Leonard Frederick Whitford only had the benefit of a fifth-grade education before signing on as a volunteer with the Rhode Island Militia in the summer of 1918, then becoming a United States Navy fireman as part of the Merchant Marines.

The son of George Elmer Whitford, a watchman at a local textile mill, and Emma Josephine (Kelly), he lived with his parents and six siblings on Morgan Avenue in Johnston. A brother, Arthur, and a sister, Emma, had died young.

By the age of 42, a former laborer for the Works Progress Administration, as well as yarn carrier at a local worsted mill, Whitford found himself looking death in the eye on March 15, 1942. That evening, while aboard the tanker “SS Olean” off the coast of North Carolina, he was suddenly caught in a lethal scenario.

Standing at just 5 feet, 5 inches tall and tipping the scales at 185 pounds, the black-haired military man was one of 42 aboard when a torpedo fired by a German submarine suddenly struck the port side, where the engine room was located.

As water began to seep into the ship, which was owned by the Socony Vacuum Oil Company, the captain ordered everyone to abandon the vessel. All hands moved to the deck and prepared to make their escape.

Edward J. Lynch, a 20-year-old former worsted mill shipping clerk from Providence who was working as a mess boy on the ship, had been asleep when the torpedo hit. Roused, he got up on deck and climbed into a lifeboat with six other men. Just then, he heard the chief engineer call for the ladder to be brought out.

Lynch exited the lifeboat to go and retrieve the ladder. When he returned, the lifeboat was already on its way down the starboard side. It had been lowered halfway when another torpedo hit the ship, just below it, exploding the lifeboat and those inside. One of the six dead included George N. Drake Jr., a 19-year-old Scituate boy.

Lynch had been standing on the deck next to Whitford, and both men were catapulted about 15 feet by the force of the strike. With an injury to his left leg, Whitford joined Lynch and others as they made their way toward another lifeboat. Just then, three enemy submarines surfaced for a few moments before disappearing beneath the water again without incident.

With about 20 men in the lifeboat, they rowed away from the ship, pulling four additional survivors out of the water. The captain and seven additional men freed themselves from the ship via the life raft.

Whitford, Lynch and the others in their boat were rescued by the Coast Guard at about 4 o’clock the following morning. Seven hours later, the USS Cole, which was performing anti-submarine duties along the East Coast, pulled in the men on the life raft.

Whitford had married Lillian Parsons in 1922. The couple divorced in 1925 and he then married Irene (Jones) Hyman. He died at the Rhode Island State Infirmary in Cranston on Oct. 17, 1957, from the effects of diabetes, which he had suffered from for quite some time. He left one son.

The brave and patriotic Johnston resident was laid to rest in Pocasset Cemetery after already having been spared the life he’d dedicated to his country, that horrific day 15 years earlier.

Kelly Sullivan is a Rhode Island columnist, lecturer and author.