A bond forged on a day of infamy
Pearl Harbor survivors meet aboard USS Constitution
Their hair is grizzled now, their hands blemished and knotted at the joints. Among the last of the Greatest Generation, George Hursey and William Keith are also two of the only remaining survivors of one of the darkest days in U.S. history.
Yesterday, more than 75 years after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the two met for the first time on board the USS Constitution, where they were presented with flags and honored for their service.
“There’s nothing we would rather do more than pay tribute to their sacrifice,” said Michael Devin, state adjutant for the Department of Massachusetts Veterans of Foreign Wars. “To honor them while they’re still here is important.”
Afterward, the two met for lobster rolls at the Charlestown Navy Yard. But words did not come easily. At 95, Keith is hard of hearing, while Hursey, 96, is reticent about what he witnessed at Pearl Harbor.
“There’s nothing nice to say about any war,” he said.
And so their stories were left to their children to tell.
Keith was a 19-year-old Navy seaman who was ironing his pants aboard the USS West Virginia just before 8 a.m. on Dec. 7, 1941, his daughter, Jayne Murray, said, when alarms suddenly sounded, followed by a frantic announcement: “This is not a drill!”
For the next two hours, hundreds of Japanese fighter planes attacked the naval base, destroying nearly 20 American vessels, including the West Virginia, and more than 300 airplanes. By the time the barrage ended, more than 2,000 American soldiers and sailors had been killed and another 1,000 had been wounded.
When the West Virginia sank, there was no way to save the survivors trapped inside at the time, Murray said, so they banged on the walls of the ship for help until they died.
“He still, to this day, has nightmares,” Murray said of her father. “He feels so guilty that he survived, and they didn’t. But he never talked about it when we were growing up. He just sucked it up.”
Hursey joined the Army after high school and was a 20-year-old corporal at the time of the attack, his son, Dennis Hursey, said. His younger brother, James, was in the Army infantry at Pearl Harbor, and it wasn’t until the day after the attack that each of them learned the other was alive.
Hursey served six years in all, his son said, and his happiest memory was the day he came home. He was walking up the dirt driveway, his duffel bag slung over his shoulder, when one of his sisters caught sight of him and yelled, “He’s home, he’s home!” His mother ran out to meet him, “just like in the movies,” his son said, and she fell at his feet and wept.