Pearl Harbor: A sailor's first-hand account of that infamous day

My dad, Frank L. Dolan, was an 18-year old U.S. Navy Sailor aboard the auxiliary repair ship USS Vestal during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor 71 years ago on today's date in 1941. I am reprinting the original post about his experience on that fateful day.

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My dad, Frank Dolan, was a weldor on the repair ship USS Vestal, tied alongside the battleship USS Arizona, when the surprise Japanese attack came.* He remembered the events that unfolded at Pearl Harbor on this date in 1941 like this...

Sunday was "holiday routine"… a no-work day. The officers and men would ‘sleep-in,’ but not me. I was eager to get my ratings. So, after morning chow, I went to the foc’sle… which was an upper deck in the forward part of the ship, to do my studying… Noise! A loud noise! A loud, booming noise came! Then came the roar of airplanes. I looked over the starboard (right) side of the ship and saw planes—many planes. Some were overhead, but many were just a few feet above the water. They were launching what I thought were “dummy” torpedoes. "Neat, real neat!" I thought. But when the first one exploded against a battleship’s side, I thought some dumb American pilot dropped a real live torpedo by accident.

Japanese aerial photo of the attack 

Even as torpedoes were exploding on impact against the sides of the battleships, I told myself there must be some mistake. The planes were so close we could easily see the pilots. Then the red ball designation of the Japanese on the sides of the planes came into view. Immediately I was off the foc’csle down the port passageway aft on the main deck and onto the starboard side to watch. Again, I was not really believing what I was witnessing. More torpedo planes, and then came the dive bombers. I had no battle station as at this time we were at peace with Japan, and had only one 3-inch anti-aircraft gun, and a couple of Thompson machine guns on board. Our 5-inch broadside guns were for use against surface craft.

My next move was to head for the weld shop. To get there I had to go down a ladder through the carpenter shop and then amidships to the weld shop. No sooner had I got down the ladder when a bomb came through the carpenter shop hitting the ladder I had just come down. There were numerous casualties in the carpenter shop. One shipmate was decapitated. Immediately, I went to the weld shop. Half of the men there had been sleeping or were just awakening and were asking, "What was up?" The other men and I told them the Japs were here. I looked toward the small hatch opening that I had just come through to get to our shop. "Ski," a shipmate, had just come into the shop looking very pale and wobbly. We grabbed him and laid him on a cot, face-down, as we discovered that both cheeks of his backside were torn off and hardly any flesh remained. This was the result of the bomb that had come through the carpenter shop. In the meantime, another bomb hit the forward part of our ship on the starboard side near where I had been studying a few minutes earlier.

USS Arizona

Dad recalled that at about the time the second bomb hit the forward part of the Vestal, on the starboard side near where he had been studying a few minutes earlier, was when the Arizona exploded. While he was below decks at that moment, he did not then know what had happened, although it was a “shaking experience” for him. “When the Arizona blew up and was broken in two, my first thought from below deck was that our acetylene and oxygen cylinders, which were topside and near the great explosion, had blown up. Soon afterward, we learned that it was the Arizona. And, later on, with all of the burned survivors, we knew for sure what had happened.”

Amazingly, of the 400 men on the Vestal, only 6 were lost, although many were seriously injured. Among the many deeds of brave men, the Vestal’s captain, Cassin Young, received the Medal of Honor for his courageous actions that day. On the other hand, the losses to the Arizona were horrific. More than 1,100 Sailors and Marines still lie entombed within its sunken hull. Over 50 Sailors lie within the submerged Utah.

Dad recounted his experience of this “date which will live in infamy” in his narrative, Pearl Harbor: As I Remember.

* A profound experience from my childhood was to personally meet Captain Mitsuo Fuchida, the Japanese commander who led the first attack wave on Pearl Harbor, and who immortalized the words, Tora, Tora, Tora. When I was about 10, my dad insisted that I go with him to a Youth for Christ meeting in San Diego, where this remarkable man and former enemy of the United States was speaking. Years after the Pearl Harbor attack, Fuchida became a Christian in a remarkable conversion to the Christian faith. I wrote about the experience in the post,  Meeting God's Samurai.

Repairs to the USS Curtiss

When Dad returned to Espiritu Santo from work on the Enterprise, one of the ships under repair was the USS Curtiss. This is at least the second time that crews from the Vestal did battle damage repair work on the Curtiss. Just a week after the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor, Dad was temporarily transferred to the Curtiss, a seaplane tender, to assist with the emergency repairs so the severely damaged ship could safely return to the states for permanent restoration.

Now, in 1942 and into 1943, Curtiss is stationed at Nouméa, New Caledonia, and Espiritu Santo, New Hebrides. While at Espiritu Santo she served as a flagship for Commander, Naval Air, South Pacific, then supported aircraft and repaired warships during the Guadalcanal and Central Solomons campaigns. Now, in need of urgent repairs herself, from December 2-9, she is attended to by crewmen from Vestal. Throughout her repairs, Curtiss continued to tend planes for the squadron that were searching for enemy submarines.

USS Curtiss, 1942
Source: NavSource Online

Launched in 1942, the USS Curtiss was one of the newer ships in the fleet. Curtiss will see service, often as a flagship, throughout the war in the Pacific. She was serving in Okinawa in June 1945, when a kamikaze ripped her hull and exploded on the third deck, killing 35 and wounding 21 of her crew. After the war, Curtiss participated in various assignments, including ferrying atom bombs for nuclear tests at Eniwetok in 1948 and again in 1956. She also saw action in the Korea War. The Curtiss was decommissioned in 1957, and sold for scrap in 1972.

The USS Curtiss received 7 Battle Stars for her WWII service.

Sources: Vestal War Diary, December 1942; Wikipedia

Dad rejoins his ship at Espiritu Santo

70 years ago on this date in 1942, having served as part of Vestal's temporary repair crews on the Enterprise during the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, then returning via the South Dakota, Prometheus, and Tryon, Dad finally rejoins his ship at the naval harbor in Espiritu Santo (Code Name: "Button").

The Vestal will spend the 12 months here completing repairs to battle-damaged ships from naval engagements in the Solomons in late 1942 and early 1943. Some of the ships awaiting urgent repairs included the heavy cruiser Pensacola, light cruiser Helena, submarine Argonaut, carrier Enterprise, escort carrier Nassau, destroyers Southard, Meade, Anderson, and Ellet, seaplane tender Curtis, and subchaser PC-477. A host of other ships received routine repairs. And this was just in the month of December!

But tomorrow, exactly 1 year since the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and America's entrance into WWII, Dad will return to the rhythm and routine of repairing damaged ships of the fleet. Business as usual.

Sources: Frank L. Dolan's Service Records; USS Vestal War Diary, December 1942

14 days

Coming on December 14th

http://www.thehobbit.com

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.

Here's to hoping it's faithful to Tolkien's vision.

The Battle of Tassafaronga, 1942

The Battle of Tassafaronga ("Fourth Battle of Savo Island") was a nighttime naval engagement that took place November 30, 1942, between United States Navy and Imperial Japanese Navy warships during the Guadalcanal campaign. The battle took place in Iron Bottom Sound* near Tassafaronga on Guadalcanal.

In the battle, a US warship force of 5 cruisers and 4 destroyers under the command of Rear Adm. Carleton H. Wright, attempted to surprise and destroy a Japanese warship force of 8 destroyers under the command of Rear Adm. Raizo Tanaka, who was attempting to deliver food supplies to Japanese forces on Guadalcanal.

Guided by radar, the US warships opened fire and sank a Japanese destroyer. The Japanese, however, reacted quickly and launched numerous torpedoes at the US warships. The torpedoes hit and sank 1 US cruiser and heavily damaged 3 others, enabling the rest of Tanaka's force to escape without significant additional damage, but also without completing the mission of delivering the food supplies. Although a severe tactical defeat for the US, the battle had little strategic impact for the Japanese, as they were unable to take advantage of the victory to assist in driving Allied forces from Guadalcanal.

Several ships damaged at the Battle of Tassafaronga were sent to Espiritu Santo, where repair crews, my dad among them, were waiting. Over the next year, his ship, Vestal, will undertake 5,603 jobs on 279 ships and 24 shore facilities.

* So named for the number of ships and planes sunk there during the earlier Battle of Guadalcanal. Prior to the war, it was called Sealark Channel. Every year on the battle's anniversary, a U.S. ship cruises into the waters and drops a wreath to commemorate those who lost their lives. For many Navy sailors, and those that served in the area during that time, these waters are considered sacred, and strict silence is observed as ships cruise through.

Source: Wikipedia

Emergency repairs to the Zeilin

One of many ships requiring emergency repairs by my dad's ship, Vestal, at Espiritu Santo on this date in 1942, was the USS Zeilin, a Harris-class attack transport vessel. Zeilin was designed to transport troops and their equipment for amphibious invasions. The ship was well armed with antiaircraft weapons to protect itself and the vulnerable  troops it carried from air attack in a battle zone.

On November 11, off Guadalcanal, Zeilin and the light cruiser, Atlanta, with destroyers and other auxiliaries, engaged 9 Japanese dive bombers. Zeilin's gunners set one plane on fire. However, 1 enemy bomb scored a damaging hit, cracking and rupturing the ship's hull plating. A second attack an hour later by 27 bombers was repulsed with anti-aircraft fire and fighter planes from Henderson Field.

Though damaged and listing, Zeilin carried casualties to Espiritu Santo, where the ship received emergency repairs by the Vestal. The repair ship's crew was able to repair the Zeilin by November 26, and it sailed to the states for permanent repair work.

Source: Naval Historical Center

Zeilin continued to see a lot of important and dangerous service throughout the war. She earned 8 battle stars before her decommissioning in 1946. Sadly, like so many WWII ships that helped to win the war, Zeilin was consigned to scrap in 1948.

Repairs to the USS San Francisco

On this date in 1942, Dad's repair ship, Vestal, while at Espiritu Santo, began emergency repairs to the USS San Francisco, which had received serious damage in the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal. At the time, Dad was still serving on the carrier Enterprise, completing emergency repairs, even while that naval battle raged.

In that famous sea battle, San Francisco engaged and hit 3 enemy ships, sinking 1 of them. At  one point, she battled at point-blank range with an enemy battleship, Hiei, which was heavily her superior in size and firepower. She silenced the battleship’s guns, and so disabled her that she could be sunk by torpedoes from US destroyers and aircraft. Unfortunately, San Francisco was seriously damaged in the fight, taking 45 hits. 77 sailors, including Rear Admiral Daniel Callaghan and Captain Cassin Young were killed, along with almost all of the other officers on the navigation bridge. 105 other sailors were wounded, and 7 were reported missing. Structural damage to the ship was extensive.

USS President Jackson maneuvering under Japanese air attack in the Naval Battle
of Guadalcanal. In the center background is smoke from an enemy plane
having just crashed into the after superstructure ofSan Francisco.

Vestal was called upon to complete temporary repairs, and the San Francisco was able to sail to the states for overhaul on the 23rd. What made this repair job particularly poignant for Vestal's crew was the death of Captain Young. Young had commanded the Vestal during the surprise Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor 11 months earlier. Having received the Medal of Honor for his actions during the Pearl Harbor attack, Young was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross for his actions in this battle.

Source: NavSource Online

Launched in 1933, the heavy cruiser USS San Francisco became one of the most decorated ships of WWII, earning 17 Battle Stars and the Presidential Unit Citation. Fighting back in the Pearl Harbor attack, she continued to see extensive action, later during the Guadalcanal Campaign, including the Battle of Cape Esperance and the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, during which she was heavily damaged and her captain and admiral killed. She served admirably in the Pacific Theater all the way through Okinawa and the preparation for the invasion of the Japanese home islands. The USS San Francisco was decommissioned in 1946 and suffered the ignominious demise of being rendered into scrap in 1961.

Sources: Naval Historical Center; USS Vestal War Diary, November 1942

Aristotle on “Elderly Men”

I reached a milestone of sorts today, my birthday, and it's a big one. I decided to reread Aristotle's famous description of the characteristics of those he categorized as "elderly men," in his day—those 50 and above. In some ways, after 24 centuries, his portrayal is still on the mark.

Let us now consider the various types of human character, in relation to the emotions and moral qualities, showing how they correspond to our various ages and fortunes…

The character of the Elderly Men—men who are past their prime—may be said to be formed for the most part of elements that are the contrary of all these. They have lived many years; they have often been taken in, and often made mistakes; and life on the whole is a bad business. The result is that they are sure about nothing and under-do everything. They ‘think’, but they never ‘know’; and because of their hesitation they always add a ‘possibly’ or a ‘perhaps’, putting everything this way and nothing positively. They are cynical; that is, they tend to put the worse construction on everything. Further, their experience makes them distrustful and therefore suspicious of evil. Consequently they neither love warmly nor hate bitterly, but following the hint of Bias they love as though they will some day hate and hate as though they will some day love. They are small-minded, because they have been humbled by life:  their desires are set upon nothing more exalted or unusual than what will help them to keep alive. They are not generous, because money is one of the things they must have, and at the same time their experience has taught them how hard it is to get and how easy to lose. They are cowardly, and are always anticipating danger; unlike that of the young, who are warm-blooded, their temperament is chilly; old age has paved the way for cowardice; fear is, in fact, a form of chill. They love life; and all the more when their last day has come, because the object of all desire is something we have not got, and also because we desire most strongly that which we need most urgently. They are too fond of themselves; this is one form that small-mindedness takes. Because of this, they guide their lives too much by considerations of what is useful and too little by what is noble—for the useful is what is good for oneself, and the noble what is good absolutely. They are not shy, but shameless rather; caring less for what is noble than for what is useful, they feel contempt for what people may think of them. They lack confidence in the future; partly through experience—for most things go wrong, or anyhow turn out worse than one expects; and partly because of their cowardice. They live by memory rather than by hope; for what is left to them of life is but little as compared with the long past; and hope is of the future, memory of the past. This, again, is the cause of their loquacity; they are continually talking of the past, because they enjoy remembering it. Their fits of anger are sudden but feeble. Their sensual passions have either altogether gone or have lost their vigor:  consequently they do not feel their passions much, and their actions are inspired less by what they do feel than by the love of gain. Hence men at this time of life are often supposed to have a self-controlled character; the fact is that their passions have slackened, and they are slaves to the love of gain. They guide their lives by reasoning more than by moral feeling; reasoning being directed to utility and moral feeling to moral goodness. If they wrong others, they mean to injure them, not to insult them.  Old men feel pity, as well as young men, but not for the same reason. Young men feel it out of kindness; old men out of weakness, imagining that anything that befalls anyone else might easily happen to them, which, as we saw, is a thought that excites pity. Hence they are querulous, and not disposed to jesting or laughter—the love of laughter being the very opposite of querulousness.

From The Rhetoric and the Poetics of Aristotle, 2:13

USS Vestal arrives at Espiritu Santo

On this date in 1942, my dad's repair ship, the USS Vestal, having sailed from Nouméa, arrives at Espiritu Santo in the New Hebrides.

Espiritu Santo is the largest island in the tiny modern nation of Vanuatu. At the time of the war, however, France and the UK jointly administered the New Hebrides island group. But after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Espiritu Santo became vital as a military supply and support base. In May 1942, Americans arrived on Espiritu Santo and began building a Quonset hut city, which in the months ahead, would be complete with telephones, radio station, movie houses, paved roads, bridges, airfields and, importantly, a naval harbor. Many buildings and facilities built during the war are still in use.

When the Americans arrived, most of the island population lived in small villages with little access to the outside world. But after the military base was established, the course of history for this sleepy Pacific island was changed forever. During the war, there were over 100 ships at a time anchored in the harbor. Up to 47,000 men were stationed permanently on the island and over half a million, including military from New Zealand and Australia, passed through on their way to other destinations.

The writer, James Michener, was just one of thousands of U.S. Navy personnel to be stationed at Espiritu Santo. So taken was he by the people, the sights, and life on the island, that he memorialized it all in his first novel, Tales of the South Pacific.* He wrote much of the book while stationed on the island, apparently after hours by the light of a kerosene lamp.

When Vestal arrived on today's date, however, Dad was still on the carrier Enterprise. After repairs were completed, he and the temporary repair crews from Vestal had to sail with their welding gear on the South Dakota, Prometheus, and other ships to join the Vestal at Espiritu Santo on December 6.

At Espiritu Santo, Vestal will began a year’s schedule of repair service. During the next 12 months, this repair ship will undertake 5,603 jobs on 279 ships and 24 shore facilities. Some of the outstanding repair jobs were on combatant ships that were damaged during the bitter naval engagements in the Solomons in late 1942 and early 1943.

Source: NationMaster.com

* Tales of the South Pacific was published in 1947. The book earned Michener the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1948. Rodgers and Hammerstein created a 1949 Broadway hit out of the book, shortening the title to simply South Pacific. The musical was adapted to film in 1958.

Sources: Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, V. 7: T-V; Vestal War Diary, November 1942; Frank L. Dolan's Service Records

The Death of Capt. Cassin Young

Cmdr. Cassin Young commanded my father's ship, the USS Vestal, during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941. For his actions that day he was awarded the Medal of Honor. He also was promoted to Captain in February 1942, and soon was given command of the heavy cruiser, USS San Francisco. Young commanded San Francisco in the Battle of Cape Esperance and the subsequent Naval Battle of Guadalcanal on this date in 1942, with great distinction. During the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, Young guided his ship into action against a superior Japanese force. Sadly, while closely engaging the enemy battleship Hiei, a direct hit to the San Francisco's navigation bridge killed Young, Rear Adm. Daniel Judson Callaghan, and almost all of the officers there on today's date in 1942. Captain Young was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross for his actions during the campaign, and San Francisco received the Presidential Unit Citation.

Dad remembered Commander Young as a personable man who earned his respect and that of the entire crew. He always spoke highly of Young over the years after the war. Since his personal gear onboard the Vestal was stowed near the captain’s deck, Dad said that he saw and saluted Cmdr. Young often.

Capt. Cassin Young receives his Medal of Honor from
Adm. Chester W. Nimitz, while commanding the USS Vestal
April 1942
Source: NavSource

Captain Young's name is inscribed on the Tablets of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial (Fort William McKinley Cemetery) in Manila, Philippines. The cemetery contains a total of 17, 201 graves, the largest number of graves of our military dead of World War II.

Sources: Frank L. Dolan's personal account; NavSource; Find A Grave