PEARL HARBOUR HEROES
G'day folks,
Shortly before 8 a.m. on December 7, 1941, the skies over
the naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii filled with the drone of more than 350
Japanese fighter planes and bombers.
During a two-hour ambush, the Japanese
strike force rained fire on the unprepared Pacific Fleet, damaging or
destroying some 20 ships and 200 aircraft and inflicting 3,500 casualties. The
attack thrust the United States into World War II, but it is also remembered
for the many scenes of heroism and self-sacrifice that played out as sailors
and airmen mounted a desperate defense. From the man who led the evacuation of
USS Arizona to the fighter pilot who took to the skies in his pajamas, learn
the stories of the many servicemen who distinguished themselves on one of the
darkest days in American military history.
Samuel Fuqua
Missouri-born Samuel
Fuqua had a front row seat to the devastation at Peal Harbor from aboard USS
Arizona, a battleship that was heavily bombed during the first wave of the
attack. The 42-year-old lieutenant commander was having breakfast when the
ship’s air raid sirens first sounded around 7:55 a.m. He immediately rushed to
the quarterdeck, only to be strafed by enemy fire and then knocked out cold
when a bomb fell just feet away from him. Though dazed, Fuqua jumped to his
feet after regaining consciousness and began directing firefighting operations.
Moments later, he became the Arizona’s senior surviving officer after another
bomb detonated the ship’s ammunition magazine, killing more than 1,000 men.
As
burned and maimed sailors poured onto the deck, Fuqua ignored gunfire from
passing aircraft and calmly led efforts to evacuate his sinking ship. “I can
still see him standing there,” Arizona crewman Edward Wentzlaff later
remembered, “ankle deep in water, stub of a cigar in his mouth, cool and
efficient, oblivious to the danger about him.” Fuqua was among the last men to
abandon ship. He and two fellow officers then commandeered a boat and braved
heavy fire while picking up survivors from the fire-streaked waters. He went on
to win the Medal of Honor for his actions at Pearl Harbor, and was later
promoted to rear admiral upon his retirement from the Navy in 1953.
Peter Tomich
Around the same time
Arizona was being bombed, the training and target ship USS Utah was rocked by
two torpedo strikes from Japanese aircraft. The aging vessel soon began to list
to one side as water flooded into its hull. Inside the boiler room, Chief
Watertender Peter Tomich ordered his crew to abandon ship. After ensuring that
his men had escaped their engineering spaces, the Austro-Hungarian immigrant
and World War I veteran returned to his post and singlehandedly secured the
boilers, preventing a potential explosion that would have claimed many lives.
USS Utah rolled over and sank just minutes later. Fifty eight men—Tomich among
them—went down with the ship. The 48-year-old was posthumously awarded the
Medal of Honor for his lifesaving actions, but in an unusual twist, the Navy
was unable to locate any of his family members. His award went unclaimed for
nearly 65 years until 2006, when it was finally presented to a relative during
a ceremony in Split, Croatia.
George Welch and Kenneth Taylor
Army Air Corps
pilots George Welch and Kenneth Taylor spent the evening before the Pearl
Harbor attack attending a formal dance and playing poker until the wee hours of
the morning. They were still sleeping off their night of partying when they
were awakened around 8 a.m. by the sound of exploding bombs and machine gun
fire. Not wanting to miss out on a fight, the pair threw on their tuxedo pants
and sped to Haleiwa airfield in Taylor’s Buick, dodging strafing Japanese
planes along the way. Just minutes later, they became the first American pilots
to get airborne after they took off in their P-40 fighters.
Welch and Taylor
went on to wage a lonely battle against hundreds of enemy planes. They even
landed at Wheeler airfield at one point and had their ammunition replenished
before rejoining the fray. By the time the attack ended, the second lieutenants
had shot down at least six fighters and bombers between them. Both were awarded
the Distinguished Service Cross for their high flying exploits, and Taylor was
given a Purple Heart for a shrapnel wound he received when his P-40 was struck
by machine gun fire.
Doris Miller
Doris Miller’s skin
color usually relegated him to the role of cook and laundry attendant aboard
USS West Virginia, but when the ship was struck by multiple bombs and torpedoes
on December 7, he became one of its most vital crewmembers. Miller had rushed
to his battle station amidships as soon as the shooting started. Finding it
destroyed, the amateur boxer sprinted to the quarterdeck and used his hulking
frame to help move the injured. Miller was among the men who carried the ship’s
mortally wounded skipper to safety, and he then helped pass ammunition to the
crews of two .50 caliber machine guns.
Despite having no weapons training, he
eventually manned one of the weapons himself and began blasting away at the
Japanese fighters swarming around the ship. “It wasn’t hard,” he later
remembered. “I just pulled the trigger and she worked fine…I think I got one of
those Jap planes. They were diving pretty close to us.” Miller continued to
operate the gun for some 15 minutes until ordered to abandon ship. His actions
earned him the Navy Cross—the first ever presented to an African American—and
he was widely hailed as a war hero in the black press. He later toured the
country promoting war bonds before being reassigned to the escort carrier
Liscome Bay. Sadly, Miller was among the 646 crewmen killed when the ship was
torpedoed and sunk in 1943.
Clancy's comment: I guess there are always folks who will always stand up in bad situations.
I'm ...
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