Pearl Harbor Day Ceremony-- Part 2: One At Pearl Harbor, One in France

Continued from May 17.

JACK EDGE was in sick bay of the USS Pelias (AS-14), a submarine-tender.  Instead of getting an emergency appendectomy, he went on the deck and used a phone to direct gunfire from his ship.

DOUG OSWALD, 94, a native of Marianna, graduated from Marianna High School in 1942 and went to the University of Florida for one semester then joined the Army.  he trained as a combat engineer but when he arrived in England his outfit's equipment had been misdirected and he ended up serving as an infantryman.

He was six miles from the Rhine River in fox holes near Strasbourg, France, in the December 1944 Battle of the Bulge.  Their outer jackets were frozen and they were pinned down by mortar fire during the day.

He was sent out as part of a five-man patrol at midnight February 5, 1945.  The moon shone between parted clouds and one of the patrol was shot and killed and another stepped on a land mine.  Mr. Oswald was wounded in his shoulder and was sent to Paris for surgery.  Later, he was transferred to Belgium.

He served as Ocala.s mayor in 1976 and 1977.

--GreGen