Navy experience lingers

Walter R. Evans

By Walter R. Evans

Special to The Capital-Journal

On Dec. 7, 1941, I was 18 years of age and living with my parents and two younger sisters in St. Louis, Mo. I can remember at that Sunday dinner we were rather subdued and absorbed in our own thoughts, after listening to the somber news on the radio. My parents knew what war was all about, as they were both Navy veterans of World War I.

That Monday morning, I left for work as usual. That would be in the downtown warehouse of Rice Stix Dry Goods Co. On an impulse I changed my destination and wound up at the Navy recruiting office in the federal building. After about eight hours in the office taking physical exams and IQ exams, I was given papers to take home for my parents' signature since I was a minor. At first my parents were dead set against my enlisting, but after about four hours of my nagging and whining, they reluctantly signed the enlistment papers.

On Dec. 9, myself and some 35 other recruits were sworn in and told to leave for San Diego that same evening on a train from Union Station. Before anyone thinks I was a super patriot, let me set the record straight. I used the war to further my own plans to join the armed forces. In 1941 many of my friends were joining up, and it seemed a way to jump the nest and see what the world was like beyond the borders of Missouri. Any thoughts of being welcomed as heroes at the San Diego Naval Training Station were dashed when a chief told us we were boots and as such considered as the lowest form of scum! They could have just as easily told us they were glad to see us! But no; that was not the Naval boot camp way.

On Jan. 10, 1942, about 1,000 recruits left San Francisco on the President Garfield for Pearl Harbor. The trip was not without incident. At dawn on Jan. 17, we were the target of a torpedo launched from a Japanese submarine at the entrance to Pearl Harbor. It missed! Thank God!

As our ship entered Pearl Harbor, we were stunned at the destruction spread before our eyes. Thick black fuel oil fouled the harbor waters, and the stench from decaying bodies came to us with every breath.

The American public had been informed of the sinking of the battleships Arizona and Oklahoma, but there were three other battleships sitting on the bottom with only the superstructures above the waterline. These were the California, West Virginia and Nevada. Also sunk was the target ship Utah (an old battleship) and the repair ship Vestal. The damaged Pennsylvania, a battleship, and the destroyer Shaw were in drydock at the time of attack. These two were badly damaged and no doubt would have been sunk had they not been in dry dock. The aircraft carrier Saratoga was at Ten Ten Dock with a hole in its side as big as a barn. They received this from a submarine attack at the entrance to Pearl Harbor a few days following Dec. 7.

After debarking from the President Garfield, those of us with last names running the gamut A to M were assigned to trade schools, while those within the N to Z category went directly aboard ships in the harbor.

The signal school at the submarine base was my address for the next three months. Before starting school, the 500 of us assigned to trade schools were put to work on the three battleships being refloated. This work largely involved collecting oil-soaked articles associated with shipboard living and dumping them in barges. A particularly disliked assignment was gathering body parts from men trapped in compartments below the water line. These damaged and sunken ships were repaired and returned to service.

In fact, two of the sunken ships were among the five ships I served in. These were the USS West Virginia and USS Vestal. On the Vestal, my life was linked with another icon of Pearl Harbor. This would be Capt. Cassin Young, who received the Congressional Medal of Honor for his actions during the Dec. 7 attack. The ship he commanded was alongside the USS Arizona when it blew up. He was blown overboard and swam to the ladder and climbed aboard. The Vestal was taking on water, and sinking was imminent. He gave directions to the men under him, and they got under way and beached the ship in shallow water.

This is my personal story of what Pearl Harbor meant to me and how it is linked to our county's history.

Copyright 2001
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