A Veteran Story

It is Veterans Day, so I have a story to share about my all-time favorite veteran and hero. This man was born in 1925 on the kitchen table in a small farmhouse out in the boondocks of North Texas. His family struggled to survive the Great Depression (1929-1933), but every Sunday they managed to hitch up a team of mules to the buckboard and get everyone to the Baptist Church for service.

On December 7, 1941, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor killing just under 2500, injuring many others, and crippling the US Naval Fleet. The US was now in World War II. Our Hero was 16 at the time and was at the Naval recruiting office the next day. Although they took some of the older looking kids, he was too thin and did not look anywhere near 18. They could not fudge his date of birth and get away with it. So, when he turned 18, he was on his way to basic training in San Diego. This was his first time ever away from home.

It was not long before our hero was assigned to the USS Lindsey, a minesweeping destroyer destined for the Western Pacific. Although the Lindsey swept for mines, it was primarily a battleship, and in practically engagement, the enemy was the notorious Japanese Kamikaze. These were squadrons of suicide war planes filled with explosives and tasked with taking out US ships by crashing into them. 

On April 12 1945, the USS Lindsey was speeding to the aid of the USS Jeffers when they fell under attach from a massive group of Kamikaze fighters. The Lindsey’s 40-mm and 20-mm machine gun crews managed to destroy the first wave of attackers but at 14:50, one of the planes crashed and exploded on the starboard side at the base of the bridge superstructure. Shrapnel tore holes in the bridge and pilot house. Many were killed, the ship was ablaze, and several men were alive but badly burned. The attack continued but the crew defended with what guns remained. Forty-five seconds after the first plane struck, the second hit the ship on the port bow between the main deck and the waterline near the No. 1 mount. The plane's bomb exploded sending shrapnel into the forward magazine, which exploded ripping some sixty feet off the ship's bow, from the main deck to the keel.

 The ship somehow managed to stay afloat but most of the 363 crew members perished. Many others were wounded including our hero; however, he was able to function. He and a handful of others were tasked with recovering the bodies and remaining parts of others by lowering down into the galley with ropes. This went on for days. In the end, a false bow was welded on to the ship and engines repaired for the very long and slow journey home to Norfolk. 

 Our hero is my Dad, W. M. Emerson who went on to live a long but altered life. Dad spoke of the war rarely but earnestly. May of the stories were heartbreaking. Dad passed just over a year ago at the age of 93. Here’s to you Dad.