Henry Mead

On Ford Island and on Air Patrol between attacks

Utility Squadron One (VJ-1)

Harry R. Mead
20 years old
Born: 29 March 1921
Second Class Radio Operator, Aircraft Qualified
He joined the Navy 25 January 1939

December 7, 1941 I awoke at the sound of reveille, showered, shaved, and went down to the messhall for breakfast. Finishing that, I strolled over to the hanger on the east side of Ford Island in time to muster with the duty section at 0745. Having done that I proceeded to the radio shack and relieved the supervisor of the watch.

My watchstander was a third class radioman by the name of Schultz. He took over the circuit watch. I was busy being briefed on what had taken place the previous night and what messages still had to be delivered to the Officer-of-the-Day. The relieved supervisor of the watch and his watchstander departed and headed for the mess hall to eat breakfast. I settled down and arranged all the incoming messages on a clipboard in ascending chronological order in preparation for presenting them to the OOD at 0800 hours.

About five minutes before 0800 I heard a plane commence a dive in the vicinity of our hangar. I figured it was another mock air raid attack by the Army Aviation Units on the far side of the island. I stepped out the door of the radio shack that led to the tarmac and looked up in the direction of the sound of the diving plane. "Gad! This must have been a whole damn squadron they sent over this time," I thought. Something dropped off the lead plane and I immediately thought to myself, "That must be a piece of cowling; some mechanic is gonna catch hell for that!"

The next thing I heard was a tremendous explosion at the South end of Ford Island and a geyser of water shot up in the air for what seemed several hundred feet. "What the hell is going on?" I wondered. "Those dummies are using live ammunition." The next plane apparently dropped his bomb just outside one of the PBY hangars on the end of Ford Island. I looked toward the hangar and saw a bunch of men running for the drainage ditch that circled the airfield.

About this time the duty Chief from the metalsmith shop came out and stood beside me. He noted the red meatball right away and said, "Those are Japanese planes. Those bastards are bombing us!"

At that I ran back into the radio shack, told my watch- stander what was going on, and immediately setup one of the receivers on 900 Kcs which was our airraid frequency. This was to enable us to get direct reports from CincPacFlt whose headquarters were on the Submarine Base across from the navyyard.

Transmissions on this frequency were in modulated continuous wave MCW) so that an ordinary household radio could pick them up.

Right in the midst of the peak of the attack the OOD's messenger came into the radio shack and said the OOD wants everyone to go to the operations building for safety. This didn't make much sense to me, but orders are orders. So I tagged the watchstander and told him we had to go to the operations building. It seems like all the duty section had vacated our hangar and were huddled on the steps leading up to the control tower. The operations building was the only concrete reinforced building on the tarmac. Our hangar was nothing more than corrugated sheet steel over a steel frame work. I don't think any of the Japanese 7mm projectiles would have penetrated it unless it was a lucky hit at the proper angle.

I had no more than settled down for what I figured would be a long siege when the OOD's messenger came in and yelled, "Hey Mead, the OD didn't mean for you to leave your post, only your watchstander."

That meant only one thing. I had to hotfoot it back to the radio shack double time. As I was running back, which was probably a distance of about 75 yards, I noticed a Jap plane headed in my direction. All around me bits of concrete chips were pouncing up in the air. Lucky for me there was a 4X4 weapons carrier parked next our hangar and I dived under the front bumper until the plane passed. Then I got up and made it to the radio shack. I no sooner entered than the OOD came in,handed me a message and said, "Send this to our detachment in Maui, immediately!"

I raised our station in Maui and commenced sending the message. To the best of my recollection the message read, "UNDER ATTACK BY JAPANESE FORCES X TAKE NECESSARY PRECAUTIONS TO PREVENT LANDING BY ROLLING FUEL DRUMS ONTO AIRSTRIP X"

About this time a message started coming in on the air raid frequency that indicated a parachute was seen landing in a pineapple field near Pearl City. I never did learn if it was a Jap pilot or some guy in a private plane that got shot up by one of the Jap raiders. Additional information coming over the circuit indicated that there might be some threat of paratrooperslanding in the immediate area. Of course, later it was determined that this never occurred.

After the first attack subsided, my Chief (Gerald M. Jacobs) came back from his home in Pearl City and got all the radiomen together in the radio shack.

"I want three volunteers, you, you, and you (pointing to me). Man your aircraft and prepare for a search mission." "But Chief," I stammered, "I've got the watch."

"I'll relieve you," he said, "Get your ass in your plane and pre-flight it!"

"Yes sir." Was my reply.

So it was that yours truly found himself airborne on December 7, 1941 before the second attack had commenced. One of the other radiomen to be assigned a search mission was "Benny" Benefiel. He was one of my buddies, we slept in the same compartment in thebarracks. We used to pull liberties together.

Our search pattern was to fly a 300 mile leg out from Oahu then 50 miles to the west and then back 300 miles and land. Being a noncombatant squadron our only armament was three WWI, Springfield rifles someone had scrounged up. These were manned by gunners in the bow and waist hatch. Fortunately for all of us, the people who thought up this search plan sent us directly opposite from where the Japanese fleet was churning through the water getting ready to launch another attack. Our flight lasted 5.2 hours. At one time during the flight I picked up a message from Benefiel's plane that they were under attack by a Japanese plane. I thought, "Geeze! There goes my liberty buddy."

When we returned from our search mission, the second attack had been delivered by the Japs and the sight that met our eyes was appalling. Thick, black smoke was spiraling skyward from all over the Pearl Harbor basin. Battleship row was a shambles. One battleship, I think it was the TENNESSEE had been run aground out in the channel. Everything was in a state of total confusion. It was the most heart-rending sight I have ever seen, before or since. The last plane to land from our three-plane search mission was the one Benefiel was in. Man was I glad to see him. He said that the Jap plane that attacked them must have been out of ammunition or his guns had jammed which got them off the hook.

While we were on our search mission, sandbag revetments had been set up around the perimeter of the tarmac. Metalsmiths had made welded tripods from angle iron on which 30-caliber machine guns were mounted. The remainder of the evening for all of us not on duty was belting ammunition until the OOD passed the word that we could secure and try to get some sleep. No one was permitted to leave the hangar area.

Prior to bedding down for the evening I strolled around the tarmac to look at the newly constructed machine gun revetments. It was beginning to get dark. From a distance aircraft engines could be heard approaching Ford Island. Shortly, three planes were sighted approaching the field. All three had their running lights on and appeared to be lining up for a landing on the airfield. One of the machine gun emplacements at the north end of the field commenced firing at the incoming planes. As a result, all the guns on the field commenced firing. Our OOD, who happened to be inspecting our machine gunners, recognized them as F4F fighters from the carrier ENTERPRISE. He began running up and down our firing line yelling, "Cease fire, cease fire, they're ours, cease fire!" Finally the firing stopped, but not before one of the planes had been disabled and crashed in a pineapple field near Pearl City. I don't remember if the other two planes landed safely or not.

From this point on days were spent in flying search missions looking for any signs of renewed attacks by the Japs or for subs that might be lurking in the waters around Oahu. This reminds me of a sight that occurred right after I landed from my search mission on December 7th. Apparently a Jap two-man submarine had penetrated Pearl Harbor basin by following the garbage scow in when it returned from dumping garbage at sea. It went undetected until a sharp-eyed lookout on USS CURTIS spotted it when the sun hit the water at just the right angle. The sub was nestled under the hospital ship SOLACE making no sounds whatsoever. Not long after it was sighted, a harbor tug maneuvered a barge crane to the area. Another tug quietly moved SOLACE away from the sub and the barge crane dropped a large section of anti-submarine netting over it. Then, the crane reached down with a grappling hook and snared the sub, netting and all. From where I stood it looked like a huge fish suspended from a huge fishing rod. Very funny, indeed. I never learned what happened to the two men in the sub.

One day in March I received a letter from home with a newspaper clipping from my hometown paper (Bucyrus Telegraph Forum). The clipping indicated that one Harry Mead from Bucyrus High School Class of 1938 was to receive the Navy Cross for action at Pearl Harbor during the Japanese sneak attack on December 7, 1941. My Dad wanted to know why I hadn't written to him about this award and he seemed pretty upset about it. My reaction was one of hilarity. I figured someone in the Navy Information Office in Washington had made a big mistake. I had not heard one word locally about any award whatsoever.

April 7, 1942 I was ordered to report aboard USS NEVADA for the awards ceremony. I was accompanied by my skipper, Cdr. Paul B. Tuzo. When my name was called, I approached the admiral, saluted and took one step forward, my eyes were focused on the horizon beyond the admiral's head. As he pinned the medal on my left breast, he shook my hand and said, "Look at me, boy!"

I immediately focused my eyes on his and from the gleam I saw there and the up-turned corners of his mouth I knew I was receiving a silent "Well done, son," as he handed me the citation and the box from which the Navy Cross was extracted.

The citation reads as follows:

"The President of the United States takes pleasure in presenting the NAVY CROSS to HARRY R. MEAD, RADIOMAN SECOND CLASS, U.S. NAVY for service as set forth in the following:"

CITATION:

"For distinguished service, extraordinary courage and disregard of his own safety during the attack on the Fleet in Pearl Harbor, Territory of Hawaii, by Japanese forces on December 7, 1941. Mead voluntarily remained in the Utility Wing Base Radio Station Naval Air Station, Pearl Harbor, and performed the duties necessary in connection with carrying out radio operations during an air attack, all other personnel of that radio station being required to take shelter in the Operations Building of the Naval Air Station.
Furthermore, later in the day he volunteered and went as a radioman in a plane on a search mission."

For the President,

/S/ Frank Knox Secretary of the Navy"

Chief Mead's rate at retirement was Chief Aviation Electronics Technician E7.
His last duty station was with Heavy Attack Squadron Nine, Sanford, FL Naval Air Station.

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