Survivors still gather

[darrels joy]

Survivors still gather
By ADRIANA JANOVICH
YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC


They were just boys.

Some who lied about their age to join the service were as young as 16. For many of them, the military provided their first away-from-home experience and a job during the depths of the Great Depression.

Some 63 years later, they're grandfathers, even great-grandfathers, who remember the history that was happening all around them that Sunday morning. Their memories burn as brightly as the fires on the water and aboard the ships in the sneak assault that propelled the United States into World War II.

But they worry others will forget.

"As all the older people die off, it fades into the background, like World War I," says Dean Thompson, 82. The Yakima man was aboard the USS Maryland when bombs started falling on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on Dec. 7, 1941.

Tuesday marks the 63rd anniversary of the attack in which the Japanese sunk or damaged 21 ships, killed 2,403 people and wounded 1,178 others.

Today, the number of Pearl Harbor survivors is dwindling. Thirteen remain in the local chapter of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association. And of the 16.1 million members of the U.S. armed forces who served in all of World War II, about 4 million remain. They're in their 70s and 80s, and they're dying at a rate of more than 1,000 a day.

The deaths and illnesses of local Pearl Harbor survivors are reported during the four meetings the Yakima PHSA chapter holds each year. At the group's most recent meeting last Thursday, eight survivors ? plus a handful of wives, relatives and other visitors ? gathered for lunch, fellowship and the sharing of memories, stories of survival.

When bombs starting falling at 7:55 that Sunday morning, 20-year-old Frank Massey was baking "pies or rolls or something" aboard the USS California.

"All of a sudden, it came over the loudspeaker: 'This is not a drill,'" says Massey, now 83, a retired Yakima auto mechanic. "I can't tell you how scared we were."

His battle station was five decks down on the starboard side of the ship, loading 5-inch anti-aircraft munitions onto a conveyer belt. But soon, there was smoke and flames, and the ship began listing portside. Sailors were instructed to abandon ship. Bombs were dropping. And, as he was attempting to reach a small boat, Massey was blown overboard.

"I woke up on the beach, throwing up saltwater and oil," he says. "I was lucky. The water was on fire. It was thick with oil. Somebody pulled me ashore."

But his counterpart, the sailor who had the same job on the port side of the ship, "was never seen or heard from again. A lot of guys on the ship were never seen or heard from again," Massey says.

Linwood Jones, the president of the local PHSA chapter, was a 21-year-old Marine sergeant who was killing time before a softball game, reading the morning paper aboard the USS Tennessee at the time of the attack. He heard a commotion, went to the quarter deck to get a better view, saw smoke and watched a torpedo hit the adjacent USS West Virginia.

"I knew at once we were at war," says Jones, now 84.

His ship, hit by 500-pound bombs, began heaving, spilling freshly-baked goods from the galley into alleyways. In the middle of it all, Jones scooped up a stray apple pie. It could've been his last.

"I was probably the luckiest guy in the service," he says. "I went through the whole war without an injury."

Thompson, who joined the Navy when he was 17, was a 19-year-old electrician's mate, third class, when bombs started falling on Pearl Harbor. He made a mad dash for his battle station in the mid-section of the ship, third deck, in the communications booth. There were no portholes.

"I heard all the action over the communications system," says Thompson, who stayed in the Navy "six years, 17 days and four hours."

"There's not anything you want to remember about (Pearl Harbor), other than you survived," he says. "You don't like to remember the bad parts of any battle. But you remember them. And you'll always remember them."

Howard P. Cooke of Yakima remembers them, too. He was 18, a 1941 graduate of Ellensburg High School, a seaman's apprentice aboard the USS Argonne, who ended up spending that day ? and the next two days ? ferrying engineers to the remains of battleships, stopping frequently to pull survivors from the water. He's been back to Pearl Harbor five times since the strike.

"All you got to remember is this: You got to pay for freedom," the 81-year-old says. "It's not free. That's my message."