The book “We Will Stand By You” by Theodore Mason (a Pearl Harbor survivor and author of the acclaimed “Battleship Sailor”), at the time a Radioman Chief in USS PAWNEE, is a valuable perspective on the heroic action surrounding their tow of USS HOUSTON.

Similarly, USS Reno (CL-96) was severely damaged in November of 1944. Her quarterdeck was awash following a torpedo attack by IJNS submarine I-41. Afterwards, she too was towed to Ulithi.

USS Reno was a much smaller Anti-Aircraft CL (later reclassified CLAA-96) than the standard displacement cruisers Houston (CL-81) and Canberra (CA-70). Earlier same-class CLs Atlanta and Juneau were lost during the wild battle melees of Ironbottom Sound between Guadalcanal and Savo Islands. Reno’s survival may be more remarkable than the survival of Houston and Canberra.

D. E. Reddick

Hard to get a “warhorse” to ever talk about what happened to him while he was in combat. Talk about anything else, like what he did on liberty, no problem. My father-in-law was a B-17 co-pilot in WW2, and other than the Swiss not being the nicest people while he was interned there (his AC suffered damage while over the target, and made a forced landing in Switzerland, couldn’t make it back to base in Italy), he won’t say a word about what it was like to fly combat over Germany. Damn shame, too, he must have some stories to tell.

Byron, true enough, but just as URR found, even asking simple questions like what rate the guy served in, gets you a statement like “we caught a little hell.” That might lead to more questions and answers, or just your own curiosity and research.

A little sea story if I may. Last year in Hawaii I got a bit lost on Ford Island looking for the UTAH…I could see it but couldn’t find the road to it. I stopped and asked a gentleman how to get there. That led to a conversation (far too short because I was in a hurry) about his experience as a child living in sight of Pearl Harbor on 7 December. This kind old man told me a bit about watching the attacks when he was 5 years old. I wish I could have sat under that tree with him for a while longer. Coulda, shoulda, woulda. I bet he’ll be taking a break under that same tree next time I visit.

History is where you find it. As a kid growing up in Coronado, I was a kid first and an airplane junkie second. Jimmy Thach wasn’t a big deal to my unlearned mind, he was just grumpy “Mr. Thach” who hated us kids cutting our bikes across his lawn! It wasn’t until later that I realized just who he was, but the lesson I learned from that was as mentioned here: Stop to listen.

I have been very fortunate to have learned that lesson. I have had the opportunity to talk to some of the first 100 Naval Aviators and 100 helicopter pilots back in the 70′s, played Horse at the NAS Alameda O’Club bar (R.I.P.) with Tuskegee airmen and learned about the relative handling merits of the P-40, P-51B and P-51D in the 80′s, have dinner with a surviving IJNAF Mitsubishi A6M pilot in the 90′s and sat quietly as surviving members of the Cactus Air Force told their stories just sitting around on a Friday night at Tailhook in this decade.

Remember this: We, too, are also the repository of history. From Vietnam to OIS it is our responsibility to also record and tell our stories in one form or another, so those who come after know, in some small part, that history is continuity as much as it is anything else. History isn’t just hours of Flags and Generals telling their stories; it’s the snipes, deck apes, Signalmen, GM’s, Plane Captains and Avionics techs. It’s the folks who stayed forever and the folks who just “did their time.” It is the “Big Picture” and the “worm’s eye view,” too.(are you reading this, USNI Oral History people?)

Thanks for posting this, and thanks for talking to that guy!

VR,
Andy

My biggest “OOPS!” was spending a semester in a classroom on Computer Science, as an NROTC Scholarship student, with Captain Amos T. Hathaway, USN (Ret) as the instructor…and never asking him “what did you do in the Navy?” Stupid, stupid, stupid! In an Army related school, there was but a single Navy professor (ROTC I don’t count) int he place.

When, in 1988, I landed on USS CARR (FFG-52) as the XO, then I realized what I had missed. I tired to get him to lunch on the ship on 10/25/1988, but he was too frail and living in the DC area.

He, and that situation, is the reason I’ve tried to capture these stories as I can. The best one I’ve done so far was “The Adventures of Jim, Sr” and related ones of Jim Helinger, Sr, who was, as he says, “a damn glider pilot” at Normandy. He has become a good friend, and we see each other regularly.

I also found a crewman from the USS MASON in my Church. Ben Garrison is another jewel of a man and real history I see weekly.

10 years ago, I was at the VA and found out the older gentleman sitting next to me had been one of the few transoceanic airline pilots before WWII…he was making $1200/mon then and got “drafted.” He taught the pilots how to fly the Atlantic, from FL to Brazil, to North Africa. He was rattling off names of the big guys like LeMay and Doolittle and several others of note in history, having been one of the inner circle. I didn’t get his address, and it was before I was blogging.

URR…great post…thanks!

My grandfather, Raymond R. Strohmer was a cook on the USS HOUSTON cl-81… he was on the damage control.. he has passed but i have many things from the ship that he gave me….my email is loveamber@comcast.net…