Next Monday is Memorial Day, when we
commemorate all those who gave their lives in defense of our country. One
person who should’ve been listed as a war casualty, but somehow avoided certain
death, was my Uncle Al, known in 1941 as Seaman First Class Albert A. Arcand.
Like most members of the “Greatest Generation,”
Uncle Al never talked about his war experiences. He didn’t think it was that
big of a deal.
Uncle Al died a few years ago at the age
of 87. Only in the final years of his life did he start to talk about the war,
somewhat surprised that reporters wanted to interview a genuine Pearl Harbor
survivor.
As the age of 18, Uncle Al was a crewman
on the battleship U.S.S. Nevada. On Sunday morning, December 7th, 1941, he was
asleep in his bunk when the fire alarm shook him awake. At first, he was annoyed
that a drill was being conducted so early, but then bombs started dropping. He
ran topside and emerged from a hatch just in time to see the nearby U.S.S.
Arizona explode in a massive fireball.
For a while he assisted anti-aircraft
gunners by passing shells. Suddenly, a bomb exploded near him, sending out a
wave of fire and tossing Uncle Al against a bulkhead. His legs were burned raw,
with the skin pealing down in rolls. His face was burned and his eyebrows were
gone. Everyone around him was dead. He speculates some sailors ran in front of him at the moment the
bomb went off, and were hit by the shrapnel heading directly for him.
Two sailors ran past and leaped overboard,
so Uncle Al decided to follow. But as he was about to jump, he stopped. Over
six decades later he explained: “I thought, ‘What in the hell am I doing? I
can't swim!’” Apparently, in the early 1940s, you could join the Navy without
being able to swim.
Later on, doctors told Uncle Al that
even if he could swim, jumping into oily saltwater with his extensive burns
would’ve killed him.
So far, that’s pretty dramatic, but then
the story took a bizarre twist. Uncle Al eventually made it to a hospital to
begin painful treatment. However, in all the confusion of that horrible event,
his worried parents back in Sanford, Maine, received a grim telegram signed by
Rear Admiral Chester Nimitz. The message stated that their son had been “lost
in action” during the attack.
The town of Sanford mourned, with flags
flying at half-mast and selectmen voting to rename the town library after young
Al. Then, on December 25th, the U.S. military informed his family that Al was
actually alive. Boy, talk about a great Christmas present!
Anyway, Uncle Al recovered, went back to
sea on a different ship, which was promptly sunk by Japanese torpedoes during
the battle of Guadalcanal, killing three-quarters of the crew. He now had his
second purple heart. Uncle Al managed to go the rest of the war without getting
sunk again. When it was over, he came back to the states, married my father’s
sister, moved to Washington state, raised eight kids, lived an honorable and
decent life, and never once told any of us about his experiences, figuring it
wasn’t very interesting.
Well, Uncle Al, your story is
interesting, damn interesting. I wish we had the chance to talk about it before
you died. I wish I had the chance to hear you laugh and say, “When the town of
Sanford found out I wasn’t dead, they rescinded their order and renamed the
library after someone else. But that was OK with me!”
God bless our veterans, especially those
who paid the ultimate price to defend freedom.
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