Daddy's Military Service, 1942-1945
I am in the process of verifying this story with National Archives.org.
Years 1942-43 appear to be missing and may have been destroyed in the 1973 fire.
Posted this to Hopkins Tribal History on FB, a private family group:
WWII
This story, as told to my brother and me by our cousin, Johnny Wayne Gallaher, with whom our dad confided. Johnny served in the U.S. Marines in Vietnam, so he and dad had a common connection, death of their military brothers and sisters. My brother, Clarence David Hopkins, served in the U.S. Navy during Vietnam, but dad confided in neither him nor me. We think it was too sensitive a subject for him to talk about with his own kids. We are grateful to Cousin Johnny for sharing this story after our dad's death in February 1997.
My dad, Clarence Jesse Hopkins, served in the U.S. Navy during World War II from 1942-45. Fold3 records show he was assigned to the USS CYRENE and USS VARUNA during 1944-45. There is no evidence of these two ships having been bombed or involved in battle; however, records show one of the ships collided with another US Navy ship; minor damage and no injuries. He went to GI school in Walters, Oklahoma, and received the South Pacific Campaign Bar. His outfit was 4th Specialist Sea Bees. He joined after the start of WWII in October or November 1942. Dad had told Johnny that If they [the Navy] were short of tail-gunners, you could volunteer. He served 18 months in Guadalcanal, 6 months in Okinawa, and the remainder of his time in between those two ports. [Fold3 records show his ships docked as far as the northeast Atlantic coastal port of New Jersey and as far as the Pacific western coastal port of San Francisco, California.]
While anchored at port in Guadalcanal, the crew was unloading 50 gal. drums of gasoline when they were bombed.
"Your dad's ship and a couple of others were at the dock being unloaded when they were hit. He jumped into the water to get away from the fire, and being a good swimmer, he swam to shore. He heard all the yelling and screaming of the others that were in the water. He saw a row boat and he got that and would row out to get whoever he could. Their skin was rolling off their bodies, but he would load them up and take them back to shore.
"The commander of one of the other ships was the one who ask him who had done that [rescued his shipmates], and that is when he said that he didn't know.
"[When cousin Johnny] ask him why he didn't say something [to the commander], because he would have gotten a medal for what he had done, your dad said, 'They don't give medals out when you abandon ship without being ordered to!' He was NOT going to take that chance!"
The “chance” he couldn’t take was the loss of the monthly allotment sent to his mother to support her and his siblings.
In 1946 Dad returned home on an aircraft carrier and was discharged in San Francisco, California.
Also, Johnny said that Dad saw an ammo dump bombed and that it blew for almost a week.
Additional information about WWII (copied from Wikipedia):
November 1942—United States Marines rest in the field during the Guadalcanal campaign.
Date : 7 August 1942 –
9 February 1943 [Note that these dates are the ones missing from Fold3 records.]
(6 months and 2 days)
Location: Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands
Result: Strategic Allied victory
Beginning of Allied Offensive Operations in the Pacific
