101-Year-Old Pearl Harbor Survivors on the USS Oklahoma Returns for the 80th

This is continued from my Saw the Elephant, Running the Blockade and Cooter's History Thing blogs.  I am writing about Pearl Harbor today in most of my blogs as it is the 80th anniversary of the attack.

In 2015, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) exhumed 388 sets of remains from the "Unknown Oklahoma" graves in the National Cemetery of the Pacific.  Using DNA and dental records, they were able to identify 361 of them.

David Russell's brother-in-law was among them.  Fireman 1st Class Walter "Boone"  Rogers was in the Oklahoma's fireroom when the torpedoes hit.  That would be deep in the ship's bowels. His remains were identified in 2017.  He has since been buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

David Russell  remained in the Navy until retiring in 1960.  He worked at Air Force bases for the next two decades before retiring for good in 1980.

His wife Violet passed away 22 years ago and David now lives alone in Albany, Oregon. He drives himself to the local grocery store and the local American Legion in a black Ford Explorer while listening to polka at top volume.

The Real, Shameful Story Behind 'Don't Give Up the Ship!'-- Part 1

From the Mat 19, 2013, Boston Globe" by Tom Halsted.

On June 1, 1813, a few miles north of Boston, a mortally wounded Captain James Lawrence, as his crew was locked in a vicious hand-to-hand combat,  was taken below deck and allegedly uttered those faomus words, "Don't Give Up the Ship."

These words were published a few weeks later in a Baltimore newspaper and it went on to become the unofficial motto of the U.S. Navy.  This predated the famous slogans "Remember the Maine" and "Remember Pearl Harbor."

Later that year, Oliver Hazard Perry had a flag with those words on his flagship, the USS Lawrence at the Battle of Lake Erie.

But, those words did not mark a historic or heroic moment.

Not So Don't.  --Brock-Perry