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.

Friday, March 25, 2016

Michigan's Barrien County at Pearl Harbor Dec. 7, 1941-- Part 1

There are still two Pearl Harbor survivors living after the death of Robert Flaherty earlier this month.  They are Don Alsbro and John DeFields

John DeFields was on the destroyer USS Shaw that day.  There is a photograph of a huge explosion taking place on that ship.  He was hit by shrapnel by one of three bombs that tore the ship apart.  He remembers: "I was going to take the ammunition belt off and jump ship.  I looked down and I was all sticky.  I had a hole in my gut and my heart came up into my mouth."

He swam to safety.

I also went through a long list of Barrien County men who died in the war and found that three of them met their deaths at Pearl Harbor:

Wesley E. Graham
Louis E. Harris, Jr.
George Jones  on the USS Downes

--GreGen

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