Published June 17, 2012
By Susi DeClue
Quincy native Ken Fielding
was aboard the USS Selfridge, a U.S. Navy destroyer, when the first Japanese
plane on Sunday morning, Dec. 7, 1941, launched a torpedo against the USS
Raleigh, a light cruiser anchored nearby. The attack on Pearl Harbor in the
Hawaiian islands occurred at 0751 hours, just minutes before morning colors.
Fielding had been stationed at Pearl Harbor for nearly a year
and was a Storekeeper 1st Class who also manned the four-barrel 1.1-inch/75
anti-aircraft guns during combat. On the morning of Dec. 7, the Selfridge was
one of five destroyers tied together alongside the USS Whitney, a tender
(service ship).
Within minutes of the general quarters alarm sounded by the
Selfridge’s officer of the deck, Fielding was at his battle station firing on
the incoming Japanese planes. In his report, ship’s captain Wyatt Craig noted
that his ship’s guns were first to fire in that area of the harbor. One enemy
plane crashed while being fired on by Fielding’s forward 1.1-inch and another
plane under fire by the forward gun was seen to go down half way up a hill
inland.
Less than 24 hours after the ship had returned to Pearl
Harbor following a naval operation, the Japanese began the two-hour torpedo and
bombing raid on the American base. Fielding was 19 years and 7 months old to
the day.
“The captain had told us there would be no more drills until
we were back to base, so we sensed something brewing. We were taking on fuel
during the battle, so a hit would have caused a tremendous explosion. Most of
us reacted the way we were taught. When ships were bombed the entire scene
burst into flames. Yes, war is hell, but we had a job to do and we believed our
cause was justified.”
That day, 2,350 American servicemen were killed. The next
day, the U.S. declared war on Japan and began its involvement in World War II.
After the attack, the Selfridge was sent to patrol the
entrance of the harbor and, after a couple of weeks, started toward Wake
Island. The ship got as far as the 180th meridian when Wake fell to the
Japanese and the aircraft carrier alongside the Selfridge was hit by a torpedo.
“Japanese torpedoes were flawless. Ours weren’t so good at the time,” Fielding
says.
After escorting the aircraft carrier to Seattle, the
Selfridge escorted four ships of U.S. Marines to New Zealand and later picked
them up, then set sail for Guadalcanal. “We were the last ship in our brigade
and near the edge of the Coral Sea when 40 ‘Betty’s’ (Japanese bombers) came in
on us. We lost the Lexington and five cruisers, and the USS Chicago caught a
torpedo that knocked out her bow. One merchant ship turned over.”
Ken Fielding pauses. He is 88 now, the survivor of not only
Pearl Harbor and WWII, but a series of bouts with cancer. His brown eyes gleam
and his speech is animated; but when he talks about combat, his voice is
hushed in reverence for the men who made the ultimate sacrifice for their
country.
“On Oct. 6, 1943, the Selfridge was near Vale in
the northernmost Solomon Islands, when we engaged the Japanese in
battle. Near the beginning of the fight, the middle ship in our
brigade got torpedoed, and the ship behind
rammed into her deck. Our own ship was directly hit and exploded into a ball of
fire. After we ran out of ammo and torpedoes, we began using flashless powder,
then shooting smokeless powder. We had 56 men killed, and 14 or 16 wounded. One
of our men went overboard that night, and the next day, he was rescued by a PBY
(patrol boat) amid several hundred Japanese bodies floating in the water.”
Nearly 69 years after that battle, Fielding’s memories are as
vivid and poignant as that day.
There were other battles and Naval operations for Fielding
and the USS Selfridge before WWII ended in the Pacific Theater on Aug. 15,
1945, after the dropping of atomic bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima on Aug. 6 and
9 from a plane named the Enola Gay and piloted by another Quincy man, Col. Paul
Tibbets.
When asked about courage and heroism in combat,
though, Ken Fielding is self-effacing: “They are overdone. We had a job to
do and we did it. We carried out our duty the way we were taught to respond.”
Fielding had completed his basic training at Naval Station
Great Lakes in North Chicago and spent six years in the Navy before returning
to the United States. His military service taught him many things about life.
The discipline and hard work it required, he said, helped him immensely in his
civilian career.
After working three years in California during the Korean
War, he moved back to Quincy and began a 33-year career with the U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers, working his way from painter to lockmaster at
the Saverton, Mo., Lock and Dam 22. He was also stationed at lock and dams
14, 17, 18 and 20.
Ken and his wife, Mary Celeste Taylor, were married for 50
years before her death in January 1999. He now lives in a quiet residential
area of Quincy. For many years, he was an avid fisherman and hunter.
“We’ve been called the ‘Greatest Generation,’ but my father
raised three boys by himself in the 1930s and never knew what he was going to put on the table for the next
meal. WWII kept tyranny off of our shores and made the world a safer and better
place, allowed us to prosper knowing that freedom has a price, and it was paid
for us by our veterans,” Fielding said.
On the mantelpiece in Ken Fielding’s home is a model of the
Selfridge, and alongside the American flag, the colors that flew from his
ship’s yardarm on that December day 71 years ago.
Joseph Newkirk is a local writer and photographer. He has
written for the Library of Congress’ Veterans History Project and the Illinois
Veterans Home magazine “Bugle” for the past 19 years and published essays,
poetry, travel stories, and biographies in literary magazines and journals.
Sources
“Congress Declares
War: Honolulu Loss is 3,000.” Quincy Herald-Whig, December 8, 1941, 1.
Costello, John. The
Pacific War. New York: Atlantic Communications, Inc., 1981.
Craig, Wyatt. “USS
Selfridge, Report of Pearl Harbor Attack, January 15, 1942” at
http://www.history.navy.mil/
.
Hammel, Eric.
Guadalcanal: Decision at Sea: The Naval Battle of Guadalcanal November 13-15,
1942. New York: Crown Publishers, Inc. 1988.
Prange, Gordon W. Pearl
Harbor: The Verdict of History. New York: McGraw-Hill, Co., 1986.
“Quincy native Paul
Tibbets recalls dropping first A-bomb.” Quincy Herald-Whig, August 6,
1975.
Toland, John. Infamy:
Pearl Harbor and Its Aftermath. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company,
Inc., 1982.
