Lynn & Melva's memory of the Pearl Harbor attack from Miriam

Today is anniversary of the day the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor Day and WW 2 started.  I called my mom and dad and asked them what they remembered.  Mom told me she was about 10 yrs old.  Their family lived in Tremonton and Grandpa worked in Garland.  She was with him in his store.  A man walked in and put his hands up like he was going to shot Melvin (grandpa) and made the machine gun sound.  Then said.  "Oh, sorry Mel, I thought you were a Jap".  That really hurt my mom because she had some friends that were Japanese farmers.  They were really good people and she was very aware that our country was at war and on our own soil.  Some of the people treated the Japanese so badly. She was upset.

Many young men were killed in the war.  One woman had 3 or 4 of her sons killed in the ward.  They were buried in the Tremonton cemetery very close to our Getz relatives and on Memorial day we often saw their family and G and G Castleton were friends. I remember my grandma and grandpa Castleton tell me about how it affected them fiercely. They loved the Japanese people. People treated them differently after the war started. 

Daddy was busy in the morning but had time to think about this all day.  I called him later (11 pm) that evening and he had a lot to say.  I wrote it all because you may find it valuable someday. I was on the phone well over an hour and my neck really hurts;)  I have an old phone and was typing all the time. Then he called back with a few amendments for another long while.  I just wrote it as he told it to me pretty much. It is 1:30 am and I am wrapping up.  But it has been precious time with my daddy.  I have been so grateful. (I don't think he was wearing his hearing aid...)

When daddy was in high school he was in ROTC.  Then he went to college in 1938.  All the male students were in ROTC.  The third year he volunteered to be in an advanced ROTC.  His professor told them they would all have to fight a ward with Japan (before hand).  He went to summer camp ROTC in Fort Berry which was in California.  North of the Golden Gates.  His barracks were right above the fog horn (by the light house) which was the entrance to the Golden Gate on the Pacific Ocean.  He heard the fog horn all night. They could see every ship as they came down and into the gate at San Francisco. This summer all the Navy was painting the white battleships gray.  You don't fight a war with white battleships so the Navy knew what was up. The Japanese ships would come in empty, riding real high and go out really, really low.  They were loaded with scrap iron and going back to Japan. (Daddy says that in just a few months later they sent all that iron back to Pearl Harbor in bombs trying to kill us.) He says American did know what they were doing but ignored it.  He says America was afraid to precipitate a war by not selling the iron to the Japanese. (just his thoughts though)  He was there 6 weeks.  Daddy had his 1932 Model T Ford with him.  He was free on weekends and was up at Pattlelooma (city north of San Francisco)   He was late getting back by 11 pm at night.  Instead of having non commissioned officers at the gate checking them in as usual, they had the commissioned officers there. This was another example that we were worried about a war. 

When daddy was at summer camp, Bob Henderson would invite him up to visit him there. Bob was dad's cousin.  He was a chief electrician on a Submarine named the Duggon . It was brand new. While daddy was there he was in a uniform so daddy was able to go up on the Submarine but not down into it. When daddy came home the submarine when up to Alaska in July.  By Dec. 7th it was at Pearl Harbor.  It went out to sea and fought but was not sunk.  It fought for a year. Dad got a wire in North Fork Nebraska (while on his mission) from Bob and requested dad to visit him down to the train station for 20 min., while it was being refueled with coal.  He told dad that the Duggon sank more other ships than any other ship in the Navy.  A bomb cracked his ship but did not sink it. He was transferred to Connecticut at that time and he worked in the Atlantic. Daddy's brother's served in the war.  George drove an ambulance in the Pacific following the war wherever it was. He was in the air-core. Ray worked as a welder in Washington.  They were building liberty ships. Then the Korean war came along and Ray joined the army and went to Korea. 

His mission call came while he was in California to be sent to the western states mission. He thought it was strange that he would go east 500 miles to Denver to get to the mission when he was called the Western States Mission.  The missions west of us had different names. It included all of Colorado, all of NM, Wyoming, Nebraska, black hills of S. Dakota and the western side of Iowa.  He reported to the mission home in SLC in the end of October for only 3 days then his Saturday was free so he went up to Logan and got his deer.  Then went back to the mission home on Sunday night.  He was set apart as a seventy then.  He road the train to Denver. He was stationed in Colorado Springs.  There were only Branches there then.  He was in Pueblo Colorado on Dec. 7th.  The Branch Pres. invited them to dinner.  Dad went in the other room to listen to a radio and heard the report on the news of the bombing of Pearl Harbor.  That evening he went to Colorado Springs to a meeting.  All the news boys were shouting the news on the streets.  Daddy was scheduled to give a talk in the little branch.  Daddy had a hard time giving his talk because he was thinking about the implications of the war. 

He found out that his father's sister, Aunt Elase, had a husband who was Arch Henderson. He was operating the power plant under Cutler down above Tremonton that Sunday afternoon of Dec. 7th. He fell over dead when he heard the news of the bombing.  He had a boy at Pearl Harbor and a boy at Hickem Field in Hawaii.  His boys turned out to be okay. People believe he feel over dead because of the shock and worry for his boys. He was a bit older than daddy. 

Each ward was only allowed one missionary during the war.  Daddy represented his Logan ward as that missionary. He was released from his mission in 1943. He was thinking about his options for a career and his education.  Even though he had been a District President he had not been a Branch Pres. so he could not be a Chaplin for the military as he wanted to be. He did want to serve in some capacity.  So then he decided to be a physician.  His friends in Logan were in pre dental and they pointed out that a Dr. had sick people in his waiting room and a dentist only had tooth aches in his waiting room and it was much better. He changed his mind and went the dental route. So he joined the Navy after he was accepted to Ann Arbor Dental school. (He had applied to 4 dental schools and accepted to all of them) This way he got a choice of how he received his commission and was not drafted.  He went to one more year of college at USU before going to Michigan because he was already accepted. (The other 3 schools would have had him start their program immediately but Michigan was the best so he went the extra year at USU). He later found out that Michigan had been recognized as the absolute best Dental School in the country.  He was in the Navy at the time he did the extra yr at USU on inactive duty.  That way he was not drafted. 

He was in Michigan for seven years. He married Carol in Michigan and she gave birth to Wendy there.   After graduating he got his masters in Root Canal Therapy in June of 1950. The war ended and daddy was discharged.  Immediately the Korean war started up. Daddy knew he owed the government 2 years because they sent him to dental school. So he joined the US Public Health Service so that he could have Carol and Wendy with him.  The plan was to join the coast guard but the director of Public Health (a military service with all the rules of war like the other services) told him to stay in Flint Michigan and he would have him be the director of the Fluoride Demonstration team.  He was there from Jan of 1951 till the fall. Then he was transferred to Florida.  Carol sadly died in Aug. of 1952 from Polio. Wendy was almost 3 years old.  Wendy stayed with Janice and Ted while dad finished up in Florida and went to N.M.  (Wendy also spent much time with her grandmothers and Lola's family) He tried to get back to Utah first though.  The closest they could send him to Wendy was Tohatchi N. M., 25 miles north of Gallup.  He was so happy working for the Indians that when his two years were up with the public health he volunteered and worked another year. He was at the reservation for 1.5 yrs. Wendy came and stayed during the summer.  Daddy arranged for Betty Yazi ,a Navajo to go to BYU on a scholarship. He was a little late getting her to the bus station but that is where he met Melva.  She was assigned to work in Gallup N.M. and was waiting for Jackie and Mary Louise Wilson.  They were good friends of Mom's. This is where daddy first saw mother. She was so beautiful that daddy said he must start dating her.  He finished his third year and moved to Ogden because Lola was there and mom was in the health dept. in Ogden.  When he came back to Utah in Feb. of 1954 they had a room in the basement of Lola's home on Edgehill from Feb. to April of 1954. Then he bought the house on Capital and Harrison and they lived there alone until mom and dad married March of 1955.  Mom was a stake missionary and gave a talk in the Stake Conference that daddy went to in the old Ogden Tabernacle.  She did a fabulous job.  After the meeting daddy went up and asked her to dinner for the next night. Dad also took Jackie, another girl and mom to the top of Timpanogos for an actual date soon after that.  (An actual date with 3 women???)  It has been a wonderful life with Melva and 12 children.  He has been very happy.  Daddy recognizes the Lord's hand in blessing and guiding him through out his whole life.