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Charles Trollinger Pearl Harbor survivor

Trollinger, Pearl Harbor survivor By KAY POWELL kpowell@ajc.com For 15 years, nightmares of the bombing of Pearl Harbor haunted Charles Trollinger. He was a 19-year-old third-class gunner’s mate on the USS Maryland firing at Japanese aircraft during the devastating two-hour attack in 1941. “The ships were in good shape, but the armament wasn’t,” he said in a 1986 interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “It was so obsolete it stunk. We weren’t prepared to fight any kind of way.” He saw friends killed and their bodies float through the fire and oil spills in the harbor. “It eats your guts out,” Mr. Trollinger said. “Dead bodies were stacked up everywhere. You could see them on the shore and on the ships.” Etched forever in his mind were the smiling faces of the Japanese fighter pilots and gunners. “They were peering over the sides . . . just grinning. They had a field day.” He was silent on the subject for 15 years and suffered nightmares. But “time heals all wounds,” he said after a 45-year anniversary visit to Pearl Harbor. He went on to work for the U.S. Postal Service, to serve on the Rockdale County Commission and to become president of the state Pearl Harbor Survivors organization. The funeral for Charles Spencer Trollinger Sr., 80, of Conyers, who died Friday of a heart attack at Rockdale Hospital, is at 2 p.m. today at Horis A. Ward, Rockdale Chapel. After retiring from the post office in 1972, Mr. Trollinger, a longtime golfer, was asked to manage Honey Creek Golf & Country Club in Conyers, said his wife, Betty Sewell Trollinger. That job combined his experience supervising 100 employees for the postal service and his prowess as a golfer. He continued to play the game he loved and taught a lot of people to play golf, too, said his son-in-law John Anchors of Sparta. A second job Mr. Trollinger held while working for the post office gave him access to the Masters golf tournament every year from 1961-72. Working for Pinkerton’s Security, he was in charge of uniformed security at the Masters, said Mr. Anchors. Friends talked Mr. Trollinger into running for the Rockdale County Commission in 1980, and he served eight years. His proudest accomplishment as commissioner, said his son-in-law, was balancing the budget and reducing property taxes. Mr. Trollinger also started a community service program for offenders convicted in Rockdale courts and supervised it on his own time, said Mr. Anchors. “Charlie was a lot of fun,” said his son-in-law. “He liked a lot of humor in his life. He laughed all the time.” In addition to being a good enough golfer to have made a hole-in-one, Mr. Trollinger was a winning card player. His son-in-law would play golf with him, but not poker. “You couldn’t ever tell what he was holding,” said Mr. Anchor. Survivors include two daughters, Gayle Stanton of Loganville and Jean Anchors of Sparta; a son, Spence Trollinger of Conyers; two sisters, Nell Thompson of Fayetteville and Sarah Wheeler of Greenville, N.C.; six grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.