Robert O. Bach, 93, retired ad executive

Robert O. Bach, 93, formerly of Gladwyne, a retired advertising executive who helped retrieve a stranded Japanese submarine during World War II, died of heart failure Sunday, Sept. 5, at the Quadrangle in Haverford.

In December 1941, Mr. Bach was serving in the Army, assigned to Bellows Field in Oahu, Hawaii, where he was an artist and editor for the base newsletter.

When the Japanese attacked nearby Pearl Harbor, he later told The Inquirer, "there was total pandemonium. We didn't know what we were supposed to do. Then somebody ran up saying there was a sub off the beach."

The Japanese had sent five 41-foot midget submarines across the Pacific piggybacked on regulation submarines. The midget subs were designed to torpedo U.S. warships in Pearl Harbor.

One of the midget subs lost direction and slid into a coral reef 200 yards off Bellows Field. The body of one crewman washed ashore. The other crewman, Kazuo Sakamaki, was alive. The only thing he said was, "Shoot me. Shoot me," Mr. Bach told The Inquirer. Sakamaki became the first Japanese prisoner of war.

Mr. Bach, a strong swimmer, was ordered to secure the midget sub. "When I got out there . . . two torpedoes were staring at me," he said. He attached a cord and swam back to shore. The sub was reeled onto the beach and the torpedoes defused.

Mr. Bach drew a series of sketches of the scene. Two of his drawings were exhibited at the National Gallery of Art in Washington. The mini-sub was exhibited in war-bond drives around the country and ended up in the National Museum of the Pacific War in Texas.

A native of San Francisco, Mr. Bach joined the Navy after graduating from the University of California School of Fine Arts. He had earned tuition by working as a merchant marine for several years.

Mr. Bach met his future wife, Peggy Hansen, in California, and they corresponded while he was in the Navy. He proposed by mail, and they married when he was on leave in 1944, said a son, Andrew.

After the war, Mr. Bach was an art director and production manager for the N.W. Ayer advertising agency in Hawaii. One of his accounts was Dole Pineapple.

He was with Ayer in San Francisco until transferring to Philadelphia in 1957. When the firm moved its headquarters to New York in the early 1970s, he commuted from Gladwyne.

Mr. Bach was senior vice president and director of creative services at Ayer when he left in 1975 to join the advertising firm McAdams, Richman & Ong in Bala Cynwyd. After retiring as senior vice president and executive art director in the late 1980s, he continued as a consultant at the firm for several years. He was also an instructor at the Art Institute of Philadelphia.

Mr. Bach was past president of the American Institute of Graphic Arts and served on the board of the Philadelphia College of Art, now the University of the Arts. He received numerous awards from Art Directors Clubs in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia. He enjoyed gardening and tennis.

Mr. Bach's wife died in 2007. In addition to his son Andrew, he is survived by another son, Peter; a sister; and four grandchildren.

A memorial service will begin at 2:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 11, at St. Christopher's Episcopal Church, 226 Righters Mill Rd., Gladwyne.