In 1941 the U.S under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was attacked at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. James H. Walsh, my grandfather lived through the attack. He is a 75 year old survivor. Walsh was born and raised in the suburbs of Boston , Massachusetts. His mother was the first of his family to come to the United States in 1910 from Ireland. My interview with him follows:
Amanda Vaughan
"We were not poor, we were not wealthy. We had to work extremely hard for all we had growing up in the United States." In 1939, Walsh graduated from Rockland High School and decided to join the Navy after hearing one of the Navy slogans, "Join the Navy. See the world, Learn a trade."
"The Navy was not at all what I expected it to be. When you are a kid entering the Navy the last thing that goes through your mind is being sea sick. I guess that all kids think they are invincible...they should go to war." Walsh was assigned to a destroyer and put on North Atlantic patrol. Walsh remembers his time on this destroyer as an extremely uncomfortable duty. He recalls that many sailors, including himself, were very sea sick, wet, cold and miserable.
In the fall of 1940 Walsh was transferred to a destroyer stationed in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The destroyer was the U.S.S. Helm. "We were actually preparing for war with Japan," he said. Walsh recalled that his destroyer was present - and the only front line fighting ship that was underway - at 7:55 a.m. on Sunday, December 7, 1941. Walsh claims that the battle of Pearl Harbor actually changed the course of history. There are many critics that believe that President Roosevelt provoked the attack by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor, but Walsh personally felt that "Roosevelt could not do anything else. They ( the Japanese) made a direct attack on the United States. What did everyone want the U.S. to do to sit back and take the attack?" The U.S.S. Helm sustained one hit from a Japanese bomber but did not have a sailor injured or killed.
Walsh remembers that at around 10 a.m. that morning, the U.S.S. Helm met up with a U.S. Coast Guard vessel to disembark the nine year old son of the ship's captain, Captain Carroll. "This little boy went through the entire battle of Pearl Harbor. I was scared. I can't imagine how he felt."
Walsh said that after this the U.S.S Helm met up with four destroyers and three light cruisers, two of which had been damaged during the attack. They went out to look for the Japanese. "My family would not be here had we found the Japanese." It was fortunately for Walsh and the rest of the sailors on these vessels that they did not find the Japanese, because according to Walsh the Japanese would have sunk all their vessels because of the superior Japanese military hardware.
When the U.S.S. Helm returned to Pearl Harbor on December 8, 1941 , it sailed past battleship row looking at the destroyed naval base. "I could not believe my eyes to see the terrible destruction of our largest and most powerful battleships - all eight battleships had been sunk." With the exception of the U.S.S Arizona , which had been completely destroyed the other seven battleships were repaired and returned to fight the Japanese. Many other destroyers and craft were also destroyed. "Today the U.S.S. Arizona serves as a monument to the stupidity and cruelty of war," Walsh said.
James Walsh
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