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PEARL
HARBOR AND BEYOND - BY TED TUPPER
I
ENLISTED IN THE NAVY IN 1940. AFTER COMPLETING
BOOT CAMP AT NTS NEWPORT, R.I., OUR COMPANY WAS
SENT TO BREMENTON, WA. AND WE WENT ABOARD THE
BATTLESHIP USS MISSISSIPPI WHICH TRANSPORTED US TO
PEARL HARBOR. THIS WAS ONE OF THE OLDER BATTLESHIPS
AND WE SLEPT IN HAMMOCKS. I WAS ASSIGNED TO THE
HEAVY CRUISER USS SAN FRANCISCO CA-38. ON DECEMBER
7, 1941 WE WERE IN THE NAVY YARD WAITING TO GO INTO
DRY DOCK. ALL AMMUNITION HAD BEEN OFFLOADED AND
NONE OF OUR GUNS WERE WORKING. WE WERE ON A COLD
IRON WATCH , GETTING ALL OUR POWER FROM DOCK SIDE.
AT 7:55 AM THE ATTACK STARTED AND GENERAL QUARTERS
WAS SOUNDED,” MAN YOUR BATTLE STATIONS, THIS IS NOT
A DRILL”. I WAS ISSUED A RIFLE AND PRECEEDED TO
FIRE AT THE ATTACKING JAPANESE PLANES. LATER THAT
DAY I WENT ACROSS THE DOCK TO THE USS NEW ORLEANS,
OUR SISTER SHIP, TO HELP GUN CREWS AND PASS
AMMUNITION. WE DID NOT RECEIVE ANY DAMAGE AS THEY
ONLY WANTED THE BATTLESHIPS AND THE AIRCRAFT
CARRIERS WERE OUT TO SEA. WITHIN TWO WEEKS WE WERE
UNDERWAY WITH A TASKFORCE TO WAKE ISLAND BUT HAD TO
ABORT AS THE JAPS WERE THERE WITH A SUPERIOR FORCE.
BLACK
FRIDAY – NOVEMER 13, 1942
THE
JAPANESE WERE ATTEMPTING TO REINFORCE GUADALCANAL.
THE JAPANESE VICE ADMIRAL HIROAKI ABE WAS DISPATCHED
TO BOMBARD AND LAND TROOPS ON GUADALCANAL. HIS
STRIKE FORCE CONSISTED OF TWO 32,000 TON BATTLESHIPS
– THE HIEI AND THE KIRISHIMA – WHICH WERE PART OF
THE PEARL HARBOR TASK FORCE. ALSO UNDER HIS COMMAND
WERE ONE CRUISER, FOURTEEN DESTROYERS AND 11
TRANSPORTS CARRYING 14,000 TROOPS. REAR ADMIRAL
DANIEL J. CALLAGHAN ABOARD HIS 10,000 TON FLAGSHIP,
THE USS SAN FRANCISCO, WAS DIRECTED TO INTERCEPT THE
JAPANESE NAVAL STRIKE FORCE. HIS COMMAND CONSISTED
OF FIVE CRUISERS AND EIGHT DESTROYERS. THE BATTLE
COMMENCED AT 1:48 AM – FOURTEEN JAPANESE AND
THIRTEEN AMERICAN WARSHIPS. OUR SHIPS PENETRATED
INTO THE CENTER OF THE JAPANESE BATTLESHIP
FORMATION. NEVER IN THE HISTORY OF MODERN WARFARE
HAS US NAVAL FORCES CLASHED WITH ENEMY SHIPS AT
COLLISION RANGE IN A PITCH BLACK NIGHT. THIS IS THE
ONLY US NAVAL SURFACE SHIP ENGAGEMENT IN WHICH AN
AMERICAN ADMIRAL WAS KILLED IN ACTION, LET ALONE
TWO: RADM DANIEL J. CALLAGHAN ON THE USS SAN
FRANCISCO (CA-38) RADM NORMAN SCOTT ON THE USS
ATLANTA (CL-51). I WAS IN THE E-DIVISION AND MY
BATTLE STATION WAS ON THE 36” SEARCHLIGHTS. THERE
WERE FOUR ELECTRICIAN MATES, ONE FOR EACH LIGHT.
ALL OF A SUDDEN WE WERE ILLUMINATED BY THE JAP
BATTLESHIP HIEI. WE TURNED ON OUR SEARCHLIGHTS AND
THERE SHE WAS, ABOUT 3,000 YARDS AWAY LOOKING LIKE A
HUGE FLOATING PAGODA. IT WAS SO CLOSE THAT I COULD
SEE THE JAP SAILORS AND THEN ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE.
THE 14” SALVOS GOING OVER OUR HEAD SOUNDED LIKE A
FREIGHT TRAIN. THE 5” GUN LOADING PLATFORM BELOW
THE LIGHTS WAS HIT AND ALL POWER AND PHONES WERE
KNOCKED OUT. I DECIDED TO GO DOWN TO THE GUN DECK
TO SEE IF WE WERE GOING TO ABANDON SHIP. I HAD JUST
GOT DOWN WHEN A BLINDING FLASH THREW ME BACK AGAINST
THE BULKHEAD, PROBABLY FROM THE DIRECT HIT ON ONE OF
THE STARBOARD 5” GUN MOUNTS. I RECEIVED SHRAPNEL
WOUNDS IN MY SHOULDER, ARM AND HAND. WE HIT THE JAP
BATTLESHIP HIEI WITH OUR 8” GUNS AND STOPPED HER
DEAD IN THE WATER. WE WERE HEAVILY DAMAGED BY 45
MAJOR CALIBER HITS, SUFFERED 190 CASUALTIES
INCLUDING THE ADMIRAL AND MOST OF THE OFFICERS. THE
USS SAN FRANCISCO WAS THE FIRST SHIP TO RECEIVE THE
PRESIDENTIAL UNIT CITATION FOR THIS ACTION AND ALSO
RECEIVED 17 BATTLE STARS DURING THE ENTIRE WAR. THE
NEXT DAY WHEN RETURNING TO ESPIRITU SANTO A JAP SUB
FIRED TWO TORPEDOES AT US THAT MISSED AND HIT THE
LIGHT AA CRUISER JUNEAU WHICH BLEW UP AND SANK IN
ABOUT TEN SECONDS. MOST OF THE CREW OF 700 ON THIS
SHIPWERE LOST. THIS WAS THE SHIP THAT THE FIVE
SULLIVAN BROTHERS WERE ON. AT ESPIRITU SANTO I WAS
EVACULATED WITH OTHER WOUNDED TO THE HOSPITAL SHIP
USS SOLACE. WE WERE TAKEN TO SUVA, FIJI ISLANDS AND
TRANSFERRED TO THE 142ND ARMY FIELD
HOSPITAL AND FROM THERE TO THE NAVAL HOSPITAL IN
OAKLAND, CA. FOR FURTHER TREATMENT. AFTER BEING
RELEASED FROM THE HOSPITAL I WAS ASSIGNED TO NEW
CONSTRUCTION.
TO THIS
DAY I CONSIDER FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH MY LUCKY DAY.
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Another Story
December 7, 2007, 6:31
pm
Dropping of Roses Marks
Pearl Harbor Anniversary
By Sewell Chan
Joseph S. Hydrusko was a
22-year-old Navy seaman, working on board a
hospital ship, the U.S.S. Solace, at
Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on Dec. 7,
1941. He was helping to paint the vessel when six
planes flew overhead; he
assumed they were American planes flying ahead of a
carrier. Instead, the
planes began to drop bombs. Hundreds of Japanese
planes followed them. Mr.
Hydrusko rowed over to save wounded and dying men
from the U.S.S.
Oklahoma, a
battleship that was sunk that day.
On Dec. 7, 1970, Mr. Hydrusko, a longtime resident
of Massapequa, on
Long sland, he began an annual tradition — a fly-by
over the Statue of
Liberty in a 1929 Curtiss Robin — in memory of the
more than 2,400 Americans
who lost their lives at
Pearl Harbor.
Mr. Hydrusko died in a
cockpit fire in 1983, at the age of 63. Today, a
group of 11 Pearl Harbor survivors met inside the
American Airpower
Museum at
Republic Airport in
Farmingdale, N.Y., as four World War II-era
planes set off for the
Statue of Liberty, maintaining the annual
tradition.
One of those 11 survivors, Ted Tupper, 87, was a
21-year-old Navy seaman on
the U.S.S.
San Francisco, a heavy cruiser, on Dec. 7,
1941.“None of our guns were working, because they
had taken the ammunition off prior to going to dry
dock,” he recalled today in a telephone interview.
“They wanted to get the battleships. They weren’t
concerned with the other ships as much. We didn’t
get hit at all. We were lucky.”
Mr. Tupper received a medical discharge after he was
wounded at Guadalcanal
in 1945. He lives in Massapequa. He did not know Mr.
Hydrusko at Pearl
Harbor but met him in the 1970s. “It was his idea,
to drop one rose for every year since Pearl Harbor,”
Mr. Tupper said. “It meant a lot to him.” The four
planes used today were a P-40, a P-51 and two
AT-6’s. The AT-6’s are part of the Geico Skytypers
Air Show Team, a squadron of vintage plans that
perform at air shows. (Mort Arken, a retired pilot,
commands the squadron, which also works with the
Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum.)
The AT-6’s were loaded up not with bombs but with
roses — 66 of
them, to represent each anniversary of
Pearl Harbor — and were accompanied by
the P-40 and P-51, fighter planes that have long
been decommissioned.
“They flew up the bay, fly up the Hudson, turned
around at the George
Washington Bridge, and on the way back, flew over
the
Statue of Liberty
and droped the roses over the water,” said Fred Di
Fabio, who is active
in the state and local chapters of the Air Force
Association and helped
organize today’s ceremony at the airport. “They
dropped their roses at
exactly 12:55 p.m., the exact time, in New York, of
the
Pearl Harbor attack.”
The planes were back in
Long Island by 1:45 p.m. Mr. Tupper said he
enjoyed watching the planes take off. “We were in
the hangar, and it was very cold,” he said. He said
he tried to come to each year’s ceremony; he did not
attend last year because he was in
Hawaii
for a memorial service there. He said it was
getting harder for veterans to keep the memories of
Pearl Harbor alive. “We’re dying off very fast,” he
said.“It was the first battle that started the war,”
Mr. Tupper said.“And I was there.”
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