Black Sailor on the USS North Carolina-- Part 2

John Seagraves served on the battleship USS North Carolina, eventually becoming one of eight blacks assigned to man 20 mm anti-aircraft guns, but remembers it wasn't an easy thing to do.

He told his chief that he would not clean up the officers' rooms.  "I refused to be a servant on the ship.  They called me a troublemaker.  I just don't want to be a flunkie to anybody."

There is a picture of Seagraves and his gunner crew taken on April 14, 1945.  It was taken by a U.S. Navy photographer just a moment after they had shot down a Japanese kamikaze plane that had slipped by dozens of American planes as well as spotters.

Seagraves remembers seeing the plane's propeller, tracers of his 20 mm shells and the two pilots in the front.  The plane went down 30 yards from the North Carolina, "You could see the fire under the water, and it actually jolted the ship when it exploded,"

Sixty-four years later, John Seagraves attended the USS North Carolina's reunion and found that that photo is now on the ship.

Fighting the Enemy and Segregation.  --GreGen