Al Patten
Pearl Harbor & Other Memories by Al Patten 304 pages, soft cover, b/w photos, 6" x 9" This is a second edition containing a memorial page.
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Synopsis
"We was coming into Pearl on the USS Nevada on Friday, December 5th, 1941 and the word came down from topside that we were to lay-to for an hour because the carrier Lexington was coming out of the harbor. After the Lex passed, we went in and tied up right behind the Arizona on battleship row. 'Course we didn't think nothing of it at the time, and I remember I had the 12 - 4 weekend watch in Number Two fireroom. Sunday morning, December 7th, we got up just like normal and I was down on the third deck below..... and just then the ship shook a bit and......."
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So begins Al Patten's reminisces of that fateful day in December 1941 in his Pearl Harbor & Other Memories. Al was a Water Tender 2nd Class on the battleship USS Nevada which managed to get under way and was badly damaged during the attack. He and five of his brothers, also on the Nevada, survived that attack.
Al and his brothers were then transferred to the aircraft carrier USS Lexington which, only five months after Pearl Harbor, was sunk in the battle of the Coral Sea. He and his brothers survived that attack as well. Al finished the war on the carrier USS Enterprise and, thankfully, all eight of the Patten brothers made it through the war intact. Al went on to finish a career in the US Navy in 1959, then moved with his family to Alaska in 1962. In 1969, at age 52, Al Patten climbed and reached the 20,320' peak of Mt. McKinley, the highest point in North America.
Table of Contents
| CHAPTER ONE Joining Up Boot Camp Going On Board Break in Service Football Physical Health Hitler and Germany CHAPTER TWO Pearl Harbor The Brothers The Carriers More on the Attack 50th Anniversary Ceremony Historical Note - Pearl Harbor Attack Historical Note - USS Nevada CHAPTER THREE USS Lexington Sinking the Shoho The Lex Gets Hit Abandon Ship The Lex Goes Down Losses The Pace of War Enlisted Pilots The Battleship "Book" Naval Air Power More Carriers Needed After the Battle Reunion Historical Note - USS Lexington Historical Note - Log of USS Lexington, December 14, 1941 Poem - The Lexington Sails On CHAPTER 4 The Raid on Tokyo "Jeep" Carrier Manila and the Bataan Death March Submarines Guadalcanal & The Slot - November 1942 On the Enterprise - The Mariana Turkey Shoot Enterprise at Okinawa Kamikaze Hits Enterprise Shipboard on the Enterprise Chief's Quarters Honors for the Dead Typhoon General MacArthur The Nature of Command Dreaded TB Last Days of the War The Day the War Ended The Enterprise Repaired Last Voyage of the Enterprise Historical Note - USS Enterprise WW II Engagements Historical Note - USS Enterprise Historical Note - US Involvement in WW II CHAPTER 5 Military in General The Chief Smoking Ports of Call Shipboard Chiropractor Nuclear Ships Leaving the Navy Civilian Clothes CHAPTER 6 The Brothers Historical Note - Navy Policy Regarding Brothers on Same Ship CHAPTER 7 Iowa Roots The Navy Family & School Reunion Horses Civil War Veterans Early Radio Auctions Mostly Missed Meal Little Big Horn CHAPTER 8 Alaska Getting to Alaska McKinley Climb Roping In The Injury Cold Weather Hunting Alone in the Wilderness Travels The Great Land of Alaska Earthquake Story News Article on Mt. McKinley Climb, Lake City Graphic Trip Log, Mt. McKinley Climb CHAPTER 9 Politics and Philosophy The White House Physical Fitness Span of Life Philosophy of Life Duty, Honor, Country Work Ethic Current Events On Being a Mason CHAPTER 10 Other Stories Army-Navy Game Same Uniform Umpiring UFOs So-long, Al CHAPTER 11 Lex and Lindy Talk About Dad END NOTE The Navy Hymn Order Form |
PRE-WAR NAVY 3 4 6 8 12 13 15 PEARL HARBOR 25 31 33 34 44 53 57 USS LEXINGTON 61 64 66 67 73 74 76 77 79 81 81 82 83 84 87 91 WORLD WAR II MEMORIES 101 104 105 108 110 116 120 122 124 128 129 131 134 135 136 138 139 140 141 145 147 151 POST WW II SERVICE 155 156 158 159 161 164 166 168 169 THE BROTHERS 175 177 IOWA ROOTS 181 182 183 188 189 190 191 192 197 ALASKA 201 201 211 212 213 216 217 219 219 223 227 234 236 POLITICS & PHILOSOPHY 241 241 243 245 248 249 252 254 255 OTHER STORIES 259 264 265 268 269 273 A GREAT DAD 275 285 287 |
Excerpts from:
Pearl Harbor & Other Memories
PRE-WAR NAVY
I went aboard the old USS Nevada on April 12, 1935, and was on it all that time until December 7, 1941. In the old Navy, you didn't move around too much. Some guys shipped over, but not many.
We'd go up and down the Pacific Coast to Seattle and Bremerton and San Francisco. We didn't cross the Pacific. If we tried to get to Australia for instance, we'd spend a lifetime getting there. Those old battleships they were slow, 15 knots. That's no speed for a ship any more. Why, them Japs at Pearl Harbor showed us that our Navy didn't mean a snap of your fingers. Jimminy whiz.
JOINING UP
(Tell us about when you first joined the Navy.) I waited in that sign-up line and if you pass everything, they put you on a three month waiting list. They sent you back home to wait to get called up. When I went into the Navy in November of 1934, I passed the tests in September 1934. They notified me by letter that I was accepted and I was to report in at such and such a time.
(How did you travel?) There was a train that run through Lanesboro, Iowa, a town of about two hundred people in those days. It was the Great Western Railroad and it stopped at the depot. It only cost 50˘ to ride fifty miles to Fort Dodge. I rode that train down and then didn't take a cab, I just hiked down to the recruit station and the recruiter was there waiting for me.
That railroad land is all bulldozed over and it's all farmland now. At Lake City, Iowa, where my sis and her husband live, the Illinois Central went through there. That's all been done away with, too. Lanesboro is about ten miles from Lake City. So I took the train for 50˘. I had been picking corn for Vernard Harriott when I got my notice to report.
BOOT CAMP
At that time, seventeen to twenty-five was the recruiting age, and of course, at boot camp they had a chief to teach us. And we called the chief, Mister. That was Mr. Swearinger. He was a little guy, Chief Boatswains Mate Swearinger, fine man, just as good as they come. 'Course you're restricted for three weeks when you first go in there. You get your shots, uniforms and learn a little drilling and how to handle the rifle, and for three weeks you don't rate liberty………….. (story continued in book)
PEARL HARBOR
We was coming into Pearl on the USS Nevada on Friday December 5, 1941, and the word came down from topside that we were to lay-to for an hour because the carrier Lexington was coming out of the harbor. After the Lex passed, we went in and tied up right behind the Arizona on battle ship row. 'Course we didn't think nothing of it at the time, and I remember I had the weekend duty and had the 12 - 4 watch in Number Two fireroom.
Sunday morning, December 7th, we get up just like normal and I was down on the third deck below. Naturally, Navy chow, they had beans and dogs on the mess. There was no cafeteria feeding at that time. They detailed a man for every conceivable detail and you run up to the galley for chow and brought it down.
We had a young fireman, a kid eighteen years old by the name of Henry, Bill Henry. Real fine boy. I got up and was drinking a cup of tea and I was eating a "dog sandwich," I remember. I didn't even sit down, I just stood there and leaned against one of the bunks and we were shooting the bull. About four of us were talking football. At that time the Pacific Coast conference, now known as the PAC-10, was called the Pacific Coast conference. And Oregon State had won the Pacific Coast title and we was wondering who they were going to play in the Rose Bowl, 'cause the Rose Bowl game was coming up.
And just then, the ship shook a little bit, and guys just looked at one another, and asked, "What's going on here?" "What is this?"
We was about 30 feet from the port hole and we heard rat-a-tat-tat, rat-a-tat-tat coming from outside the port hole. We went, "Jimminy, machine gun fire," and just then, this here Bill Henry fellow, who just passed away this year from cancer by the way, came running down from the top side, and he put his mess gear down and said, "Hey, you guys, we're being attacked." He says, "There's planes flying around up there, they got big red balls on them." GEE….
Just then the General Alarm went and I remember the Bos'n Mate passing the word…
"THIS IS NO DRILL! THIS IS NO DRILL!
ALL HANDS MAN YOUR BATTLE STATIONS!"
And he repeated it twice. And guys just took off like they'd been hit with an electric shock. And we got the boilers on the line and made engines. It took us just eighteen minutes to get under way. (You were at dead stop right?) Yeah, tied to the dock! (The boilers weren't warmed up?) We had only one boiler online and that was to run the generators and whatever, and the galley, out of six boilers total. It took us only eighteen minutes, and would have got under way quicker than that, because we had the boilers on line in about ten minutes. I remember that my brothers went down there, they manned three of them, and they just put them big burner chips in and they opened the air cock to fire it and all of a sudden it was blowing steam, and they closed the air cock and, boy, the steam just climbed like you can't imagine.
Well, the main engine rooms, they had trouble getting their vacuum up, but anyway the topside team chopped the lines off… we were tied up with big 10 inch lines. We call them lines on board ship, but it's rope, that's what it is. Captain was on shore, so we pulled out with the Chief Quartermaster on the bridge, and he backed out on one engine and went ahead on the other engine and he went right through the smoke and the fire of the Arizona.
And we went about two miles and we started sinking in the channel. And, oh man, once we started out the channel did the Japs ever come at us. Oh man!
(story continued in book)
CLIMBING MT. McKINLEY
(Tallest peak on North American continent, 20,320')
I remember after I got up here [to Alaska], the more I looked at that mountain the years after I got up here, the more I thought, gosh darn, I'm going to climb that son of a gun. Boy, that would be a treat in itself, by gosh. I told Patrish, my wife, that I wanted to climb McKinley. Gosh darn, if you look there on a beautiful day and McKinley is out there, some 140 miles north from Anchorage as the crow flies [about 240 miles by road]. It just looks so big, like a good man could throw a rock out and hit it.
So I took a chance and signed on to climb the mountain in the summer of 1969. It was $800 per climb guiding fee, but only $600 for me. The reason it was $600 for me is that I belonged to the Alaska Mountaineering Club here in Anchorage. He gave me a discount. That was in 1969, so that probably would be about $2,000 now. That was just the fee for the guide. I also had to buy the rest of the mountaineering gear. Crampons, heavy clothing and all that. Naturally, you take long-handles and heavy sweatshirts. That's old Army arctic mittens that I'm wearing there in that picture on the top. Never got cold with them on. And I had Korean-era bunny boots. Boy, I'm telling you, those are the answer to cold feet. They're almost too warm. Your feet sweat and all.
That list of equipment they made out for us to take the climb was extensive. Just for example, Gennett said, "You got to get a thermos and carry a thermos." I said, "Oh, I'll just eat snow and ice." He said, "Look buddy, if you don't get what I tell you to, you ain't going to make the climb." Honestly, up there on the mountain, I didn't think water would taste so good, I was so dehydrated up there at that altitude. And boy, we'd wake up in the morning and fill all our containers with water and we'd stop after a couple hour hike and talk and maybe have a little snack of some kind. But boy, we'd glug, glug, glug that water. It went down like we were on the equator.
There were seven of us in the party plus our guide Ray Genet. Ray Genet must have climbed the mountain at least twenty times or more, because he was a guide. He went up sometimes three times a year with a party of climbers…. (story continued in book).
