In loving memory of
Dewey Ferrell Jr

• October 06, 1922
• -
• February 26, 2019

• Share

DEWEY GEORGE FERRELL, JR., age 96,
formerly of Kanawha City, West Virginia, and a long time resident of both St.
Petersburg, Florida and Dunnellon, Florida, passed away on Tuesday, February
26, 2019.  A decorated destroyer and
submarine combat veteran of World War II, Dewey is survived by his son, Don E.
Ferrell of Ocala, Forida, along with Don’s wife Yvonne, and three
grandchildren, Donevon Dewey Ferrell, age 14, and Abby Morgan Ferrell, age 8, who
are Don and Yvonne’s children in Ocala, and Donna Susan Polzak, Don’s grown
daughter who is married to Joseph Polzak and living in Sarasota, FL.  Dewey is also survived by two sisters, Naomi Lou
Tyree who is married to Warren Tyree and lives in Temple Terrace, Florida, and Doris
Jean Weinman, living in Tampa, Florida and very recently widowed due to the
passing of her loving husband James Weinman.
Dewey was preceded in death by his loving wife of 70 years, Mildred Louise
(Phillips) Ferrell, formerly of St. Albans, West Virginia; his only daughter,
Deborah Renee Dempsey, of Clearwater, FL; his parents, Dewey G. Ferrell, Sr.
and Mary Montague Ferrell, both of Kanawha City; and two sisters, Betty Lee
Calvano married to still surviving and long loving brother-in-law Louis Calvano
of Temple Terrace, and Ruth Ann Hopkins, also of Temple Terrace and a widow of
Howard Hopkins.  

Dewey began his career in the U.S. Navy in 1939,
serving aboard the U.S.S. MADISON, a destroyer quietly assigned to assist the
United Kingdom two years before the United States entered into World War II.
Eventually, after much surface combat against the Germans, Dewey’s “love of ice
cream” resulted in his volunteering to join the submarine service.  Submarines came equipped with ice cream
machines and destroyers didn’t. Dewey was a member of the commissioning crew of
the BAYA, S.S. 318, which completed five war patrols and cruised 50,772 miles
in the Pacific and Indian Oceans.  The BAYA
was a very active submarine, being attacked by thirty-six enemy anti-submarine
vessels during its five war patrols.  She
evaded one hundred and forty-two enemy plane contacts, and survived the
detonation of one hundred and sixty-four depth charges during various anti-submarine
attacks.  On three separate occasions, the
BAYA fought it out on the surface with anti-submarine vessels, and made a total
of six hundred and eighty-four dives.
The BAYA was credited with going head to head with and sinking two
Japanese Destroyers, a torpedo boat and a special duty sub chaser, as well as a
substantial number of other freighters and tankers. The BAYA’s commanding
officers were awarded The Navy Cross, the Silver Star Medal, The Bronze Star
Medal, and the Navy Letter of Commendation Ribbon.  Dewey had a handsome collection of medals
which his son Don, as a small child, played with and eventually traded for a rusty
BB gun that didn’t work. 

After six years in the Navy, Dewey worked with
Metropolitan Life Insurance Company for over thirty years, eventually becoming
a Group Manager.  Dewey and his wife were
very close with Don and his family, and they traveled extensively as a group.  Many wonderful vacations were spent together aboard
chartered boats in the British and U.S. Virgin Islands, in the mountains of
Colorado, and in the hills of Georgia.  During
his entire lifetime, no one can ever remember seeing Dewey upset or angry for
even a brief moment.  The terrible war
experiences he endured – all in the pursuit of ice cream – made every other
distraction in life seem trivial.  You
could not upset this strong and wonderful man.

Dewey will be forever loved and remembered by
those of us he left behind.  We are
devastated.  Our hearts are broken.  We will all miss the joy and love that he
brought into our lives, and his legacy will live on in the hearts and minds of
everyone he interacted with.  Quoting
Helen Keller, his loving granddaughter Donna said “What we have enjoyed, we can never lose.  All that we love deeply becomes part of us.”  His final meal was ice cream, hand fed to him
in very small bites by his son at bedside.
The old submariner then smiled, gave a thumb’s up, closed his eyes, and passed
quietly and without pain.

Graveside services will be at the Florida National Cemetery located near
the city of Bushnell in Sumter County, Florida at 10:00 AM, Wednesday, March 6,
2019, where he will be buried next to the love of his life, his wife,
Louise.  At his request, there will be no
formal funeral or public visitation.
Baldwin Bros. Funeral Home is entrusted with arrangements.