Funeral planned for sailor lost at Pearl Harbor
S1C Carl S Johnson
The KoB sends in word that the Phoenix funeral service for Seaman First Class Carl S. Johnson is planned for this Friday, the 15th. We talked about S1C Johnson back in August when his remains were identified almost 79 years after his death.
Johnson was aboard USS West Virginia (BB-48) on the morning of 7 December, 1941. The 18 year old sailor was one of 106 men (nearly 10% of the crew) that died in the Japanese surprise attack. For a glimpse of the hell that West Virginia and her crew went through that day, I discussed it in a past Valor Friday post regarding the famous heroics of Doris Miller and the ship’s skipper Mervyn Bennion.
Johnson will be reunited with his family (his parents and siblings have since also passed) when he’s laid to permanent rest next to them in Phoenix. Welcome home, Seaman Johnson.
Category: Guest Link, No Longer Missing, We Remember
Welcome home.
I look at this and see a fresh faced 18 year old in the 1940s. What the actual Fuck?
Can you imagine being 18? Can you imagine it is the 1940s when America and life in general wasn’t mostly fucked except for Nazis?
What a mind blower.
Remember when *YOU* were 18?
Can you imagine standing on the deck of a ship at Pearl at that age?
I guess can you imagine going to Basic at 18 and in a short year or so being in the desert of Iraq or Afghanistan?
Yeah, nether can this old guy. (Me)
I was 20 when I went into the “Safe” Chairforce in the nice comfy Reagan years.
Again, I look at this young man and think, WTAF?
I hope his soul is now going to be smiling and at rest with his family and friends and his brother seamen. (Yeah, no time for wordplay jokes here)
I think of the boys who escaped the teeth of the depression into a life of adventure and hope, only to die in the most unlikely of places… a tropical paradise.
And that thought alone haunts me. When I see photos of young men at the Coney Island beaches in the late 40’s or enjoying a day in the yard of their homes with wives and children in early 50’s it reminds me of where boys like this deserved the chance to be.
Yeah, times 1,000, and they ended up being our parents and grandparents and the like.
Now, even 9/11 doesn’t make much of a dent compared and Iraq and Afghanistan.
It’s not like I’d like to have most of the world’s population at war.
Just hard to fathom.
It really is beyond comprehension. Even for the people that were a part of it, I doubt they can fathom the true extent.
You might have seen this video before, but it’s breathtaking.
Just…WOW! Kinda puts it all in perspective…well…sorta. We can only imagine. What really boggles the mind is the civilian side for deaths…and those figures are low estimates. One of the very few things that Papa ever said about WWII was, “Son, War is dangerous for children and other living things.”
I keep my eyes and inherwebz peeled, looking for follow ups to Hondo’s Another Returned Stories for the local Internment Services. I like to think, and believe, that when Seaman Johnson’s Family crossed over The River, he was a’waiting there for them and they had a Grand Reunion. I am glad that his bones will rest with his family and a proper Marker placed. Rest easy at Home Good Sir, we Salute your Service and Pay Honors to your Sacrifice. “Lest We Forget!”
I remember being a wide eyed 18 yo kid, in Basic and then doing the Gun Bunny Hop…10 ft tall and bullet proof. I guess God kept me around for another 50 years cause He knew He was going to need a burr under AW1Ed’s saddle. Only reason I can think of. GABN/RTR/HBTD!
It’s pretty sobering until you get to the losses on the Eastern Front and in particular Russian. Then it’s, “Holy shit!”
I also think of the parents…
In my church we had easily a dozen boys go off to fight in the war. One in particular, who was an only child, was a pilot in the USAAF and went missing in Europe… never found. Thinking of his parents watching the other boys return home, get married and raise families breaks my heart. Their lives move forward and yours remains trapped in that moment when you realize your son is dead.
THAT haunts me as well, long after the parents and relatives of the deceased themselves have passed.
I was 17 when I enlisted and went from a shit bird screw up to an AJ Fuckin Squared Away Snipe (Sailor).
May the family of this warrior now at last find some peace. They have earned it.
Did Recruit Training at 17 1/2 in Jan 1978. First duty station was Guantanamo Bay.
I turned 19 in boot camp and was about halfway through a tour as an 0311 by my 20th. Not hardly the same as Pearl Harbor but it left its marks on me. Semper Fi.