Earl Edwin Brannock's Obituary
Earl Edwin Brannock passed away on Thursday, October 8, 2015 at Bayleigh Chase in Easton, Maryland. He was 90.
With Eastern Shore roots that date back to the 1660’s, Earl’s birth in Cambridge on February 1, 1925 presaged a life destined to be special. Both parents were Hooper’s Island natives: his father Captain Samuel E. Brannock; a well-known freight boat owner and captain; his mother, Mary Elizabeth Creighton Brannock, a department store clerk.
Earl was 10 years old when his father died. His uncle, Captain Amos Creighton commander of the Maryland Marine Police for 42 years assumed the role of raising Earl. The two were inseparable. When Earl was 13, his uncle assigned him onto the SS DuPont, flagship fleet. With Earl aboard as a merchant seaman the captain could keep an eye on him. The teenager learned navigation, seamanship, ship handling, and dining room procedures. By the end of the summer, young Earl skippered the launch that carried the governor and his parties to and from the shore.
Just prior to the Pearl Harbor attack on December 7, 1941, The US Coast Guard assumed command of the SS DuPont. A year later, with enough high school credits to graduate, Earl enlisted in the United States Navy. From boot camp in Bainbridge, MD, he was assigned to the University of Chicago’s navigation and communications school; received command Company D2, and subsequently was assigned to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Fate intervened. He was ordered to the USS Chester in Norfolk, VA. Earl called the Chester “home” for the next three years and participated in nine major battles and thirty-nine bombardments. His Navy nickname was “Oyster Pirate”.
Fifty years after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Earl was one of hundreds of WWII veterans who flocked to Hawaii to remember what President Roosevelt called “a day that will live in infamy.” Earl reported the event to local newspapers with a touching description: “They came, wave upon wave, riding in wheelchairs, riding in trucks, marching with canes, but chests were swelled and heads were high. They were young sailors, marines, airmen, again, back from a victorious war. Bands played, flags waved.”
After his war service, Earl returned to Cambridge. He was married in 1951 to Shirley Sullivan Brannock. Their marriage lasted 56 years as Shirley preceded him in death on October 7, 2006.
Earl is survived by one nephew Samuel E. Brannock, III and his wife Ellie of Eden, Maryland, and two nieces, Carol Brannock of North East, Maryland, and Deborah Usab and her husband Ken of East New Market, Maryland.
In addition to his parents and his wife, he was preceded in death by two sisters, Fannie Cummings and Velma Phillips, and two brothers, Julian Brannock and Samuel E. Brannock, Jr.
Funeral services for him will be held on Thursday, October 15, 2015 at 12:00p.m. at St. Paul United Methodist Church in Cambridge with the Reverend Dave Wooten officiating. Interment will follow at East New Market Cemetery. The family will receive friends at the church from 10:30 – 12:00.
In lieu of flowers, expressions of sympathy may be made to the Brannock Educational Trust, c/o Debbie Usab, 3520 Indian Grant Road, East New Market, MD 21613.
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