It has been three years since USN Captain Wendell Furnas has passed away but his memory remains alive. Through his widow Karen Furnas members of the Culver City DAV Chapter 123 and visitors to their monthly meeting were able to learn more about the Wichitaborn U.S. Navy Captain, who dedicated 33 years of his life to naval intelligence.
Capt. Wendell worked his way through Berkeley and graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1939 in history and English literature and immediately accepted a teaching position for a Shanghai American school, in Shanghai.
By 1940 the City of Shanghai had been bombarded by the Japanese Imperial Army, forcing Americans to leave the area and which left Capt. Wendell trying to escape with a band of Prisoners of War Marine escapees led by Chinese guerilla freedom fighters.
After being caught and sentenced to death, Capt. Wendell was saved at the last moment during the first United States exchange prisoner program. Upon arriving in the United States with much important information, he was asked to join the Navy as a Japanese language student. That job landed him back in the Pacific on Guadalcanal where he would share a foxhole with the man who photographed the famous image of the Marines raising the flag in Iwo Jima.
Even after the end of the war Capt. Wendell continued his career with the Navy and in his last tour of duty as Commandant of the Defense Intelligence School, he worked to get congress and the Defense Department to make the Defense School a Master’s Degree College. At this college attaches from all branches of the military would be trained.
“He passed away three years ago this month a we were married almost 30 years,” Karen Furnas said. “I came from Germany to work for the consulate and met him here in Los Angeles.”