There’s a reason why Maurice Vincent of Darrington will never visit the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor.
“I won’t go back,” Vincent said. “My shipmates are still laying there.”
Vincent served on the USS Arizona for two years before the battleship lost 1,177 crew members on Dec. 7, 1941.
Thank goodness he wasn’t aboard during the attack on Pearl Harbor.
At dawn that December day, more than half of the United States Pacific Fleet, approximately 150 vessels and service craft, lay at anchor or alongside piers in Pearl Harbor, according to the USS Arizona Memorial Web site. All but one of the Pacific fleet’s battleships were in port that morning.
By 10 a.m., 21 vessels lay sunk or damaged after a Japanese attack.
Almost half of the total casualties occurred when the USS Arizona was pulverized. In the first hours of the Pacific war, about 2,400 Marines, sailors, soldiers and civilians were killed or later died of wounds.
Our Darrington hero left the Arizona just hours before the devastation. He was a bugler on the Arizona, and he was heading to San Diego, Calif., for bugle master school to make more money for his family. He sent the bulk of his pay back home to Louisiana.
“I had my mother in mind,” Vincent said. “We were very poor people, and if I could make second class petty officer, that would give me an additional 35 or 40 more (dollars) a month.”
Approved for school, he was ordered to take the next ship out of Pearl Harbor. About two hours out of port, he saw Japanese warplanes overhead. He arrived in California and learned of the horrific attack and discovered he had been reported missing aboard the Arizona.
He called his mother to tell her he was alive, Vincent said.
“A shipmate of mine, Marvin Rice from North Carolina, was (also mistakenly) reported killed. When his dad received the telegram, he died of a heart attack.” Rice found out his father was dead when he arrived in California.
After Vincent attended bugle master school, his orders were to meet up with a ship in Bremerton to return to Hawaii. In Seattle, he said, he met an angel, Marcy Tupper from Lake Stevens, and married her 10 days later.
“She was the finest wife any man could ever have,” he said. “I still don’t know why I was so lucky.”
Vincent, 88, wrote his life story, called “From the Buggy to the Moon,” and has 180 copies left to sell. It’s a good yarn from a wonderful family man who writes songs such as “Put Christ Back in Christmas.” Vincent is a cancer survivor, so this is his way of raising money for the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
The man about Darrington who plays guitar for senior centers and nursing homes will proudly mark Veterans Day tomorrow.
According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, an act approved May 13, 1938, made Nov. 11 of each year “Armistice Day.” The act was amended in 1954 following World War II to honor all American veterans.
My husband and I took our children to visit the USS Arizona Memorial as an important history lesson. It’s critical that younger generations know the sacrifices men and women make in the name of protecting our country.
My youngsters were most impressed by meeting hosts at the memorial who served on the USS Arizona during the attack on Pearl Harbor. Precious is too insignificant a word to describe the men who graciously described the attack for tourists.
And now I’ll tell my family about meeting someone who actually played a bugle on the very deck of the sunken ship.
Vincent will always honor the memory and sacrifice of his shipmates.
“I dream about it all the time,” Vincent said. “You never shake the war.”
Columnist Kristi O’Harran: 425-339-3451 or oharran@heraldnet.com.
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