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From December 7, 1941, to “The Long Awaited Day”
My dad and his identical twin brother both enlisted in the Navy at 17 years of age during WWII. My uncle chose the aviator side of the Navy, my dad chose the Submarine Service. They earned a monthly bonus for hazardous duty, and perhaps that was an incentive to help their parents that were having a tough time financially trying to recover from the Great Depression.
The photo on the right was taken in Portland. The twins with their dad after completing basic training.
They both served in the Pacific. Their sister had been killed in a car accident at 19 years of age. The twins were still infants. They came into the world very late in their parent’s marriage. Their next door neighbor was a Portland Police detective, he told my dad that it was a blessing for their father and mother that he and his brother came into this world when they did. Their father signed their enlistment papers. The enlistment papers for the last two children he and his wife had. They both survived the war.
My dad was in combat off the coast of Japan as an 18-year-old and completed four war patrols before his twentieth birthday at the end of WWII. He went back to the boats after earning his college degree as an officer.
I was about four years old and still remember family life tied to the calendar of when his boat would come back to San Diego, and then leave again. On the days and nights that dad had the duty when the boat was tied up in San Diego, we would have dinner in the wardroom with him. He left the Navy when I was about 7 years old. Growing up in a Navy family I thought everyone was in the Navy.
I’ve seen bucket lists that people make public on the internet. Pearl Harbor, and the USS Arizona should be on that list. I would also recommend visiting the Bowfin, and the Submarine museum. When my wife, daughter, and I visited the Arizona we found it to be a very moving moment. When you watch the families of WWII veterans lay wreaths in the water over the Arizona it’s difficult not to shed a tear or two.
When we walked onto the Bowfin it brought back some childhood memories for me. My daughter was amazed at how tight the living conditions were for the officers and crew. Living memory for me, I had been aboard a Balao Class submarine that was still in active service, historical insight for my daughter.
When the ceasefire message, “The Long Awaited Day Has Come”, was sent out to the submarine fleet my dad as a 19-year-old submarine combat veteran had the foresight to ask the radio operator for a paper copy of the message. We still have that paper copy of that message.
Doug,
My wife and I visited Oahu for our 25th anniversary last year. We were married on December 4th, so we were there the week of Pearl Harbor Day, though we visited the following day so as to avoid the crowd. It was a sobering moment. My dad had told me to look for our name on the wall at the memorial, so I did, and sure enough there was an Owsley who died on the Arizona. He was related to us, though we don’t know exactly how.
My favorite moment, that is to say, the moment I love to talk about, is when we stepped on the little ferry boat that takes you over to the memorial. It is run by the United States Marines. I love to make fun of the Marines, inter-service rivalry and all that, but my respect for them grew on that day. A lady Gunnery Sergeant ran the boat, and as we all stepped on she told us the rules for once we got over there. And then she said something that really moved me, and even brings a tear to my now as I write it out. She said “This is not a tourist site. This is a memorial. We do not serve you, we serve the men who died on the USS Arizona.” Perhaps some found that rude. I found it, as I said, very moving.
You are right that a visit to the USS Arizona should be on everyone’s bucket list.
I just checked the website, and the memorial is still closed for repair of structural problems, expected to reopen sometime in the spring of 2019.
We got married on Oahu in November 2003. Visited Pearl Harbor two days beforehand.
We visited the cemetery in Punchbowl the day we were leaving the island. I still kick myself a little – we had flowers left over from the wedding that we left in our hotel room when we checked out. I wish we had taken them with us to the cemetery to put on some of the graves.
Amen. In that same vein, our Legion Post holds a parade every Memorial Day. My first year, the parade was led by police and fire department vehicles. The police were whooping their sirens, the firemen were throwing candy to the crowd. Afterwards, we met with the Mayor and suggested that a) the parade should be led by the American Flag with veterans’ color guards and b) any behavior you wouldn’t think proper at a funeral shouldn’t be done at this national memorial service. It took a few years before the message got through to all participants, but we finally had a respectful parade. (To my surprise, the crowds did not diminish with the candy, etc.)
Today, new mayor. Police car and firetruck out front again. They didn’t throw candy, but I think I heard a whoop or two. I give them benefit of the doubt that they think they are providing a safety precaution. They really aren’t; all feeder streets along the route are closed with police standing there. I think we have to meet with the mayor again.
My father also joined the Navy in 1941. He opened the mail box one day and saw a draft notice sitting there, and so he ran to the Naval recruitment office. The Naval recruitment officer told him to leave the notice in the mail box, and they signed him up for the Navy that day. He was trained up as a technician and spent the war in Corpus Christi teaching Naval aviator candidates how to fly.
He was born on Dec. 7th. Pearl Harbor was the “worst birthday present I ever got”, he always said.
Apparently is is the dock that became unsound as its base shifted downwards. For future plans, you really cannot just decide to go to the Arizona on the spur of the moment. Tickets are secured ahead of time with a specific time for a visit. We went on day trip from Maui about six years ago. We were lucky that we got tickets online. There is no charge, but there are limits to how many can be accommodated. Even if you cannot head over to the Arizona, Pearl Harbor is worth a visit. There is far more to see there; you really need a full day, which is good to know if you are coming from other islands. The USS Missouri is amazing. You can stand where the surrender was signed. If you make it a day trip, spend the entire day and leave the rest of Oahu for another time.
Oh, and the ceasefire message is priceless. Thank you for sharing it.
I’ll get to that just as soon as they finish the bridge ;>)
I’ll assume you know the joke since I’ve ‘told’ it at least once on Ricochet.
When you go, I can’t recommend highly enough the “Home Of The Brave” tour. I called the concierge before we left CONUS, asking for a Pearl Harbor tour. He said, no, this one’s more expensive, but it’s the one you want. Turns out the concierge undersold it. It’s an entire day, and Pearl Harbor, and a trip to the Arizona were included. But any old tour would have done that.
There’s so much at Pearl Harbor alone, though, that no tour can do more than reveal to you how much there is to experience. We took another entire day just at Pearl Harbor & environs. There’s the Bowfin, of course, and a superb museum. There’s the USS Missouri just around the corner. And absolutely don’t miss the Pacific Aviation Museum.
100% correct. We saw many people turned away at the ticket counter thinking they could get one of the handful of free tickets that are given out each day.
What wasn’t hit in the Pearl Harbor attack:
“Overdue and presumed lost” was the Submariner’s simple epitaph.
I have a big thick book on the history of the submarine. That book says that by the end of the war, 80% of Japanese surface vessels (civilian and military) were at the bottom of the ocean, with most of them having been sunk by submarines.
The Navy, in its infinite wisdom, thought the submarine’s only use was defensive. Horrible as it was, the attack on Pearl Harbor forced them out of their backward thinking, and free’d up the sub commanders to do what they needed to do. And of course, as you’ve noted, they were a big part of winning the war in the pacific.
I once toured a WWII submarine, and there just happened to be an old guy who’d served on that boat in World War II. We sat in the galley and he told us what it was like. That was a precious moment, for sure.
Viewed with today’s attitudes, it is amazing that your grandfather signed the enlistment papers for both of your grandparent’s only remaining children at a time when it was a realistic possibility that neither would come back alive. Attitudes were apparently different then.
I once heard that the submarine Naval Reserve officers were more aggressive and effective than those from Annapolis. But now I learn:
Another story from the book: Early on, sub commanders had very little luck with their torpedoes. They simply didn’t explode, though often the skippers thought they’d missed. They would come home having expended all their torpedoes and sunk maybe one ship. Then someone figured out the arming mechanism was installed incorrectly on most of the factory torpedoes. I guess they operated via gravity, and they were being installed upside down. So one captain decided to take them apart, and put them back together correctly. He immediately began having much more success. The Navy told him he was under no circumstances to alter the torpedoes. Because, you know, government bureaucracies are never wrong. Long story short: the Navy eventually figured out they were wrong, and…yeah.
My birthday is also December 7th, but 20 years after. Perhaps it was preordained that I ended up being a career Navy man.
The last time I went to the Arizona Memorial was in in 1995. My wife and I are going to Hawaii next year, we want to try and get there. I’m glad I got the heads up about getting tickets in advance.
If anyone is there when when a Navy ship is passing Arizona you will see the ship render honors-“Attention to port (starboard)”; one whistle blast “Hand salute”; two blasts “Ready, to”; three blasts “Carry on.”
Thank you, Doug! Visited my sister and her then-husband on Oahu in the early 90s; he couldn’t get tickets when we were there, even driving by was incredibly moving…Watched the Park Service Remembrance Ceremony on Friday – wow!