All the Gallant Men

I am reading a book (yes I can and do like to read). I have read several books about the lead up to Pearl Harbor (where I have been several times after World War Two) and the attack and aftermath. This book is different because all the other books were written by historians who simply look at documents and naval reports; this book is written by a survivor, Donald Stratton, of the USS Arizona. Don was from a small town called Red Cloud, Nebraska. The population was 1500 people who were born there, grew up there and died there and rarely ever left the area. He wrote that when he and his friends from navy boot camp arrived at Bremerton, Washington and first saw the Arizona they were in awe. They had never seen a ship and the Arizona was a 33,000 ton behemoth that was 608 feet long and 90 feet wide at the beam. The crew numbered 1514, as many as the entire town of Red Cloud.

He is now over 90 years old, but he was a 19 year-old enlisted man on that ship when the attack occurred. He recounts what happened on a personal level and it is powerful. He was burned over 65% of his body from flash burns during the attack.

The Arizona took 9 torpedoes and several bombs before she listed over on her side and sank. 9 torpedoes with nearly 1000 pounds of explosives each blew that ship up to the point it was irreparable. He was lucky in that his battle station was in a anti-aircraft director’s steel compartment 3 decks higher than the main deck. Those below decks were among the 1177 Arizona sailors who list their lives in a 2 hour attack by Japanese aircraft that fatal day. There were 2404 army, navy and marine lives lost from that attack and 1177 of them were Arizona sailors.

His dialogue includes first-hand views of sailors literally blown into pieces, burned until they were cinders, many exploded sailors were tossed with shrapnel onto decks of nearby ships, other sailors who managed to get into the waters of the harbor only to be covered from head to toe with thick black oil and as the oil floating on the surface ignited they too were on fire. Reading his words I can see it all happening in slow motion.

After the Arizona sank he and others were put into launches to go over to the shoreline and loaded onto trucks to go to the naval hospital. Many were on stretchers, he was so badly burned he could only sit on the side of the stretcher.

The best part of the book so far, chapter 6 “Among Angels” is about the doctors and nurses at the navy hospital. The nurses (barely 20 years-old themselves) ran out as the trucks arrived. They showed absolute horror at the sight of so many burned men, but like the angels they were they went about treating wounds as best they could. As the charred survivors piled up outside the hospital, in the worst cases nurses reached into their battle bags to pull out syrettes of morphine to ease their pain. The nurses would use their lipsticks to mark an M on foreheads so other nurses would not overdose those in severe pain.  Quote from the book, “there were so many severely burned men in the hospital the nurses could not keep up with them that first night. The men yelled and screamed, calling for nurses, their mothers, for God. That night severely burned men begged nurses to hit them with their heavy flashlights to knock the men out so they could have some relief from the pain. Many requested death on the spot their pain was so horrific. The hospitals on Oahu ran out of blood and plasma for wounded men so a doctor ran over to the local radio station and made one quick pitch for donors and within minutes there were lines backed up for blocks with donors ready to give blood. The donors came from all over the island, even many Japanese who lived there.

One thing that surprised me was the ladies of the night that made their living entertaining soldiers, sailors and marines down on Hotel street all went to the hospitals to donate blood (in those days they were regularly checked for diseases by the military) not only did the ladies donate all the blood they could but they stayed to work some dirty cleanup jobs in the hospital. I heard many years ago about ladies of the night that had a heart of gold, but until now I never believed the tale, but those gals surely did in 1941.

The days, months and years after Pearl Harbor were followed with great American resolve. Every American had a stake in that war. They had fathers, brothers, sons, sweethearts in uniform. People in towns held scrap drives to help the war effort, they bought war bonds, those too poor to afford a bond bought war stamps. While the war was a horror, as all wars are when a man is on the front lines, never since has America been so united in purpose.

I personally think today’s wars are only a concern of the 1-2% of our population who serve as soldiers and sailors (born of poor families) and those servicemen’s military  families. I think if wars had to be fought by the sons of the wealthy industrialists, congressmen and senators, there would be far less wars in the world.

Back to the gallant men, Donald Stratton was released after nearly a year in several hospitals and then was assigned back to duty in 1943 on the USS Stack, a destroyer and he served during the battles of Guadalcanal in the Solomon islands, the battles of the Philippine islands, New Guinea and Okinawa, some of the worst naval battles in the Pacific.

Of course the young men who served in Korea, Vietnam and  in today’s armed services are just as tough and suffer just as much as those of World War Two and I salute them. Their wounds are just as painful, their emotional wounds are I think more painful than those who were in World War Two. I try to thank all the veterans I meet for their service and I hope our government will improve the services of the Veteran’s Administration and do well by these warriors.