Louis Wabnitz

BRIDGETOWN - If duty calls to some people, it must have shouted at Louis Wabnitz.

At 17, he talked his reluctant parents into signing his enlistment papers for the Navy so he could go off to war.

After a three year enlistment - one that almost got him killed when a German radio-controlled glide bomb hit and badly damaged the USS Savannah in 1943 - Mr. Wabnitz came back to Cincinnati to patrol the streets for 28 years as a beat cop in Districts Three and Four, ending his career with a short stint as an investigator.

Retirement set him on a different track as a Hamilton County court bailiff who delivered subpoenas to witnesses for more than a decade.

Having real time on his hands meant Mr. Wabnitz was usually traveling or following his hometown baseball team, the Reds.

Mr. Wabnitz died unexpectedly in his sleep Friday in St. Louis on his way to Goodyear Park in Arizona to watch spring training. He was 86.

June Wabnitz said her husband fell ill on the trip and was checked out at an emergency room but cleared to resume travel. The couple had made the trip to spring training many times before, but this was their first jaunt to Goodyear Park.

Mr. Wabnitz grew up in Northside and quit Hughes High School after two years because his parents needed him to work to help pay bills. Six or seven months later when World War II broke out, he signed up for the Navy.

"He wanted to do his part to serve his country," said son Randy Wabnitz, who has lived with his parents for about five years. "That was probably 95 percent of the reason he joined the service as most men did back then."

Mr. Wabnitz was aboard the USS Savannah off the coast of Salerno, Italy when a German warplane bombed the ship, blowing a gaping hole in the keel. Nearly 200 of Mr. Wabnitz's shipmates were killed. The Savannah was providing gunfire and other support for American troops as they invaded the beachhead. The Savannah was able to make it to Malta with the help of other warships.

While Mr. Wabnitz shared his war stories with shipmates at Savannah reunions through the years that followed, he didn't say too much around his family.

"He had all kinds of war stories but he would never talk about individual battles," Randy Wabnitz said. "He would give you a generalization of things that happened - like he day his ship was hit - but never the specifics."

That was pretty much the same with work at the police department, said Mrs. Wabnitz. The couple was married 59 years.

"He was one of them people that leave work at work and home at home," she said.

Off duty, he could usually be found on the softball field in spring and summer, managing the District 3 team in the police league. He led them to a championship one year.

"They were a little above average, but they were never a cellar dweller," Randy Wabnitz said.

At home, the family could count on Mr. Wabnitz to take them camping each year for vacation. Together the Wabnitzes managed to get to every state but Hawaii, his son said.

Mr. Wabnitz was a member of the Queen City Lodge No. 69 Fraternal Order of Police and the American Legion Post 123 in Norwood. He and his wife would volunteer with the legion each Memorial Day to place flags on the graves of local veterans.

Other survivors include a daughter, Becky Jung of Bridgetown; sons, Joe of Bridgetown, and Steve of Colerain Township; sister, Carol Hoffmann of Bridgetown; 16 grandchildren; and 11 great-grandchildren. Another son, Richard Wabnitz, a Cincinnati police officer, died of cancer in 1998.

A funeral service is 10:30 a.m. Wednesday at Neidhard-Minges Funeral Home, 3155 Harrison Ave., Westwood. Burial with military honors is at Cedar Grove Cemetery, Bevis.

Memorials may be made to the American Cancer Society, 2808 Reading Rd., Cincinnati, Ohio 45206, or the SPCA, 11900 Conrey Rd., Cincinnati, Ohio 45249.

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Written by Sheila McLaughlin | smclaughlin@enquirer.com