OBITUARY
Pearl Harbor survivor Edward Hammond dead at 93.
Edward Hammond, who fired a rifle for the first time as a 17-year-old Navy machinist trying to defend Pearl Harbor from invading Japanese airplanes, died Sept. 15. He was 93.
“Pearl Harbor Eddie,” as his friends called him, was one of South Florida’s last survivors of the surprise Dec. 7, 1941, attack that pulled the United States into World War II. There are thought to be fewer than 2,000 remaining nationwide.
Always reluctant to talk about the war, like many veterans of the Greatest Generation coming back from assignments in Europe, Africa and the Pacific, Hammond in recent years became defined by that first war experience, regularly featured at Pearl Harbor remembrance activities around Broward County and honored in 2015 by Broward Navy Days Inc.
He never returned to Pearl Harbor, where the attack killed 2,403 Americans and wounded 1,178, nor did he visit the war memorials in Washington, D.C.
Hammond grew up in Cleveland, returned there after the war and moved to Florida about 35 years ago, most of that time spent in Deerfield Beach. As a retiree, he volunteered for years at Cleveland Clinic in Weston, delivering mail.
It was in South Florida that Hammond bonded with a new group of friends, comrades from different wars. He joined American Legion posts in Deerfield Beach and Pompano Beach and belonged to Disabled American Veterans, establishing social connections where he felt comfortable relaying his experiences with others who had fought.
“If he liked you, he’d call you ‘shipmate.’ Then you knew you were in his circle,” said Chuck McLaughlin, a Marine who served in the Vietnam War who was friends with Hammond for about 15 years. “He had a smile that would light up the room. He was a true gentleman.”
Other veterans treated Hammond as an “icon,” McLaughlin said, and he mesmerized them with his account of the surprise attack that came three days shy of his 18th birthday.
“They had no idea what was happening. He had told me that he had never fired a rifle,” McLaughlin said. “He had to go get a rifle and protect the ballfield because he thought they were going to parachute in, and he didn’t know who they were.”
Last year, prior to the 75th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Hammond told a reporter: “To this day, if I hear a prop [propeller] plane, I’m waiting for a bomb to go off. I think that will remain in my blood forever.”
He started off repairing submarine machines but spent much of his Navy time after Pearl Harbor aboard an attack transport shuttling troops around the Pacific theater, including Midway Island, Saipan and Okinawa. When the war ended in 1945, he was in the Philippines.
His daughter, Colleen Harris, said her dad had ways of telling stories, like the time he got back late from shore leave and had to hire someone to take him out to his ship because it had already left port. As the crew threw out a rope ladder for Hammond to captain called who was there.
“Chief Eddie Hammond,” her dad said. “Not anymore,” the captain replied.
Hammond served in the Navy for seven years. Later, he had several different careers, the longest repairing newspaper printing presses.
“He would fix those great big machines. He went from submarine machinist to printing press machines,” Harris said.
Hammond was predeceased by his wife of 63 years, the former Peggy O’Neill, who died in 2011. His favorite song was “Harbor Lights,” originally recorded in the 1930s, which reminded board, the out, asking him of their love, Harris said. He also outlived his two sons, Edward Jr. and Scott.
He is survived by his daughter, Harris, of Deerfield Beach, and grandchildren Ryan, Sean and Holly Harris.
A memorial Mass will be held at noon Friday at St. Paul the Apostle Catholic Church in Lighthouse Point, followed by a reception at American Legion Post 142 in Pompano Beach. He will be laid to rest next to his wife at South Florida National Cemetery in Lake Worth.
lbarszewski@SunSentinel .com, 954-356-4556 or Twitter @lbarszewski