From the December 5, 2014, Fresno (cal.) Bee by Nonhia Lee.
Joe Quercia, 92, was talking to a buddy and staring out a porthole on the USS Medusa when he heard gunfire and an explosion. "I watched all these planes coming over and (heard) the Arizona get blown up. When it exploded, you could sure feel that."
The former chief petty officer is one of the few surviving San Jonquin Valley Pearl Harbor survivors left. They once had 150.
Sunday he will join a handful of others in the annual Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day ceremony which this year will be held at the Clovis Veterans Memorial District. Quercia believes that there may be as many as ten remaining local survivors, but only four have attended the ceremony several years.
He grew up in west Fresno and enlisted in the Navy at age 18 and was stationed on the repair ship Medusa on that fateful day. The ship had no guns and was about a block away from the Arizona.
The motto of the now defunct Pearl Harbor Survivors Association is "Remember Pearl Harbor, Keep America Alert."
The local branch of it disbanded in 2011, the 70th anniversary.
--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.
No comments:
Post a Comment