PARKY’S CAUSE: NEVER FORGET PEARL HARBOR
On Dec. 7, 1941, the Parkinson family in Fallbrook anxiously began a long wait to hear about the fate of two of their sons, Francis “Parky” and Clayton. Both served on board the battleship USS Oklahoma.
Parky Parkinson believed that his decision to enlist in the Navy in May 1939 was the best decision he ever made. The fact that Parky ended up in the Navy is not surprising given his family background and how much the sea surrounded him in his early life. Parky’s father, Frank Parkinson, joined the Navy and was in that branch of service when America entered World War I in April 1917.
While in England during the war, Frank met an English lass, Adele Leonard. They married in England. Frank brought his “war bride” home to the United States after the war ended. Their first son was born on June 5, 1919. At birth, Parky was named Francis Rowe after his father and his mother’s father. Parky spent his childhood in Roxbury, Massachusetts, a town just outside of Boston. His father, though, was still drawn to the sea. Frank joined the U.S. Merchant Marine service and as such was gone for long periods of time. During the family years in Roxbury, two more sons were born.
With Adele probably lonely for her English family, and wanting to show off her three young boys, she and Frank moved to England in 1925. They settled in South Wales, in Adele’s hometown of Penarth. Frank still sailed with the American Merchant Marine, but Parky and his brothers did not want for attention during their father’s long absences. They were surrounded by their mother’s family and by the sea. Adele’s father was the town’s pier master, responsible for maintaining the pier. With his grandfather, Parky recalled sailing model ships in local ponds. After two years in England, Frank Parkinson moved his family back to America.
The trip must have been an exciting one for the three little boys — they sailed home on the Merchant Marine ship on which their father worked. The family settled in Fallbrook, where Frank had a sister. However, in reality only part of the family lived in North County — Frank continued sailing with the Merchant Marine, while his wife and sons lived in Fallbrook.
When Parky graduated from Fallbrook High School in 1938, he did not see much of a future for himself aside from picking oranges, grapefruit or avocados. So, with his father’s encouragement, Parky joined the Navy in May 1939. The little boy who had lived near the port of Boston, the little boy who had spent two years in a waterfront town in South Wales and the boy who for years had watched his father go off to sea, decided in 1939 to follow in his father’s footsteps and also embrace the sea.
Parky’s first duty station was the battleship Oklahoma. He joined its crew in September 1939, the same month when World War II broke out in Europe. On Dec. 7, 1941, the Oklahoma was in Pearl Harbor. On board the ship with Parky was his brother Clayton who had dropped out of high school to join the Navy. Both survived the Japanese attack. As it turned out, Parky witnessed two historic events in WWII — the attack upon Pearl Harbor and the takeoff of the Doolittle planes from the aircraft carrier Hornet as they left to bomb Tokyo in April 1942. One of the escort vessels for the Hornet was the Northampton, the ship Parky was assigned to after the loss of the Oklahoma. As luck had it, Parky was not on duty when the Doolittle planes took off for Tokyo. He watched their departure, one by one, from the deck of the Northampton.
By the end of the war, Parky had served on two other ships, the Barnett and the Iowa. And also by war’s end, two other Parkinson men wore a naval uniform. Their father re-enlisted and served as a lieutenant commander of a tanker. Jack, another of Parky’s brothers, signed up in 1944. Of the three Parkinson brothers and their father, all survived the war except for Clayton, who was lost at sea when his ship was sunk by the Japanese in the summer of 1942. In September 1945, Parky, Jack and their father, must have thought of Clayton as they stood on the deck of Frank’s ship in Tokyo Bay. Together, they watched from afar as the Japanese formally signed the surrender documents on board the Missouri.
Parky died on March 12, 2010. For years, he was an active member of North County Chapter 31 of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association. He visited schools and colleges, sharing his story of “a date which will live in infamy.” Parky did not focus on the other history he had witnessed firsthand — the departure of the Doolittle Raiders from the deck of the USS Hornet and the formal surrender of the Japanese. For Parky, it was important that his audiences “Remember Pearl Harbor.” He and his fellow members of Chapter 31 would ask one thing of us this Dec. 7: Remember the 2,403 American servicemen who died on Dec. 7, 1941.
Frank Parkinson of Fallbrook and sons Francis “Parky,” Clayton and Jack all served in the Navy in World War II. As an active member of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association, Parky sought to preserve memories of Dec. 7, 1941.
is the president of the World War II Experience, an educational nonprofit based in San Marcos, where she lives.