Pearl Harbor Survivor James Blakely Turns 100

January 11, 2020, New York Daily News "Celebrating Brooklyn WW II veteran's 100 years of courage, honor and determination" by Denis Hamel.

James Blakely survived the Japanese bombs and torpedoes at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, on  the USS St. Louis and has recently turned 100.   "I remember them poor nurses at Pearl, oh, boy, running to get back into the hospital and those Japanese planes  swooping down and firing  the machine guns at them...."

 His relatives threw him a party in honor of it in Brooklyn.

After Pearl Harbor, he was at the battles in Guam, Guadalcanal and at New Zealand.

He pulled on his USS St. Louis hat and said his secret to long life was the good Lord.  "I also never touched alcohol or tobacco," he said.  "I can't say I never touched a pretty girl.  That was my vice.  In fact,  I was raised in Little Rock, Arkansas, which was not a good place for a person of color.  One day a white guy went out of his way to step on my shoe.  So I stepped back on his.

"That didn't go over big in Arkansas so my grandfather, who had served in WW I told me to join the Navy before they strung me up."

So, James Blakely joined the segregated U.S. Navy and was assigned to the mess aboard the USS St. Louis where where he was when the attack came.

It Is Always Great to Write About a Living Pearl Harbor Survivor.   --GreGen