MORGAN HILL—A Morgan Hill veteran who was exposed as a fraud by a television news report earlier this week admitted Tuesday he has been lying for more than a decade and apologized for the lies.
William C. Goehner, 89, has spent years fooling the Library of Congress, the media and even his own friends and family. He has talked publicly about the four Purple Hearts, three Silver Stars and Navy Cross he received for heroism as a member of a storied Underwater Demolition Team during the Second World War. Morgan Hill Rotary Club issued a presidential citation for valor that he proudly displayed.
But it was all a lie. Goehner said at his home June 2 he is sorry for telling the tall tales all these years. That was just a couple days after Goehner’s credibility was called into question by ABC investigative reporter Dan Noyes at a presentation the Morgan Hill man made at the USS Hornet Museum in Alameda.
“I’m sorry. I was discharged as a Seaman First (Class),” Goehner said Tuesday. Seaman First Class is several ranks below Lieutenant Commander, which Goehner has claimed many times to have achieved at the age of 19 after just 2.5 years in the Navy.
On Tuesday, while admitting he is a fraud, Goehner stopped short of taking full personal blame for the fabrications. He said a friend, whom he declined to name, contacted the Library of Congress on his behalf to set up a video interview for its Veterans History Project in 2004. Goehner said the Library of Congress never did its own fact-checking to verify his story.
He said he did not receive any of the previously claimed medals. He did not serve on the Navy’s Underwater Demolition Team. The lead character played by Richard Widmark in 1951’s “The Frogmen” was not based on Goehner and he did not serve as a film consultant, he admitted.
The former editors of this newspaper— when it was under different management and ownership—reported Goehner’s detailed accounts under the headline “The original Navy SEAL,” on January 11, 2013.
Goehner explained his lies by saying, “I guess you get in the habit of it.”
Goehner’s son Victor showed his father the DVD with his 2004 video interview for the Library of Congress.
“But you’re the one who said you did these things,” Victor said.“Don’t sit here and say you didn’t know about it.”
Victor said his father has told the war and war medals stories “as long as I can remember.”
When confronted by Noyes May 30 at the USS Hornet Museum with military records that disprove most of his story, Goehner insisted on camera that the stories were true. Victor said Tuesday morning was the first time his father “remotely admitted he’s wrong.”
One veteran who vouched for Goehner, and recommended him to the USS Hornet Museum, is Morgan Hill resident and U.S. Air Force veteran Brian Shiroyama. He is “obviously…disappointed” in Goehner, but “pleased” to hear he has finally admitted to his lies.
Goehner served in the U.S. Navy in Europe, Africa and the Pacific before and after World War Two, according to his naval separation documents. Goehner and his son showed these records to Gilroy Dispatch editor Jack Foley May 31, when Goehner continued to insist his stories were true.
A day later, his son, Victor, 60, said his father has a long history of embellishing and fabricating things about his life.
Goehne enlisted in December 1943 and served honorably in the reserves until 1954, his documents state. They
also list his training in the navigation and steering of LSTs, navy lingo for Landing Ship, Tank.
On June 2, Goehner continued to insist he received UDT training at Little Creek, but his son and a former Navy SEAL says that’s not possible.
At the National Navy UDT-SEAL Museum in Ft. Pierce, Florida, executive director Richard Kaiser called Goehner’s combat stories “just preposterous.”
He said the museum has a database that lists every person ever trained in underwater demolition work and Goehner “is not on it.”
Underwater Demolition Teams, or UDTs, never were deployed in Europe during World War II, said Kaiser, a former Navy SEAL and recipient of the Silver Star Medal for Valor in the so-called “Black Hawk Down” action in Somalia, Africa, in 1993.
Goehner has also claiimed he was a Los Gatos policeman and went to Santa Clara University law school.Neither the city nore school has a record of him on the payroll or as a student.
Goehner and his son said June 2 that Goehner was an “auxiliary” police staff person, “kind of like a volunteer,” said to Victor.
“It was wrong of me,” Goehner said of his tall tales. “It was absolutely wrong. I shouldn’t have let it go this far. I’ve got to come out with the truth. It’s my fault, I guess.”
