World War II sailor Clyde Banks, of Cincinnati, at left, and an unidentified sailor are shown in this World War II era photo provided by a family member Myrtle Banks kept a photo of her sailor son Clyde Banks on her dresser at her home on Euclid Avenue in Corryville until the day she died in December 1978, said a niece, Patricia Howell-Jackson of Cincinnati, knowing only that he perished when the submarine - the USS Flier - that he was stationed on as a cook was reported missing somewhere in the Atlantic on Aug. 13, 1944, at the height of World War II. He was 22 years old at the time the submarine went down.

Recently, the Flier was discovered by a search team in 330 feet of water just off the coast of the Philippines, a half world away from where Mrs. Banks thought her son went to his eternal, watery grave. The U.S. Navy does not plan to raise the Flier from the Balabac Strait area of the Philippines where it had hit a mine and went down and has designated the site where the submarine rests on the ocean floor as hallowed ground. Seventy-eight crewmen died.

Now, those who grew up with Mr. Banks as cousins and two aunts have learned about the discovery thanks to Mary Bentz, of Maryland, and Vickie Rodgers, of Mayfield, Ky., who have volunteered to notify family members about the recent discoveries of the Flier and the USS Grunion, another World War II sub that sank with Bentz’ uncle and Rodgers’ great-uncle aboard. Bentz notified the Herald about her search for relatives of the Cincinnati sailor, and a resulting story published in the March 27 edition of the paper has brought forth a number of members of the Banks family.

Many said they plan to attend a memorial service for the Flier’s 78 sailors who died or survived and have since passed that will be held at the Great Lakes Naval Memorial and Museum in Muskegon, Mich., on Aug. 13.

Fifty-two Pacific fleet submarines were lost during World War II, and each state has been assigned to designate a memorial to one of the boats. More than 3,500 submariners lost on those submarines remain, like Clyde Banks, on “eternal patrol.’’ A memorial service for the 70 men lost on the Grunion - when she went down on her maiden voyage off the coast of Alaska - was in October 2008 at the USS Cod in Cleveland.

“We want to be there for our cousin,’’ said Warren Brooks, 66, who plans to take a van filled with family members to the event. “His death has always been a mystery to the family, except for a newspaper article that was in one of the papers here.’’

Cousin Sandra Johnson, 71, said she remembers all of the family members gathering at the home of their aunt Frances Banks on Court Street in the West End and sitting around the yard crying over the news about the missing submarine.

Ted Banks, 77, said he remembers when his cousin came home briefly after completing boot camp, and how proud the family was of him in his uniform. Another cousin, John Harper, 79, remembers another visit home after Mr. Banks was promoted to third class. “He was always very quiet,’’ said Harper. Harper wants his cousin’s name added to West End memorial that honors Cincinnati Black servicemen who lost their lives during wartime.

Another cousin is Silverton Mayor John Smith. Two aunts on Mr. Banks’ father side of the family are still living, One is Margaret Smith, who lives in California; the other is Mildred Gooch, Sandra Johnson’s mother, who lives in Cincinnati.

Samuel Zeke Banks, the father of Clyde Banks, died in 1978, after he and his wife, Myrtle, had been divorced. Samuel and Myrtle Banks had another son, Samuel Banks Jr., who also served in WW II. No other members of the Banks family other than Clyde Banks were lost in that war, family members said.

Brooks said it was a time in the history of the United States that when something happened to a Black person, it was not given much importance. “Those of us who did go to war were not allowed to fight in many cases, and our accomplishments were always underplayed,’’ he said.

However, former WW II Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz once said, “It was the Submarine Force that I looked to carry the load until our great industrial activity could produce the weapons we so sorely needed to carry the war to the enemy. It is to the everlasting honor and glory of our submarine personnel that they never failed us in our days of great peril.’’

Cousin Patricia Howell-Jackson said she remembers when Clyde Banks’ name would come up in a family conversation, and his mother shaking her head and walking away. “We went to the house on Euclid every weekend, and she kept his picture on her dresser all of the rest of her life,’’ Howell-Jackson said. “I never knew they never found his body. When I heard about the article in the Herald, I said to myself, ‘What? Aunt Myrtle never had closure. Now there will be closure for the entire family.’ ’’