Gailey was a signal man on an anti aircraft mount and described the Japanese planes that day "as like a swarm of hornets attacking--you just fire your gun in the air and hit something."
He remained on the Helena at Guadalcanal and Okinawa. He was transferred to the USS Chase and not aboard the Helena when it was sunk at the Battle of Kula Gulf.
Gailey retired as a senior chief quartermaster and joined his fellow Pearl Harbor survivors there for the 70th anniversary and earlier in June he went to Washington, D.C. to view the World War II Memorial on an Oklahoma Honor Flight.
Another of the Greatest Generation. --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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