From the May 4th Aurora (Il) Beacon-News "One of area's last Pearl harbor survivors dies at 94" by Denise Crosby.
Back when i was growing up in the 50s and 60s, there were World War II veterans all over the place. Not so any more. We're all getting older.
George Hettinger died April 29th and had been on the target ship USS Utah that fateful day. Born Feb. 22, 1918, the youngest of ten children in a North Aurora farming family, he joined the US Navy in 1938 and became an electrician of the USS Utah.
He was in the bunk room when the torpedo hit and his first thought was to save his West Aurora High School ring until he saw all the smoke coming into the ship. Within minutes, it capsized, trapping many below deck. Six officers and 52 enlisted died that day. Hettinger remembered: "When I finally got into the water, my hands and feet were going like crazy...shrapnel started falling. There was another guy...struggling in the water below me, hollering that he couldn't swim. I went back to help the guy out."
After the attack, he was assigned to the USS Honolulu which had also been damaged that day.
Another of the Greatest. --GreGen
The USS North Carolina (BB-55) My all-time favorite warship. As an elementary school student in North Carolina, I donated nickels and dimes to save this ship back in the early sixties.
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