:30 p.m.  There are 8 a.m. masses on other days and Saturday 5:30 p.m. vigils.

St. Francis by the Sea (American Catholic), 430 Park, 9:30 a.m.

St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, 428 Park Ave., 8 & 10:30 a.m.

Unitarian Universalist, 429 Cypress St., 10:30 a.m.

Photo: Weston Barbour in the Laguna Beach High School 1940 yearbook, Nautilus.