From the Dec.7, 2013, Denver Post "Pearl Harbor survivor James Downing, 100, shares story of that fateful day" by Ryan Parker.
James Downing was then 28. No one asked him as he hurried and memorized the names on the dog tags of men on his ship who had been killed or injured. This was with the intention of notifying their families which he did.
He was gunner's mate 1st Class and postmaster on the USS West Virginia, which had just returned from a week long patrol off the coast of Hawaii.
Downing was off the ship and at his house where his wife of five months, Morena, was cooking Sunday morning breakfast for him and some other service members. That was when they heard explosions off in the distance. Then an anti-aircraft shell landed in the yard and, according to Downing, blew a hole about 25-feet across. he and the others jumped into a truck and sped back to Pearl harbor.
He got out to his ship, which was sinking and was there when a Japanese plane opened fire on it, but wasn't hit. Afterwards, he began gathering the names.
Downing joined the Navy after high school for financial reasons and ended up spending 24 years in it, commanding the tanker USS Patapsco during the Korean War.
--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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