Day Trip to San Diego: Part II. Memorial to the Tuna Fleet

By Jim Field

This is the second entry from my day trip to San Diego a few weeks back. The first entry introduced the esteemed San Diego Marlin Club. Well, right down the road on Shelter Island, right along the channel leading from the harbor to the ocean, on an absolutely beautiful spot of dry land, I came across a monument--the "Tunaman's Memorial"-- to San Diego's historic tuna industry--and in particular to the men who served in this fleet, and among them, those who over the years were lost at sea. Tuna as big business in San Diego goes back to the previous century. At one time, perhaps spanning the 1930s to 1970s, the fleet was comprised of hundreds of boats. During World War II, if fact, many of the boats were commandeered by the US Navy and posted into action throughout the Pacific.

The monument is large but not Sovieteque in proportions. It's compact and very nicely done. On the marble wall where names are carved, the following inscription is written:

"Remembering those that built an industry and remembering those that departed this harbor in the sun and did not return."

God Bless these men. Today the fleet is mostly gone, as are the fish they went to sea to catch and kill; alas, they did their jobs way too well. What is left--for one, this arresting yet hollow recreation--cannot convey what it must have been like in the heyday of tuna fishing--the scores of boats, the legions of men, the commerce and money and wealth, the accidents, and the beauty and cruelty of it all.

Bringing in the big ones--rod, reel, muscles, and backs


Another vantage point, looking toward the channel


The wall with inscribed names of Captains, boats, and the lost


The most-recently departed (photographer reflected)