I get asked often about the most interesting portrait project I’ve encountered and I admit I have to get a handle on what that means…the most colorful, the most famous, the one with the most compelling story? Whatever, I’m flattered. Here’s one that stands out with me. My late friend, Ray Kinstler, used to say the his favorite portrait is the next one.
A private prep school in Pennsylvania, Mercersburg Academy, wanted me to paint a decorated veteran from WWII who recently had passed and who refused to have his portrait done while he was still alive. This was not just any veteran however. Admiral Eugene B. Fluckey was the most decorated soldier at the time of his death of all living veterans. In short, he was a submarine commander who somewhat revolutionized sub warfare and epitomized what it meant to be a leader!
A word about the school itself. Mercersburg Academy, near Gettysburg, is an old line boarding school with very high standards and I gather, in simple terms, a feeder for the Ivy league universities. Jimmy Stewart, the actor, went there. At the presentation, they had large portraits of four Medal of Honor winners going back to WWI who were alums…mine made five! Imagine that, five Medal of Honor recipients from one school! Incidentally, the paintings were by the top painters at the time, Wayman Adams, John Johansen, Edmund Tarbell. Tall cotton indeed!
My first task to learn about the great man, Eugene Fluckey, was to learn about the culture of submariners, their special qualities, and about submarines. There were two books written about Commander Fluckey and Hollywood couldn’t have done justice to this story. Never did I think I would have learned so much about the technical workings of subs and the risk and coordination involved. Surviving combat took incredible courage, and brains! Sub commanders were allowed only six missions but those missions may have lasted weeks at a time. During the course of his actions, his sub, The Barb, survived over 400 depth charge attempts, bombs and torpedoes…it only takes one! A miracle!
My guide in this undertaking about war and command was his Executive Officer, Captain Max Duncan, who was retired and lived near Savannah, Georgia. We got to be friends and I have never met anyone who could have stepped right into the movie and played his part. He was most congenial and THE most positive man I’ve ever met! I sort of knew Max from the candid photos of young sailors at work on the Barb, all in their twenties, Max and the Commander a ripe thirty years of age. When he opened the door, life just fast forwarded and here is that young man personified as an eighty something!
At the ceremony for the portrait unveiling were about a dozen former crew members from The Barb. All were in their eighties and nineties. Most of the rest had passed. I quickly learned that submarine sailors were hand picked for obvious reasons. I guessed that they would be of nominal size (I was right). Their demeanor was low key, affable…sort of what I was expecting…The Right Stuff! And they all wanted to serve under Commander Fluckey. I wish I could have spent more time with them.
I asked Max, was Gene the smartest man he ever knew. “No”, he said, but he could make snap decisions on the fly faster than anyone he ever saw, and always be right!”
I watched a lot of old submarine movies and learned quickly from Max that was mostly Hollywood b.s. but I had to start somewhere. I called on my friend, Tom Hutton, a real estate guy here in Memphis to be the model for my subject. Tommy excelled in athletics, he was the punter for the Philadelphia Eagles and the Miami Dolphins in the NFL after a fine career with the University of Tennessee Vols. He was the right fit for my portrait and looked great in the naval uniform I had acquired from the Naval Air Station, Memphis exchange.
After my first oil study, I showed it to Max and he shot it down fast. I wanted to show Gene at work in the control room with the hat on the table with map. He said they wouldn’t have worn fatigues like that since it was South Pacific hot most of the time even down under and frankly they were in tee shirts and shorts most all the time. I couldn’t show the great man like that but we did take out the hat. Now that Max has passed on I will mention that we technically broke the law with regard to government policy. Max showed me the exact binoculars he had with him in combat and I loved the symbolism and shape that it exhibited. He got a laugh out of it and said, “go ahead and use them”.
The only pictures I had of him were of him with a full, teethy grin which according to Max was typical, he smiled all the time. You work with what you’ve got.
Some side notes, I could go on and on about this experience. Admiral Fluckey’s great, great grandfather was a Hessian who was conscripted/ forced to fight for the English against the colonies in the Revolution. While in New Jersey, he met a local barmaid who aided in his escape and he wound up serving under Gen. George Washington, changed his name to Fluckey from Fluchte and became a new American.
I wish I could have met him. There was nothing but glowing praise from everyone who knew him. He apparently was one of few men with leadership qualities that don’t come along very often. He was an Eagle Scout and he referred to it many times. In one episode just off the Japanese coast, he sent a commando squad of eight men ashore to blow up a critical Japanese rail supply line, never been done from a submarine before. It was all very successful but worth mentioning, the squad was totally voluntary, no married men, and those who had been in the Scouts. In case they were left stranded, their orders were to find their way through to Russia for safety!
