Albert A. Arcand US Navy USS Nevada |
Today Albert Arcand can open up a worn scrapbook, sit back with a cup of coffee and read his 59-year-old obituary. He can look at dozens of sympathy cards written to his parents, consoling them over his death at the hands of Japanese bombers. And he can read the Navy telegram announcing that he died in action during the Dec. 7 attack on Pearl Harbor. Today it's easy to laugh about all this. But the truth is Arcand cheated death, not once, but twice during World War II. Two Purple Hearts sit atop a table in his Bainbridge Island home. The 18-year-old seaman was sleeping in that Sunday morning, planning a day of liberty. But just before 8 a.m. the fire alarm shook him awake. Annoyed at the lousy time for a drill, he began getting dressed then realized he'd better shine his shoes. Never want to get caught on deck without your shoes shined. "I was actually breaking out the polish when the bombs started dropping," he said. STANDING ALONE At about that time several sailors ran through and began opening up ammunition hoists. Arcand still didn't know what was going on. So he ran topside and as he rose through the hatch saw a ball of fire rising from the nearby USS Arizona. He ran to the navigation bridge, his fire station, but couldn't reach his battle station, with an antenna repair party, because the anti-aircraft guns were in use. Arcand could see Japanese planes coming up over the sugar cane fields, heading directly for the USS Nevada and the rest of Battleship Row. Two bombs and two torpedoes struck the ship. One of the gunners asked Arcand to help pass shells. At one point he looked up and saw more Japanese planes headed toward the Nevada, releasing bombs. One of the bombs struck near the gun closest to Arcand, sending out a wave of fire and throwing him against the bulkhead. The next thing Arcand knew he was standing alone, his legs burned raw, the skin in rolls. His face was burned, his eyebrows gone, his hat still on but a ring of hair melted into it. Everyone around him was dead. He speculates some sailors must have run in front of him, getting hit by shrapnel that likely would have killed him, as well. "When that bomb hit I let out a tremendous scream," he said. "Then for a few minutes I couldn't move because I was shaking like a leaf." Two sailors ran past him and jumped into the water, and Arcand decided to follow. But as he got to the side, about to dive off, he stopped. "I thought, 'What in the hell am I doing? I can't swim!' " he said. "It was a good thing, I didn't jump, because with these burns hitting that saltwater. ... And the water was all pools of oil, burning." So Arcand stayed aboard. 'You're getting off the ship' Meanwhile, the Nevada was slowly getting under way thanks to the below-deck heroism of Donald Ross, who forced his men to leave the dynamo room and, though blinded and passing out from exhaustion, kept the generators running. Ross was awarded the Medal of Honor and after his retirement lived in South Kitsap County until his death in 1992. Topside, Arcand tried but still couldn't get to his battle station. As Japanese pilots strafed the ship, Arcand ducked into the ship movie shack but three sailors were already there. He went down the ladder to the main deck and crawled under an empty gun tub and waited for the strafing to stop. Arcand finally made it to his battle station, where someone handed him a mattress from below to help put out some nearby flames. Someone took his arm and told him, "Get the hell out, you're in no condition to be here you're getting off the ship." Arcand boarded a launch and was taken for medical care. He was switched from hospital to hospital twice in the span of a few hours as officials tried to manage the huge number of casualties. He remained hospitalized, enduring painful treatment for his burns, until the day he was able to stand by himself. Then he was released. "I had no clothes," he said. "They gave me a pair of dungaree trousers, a dungaree shirt and a pair of new shoes, and that's all I had." Fortunately, he ran into an officer from the Nevada who bought him a pair of socks. The Barton Sinks That officer also would correct a terrible error. Unknown to Arcand, the Navy listed him as dead and sent a telegram, dated Dec. 11, to his family in Sanford, Maine. His parents received the correction telegram 14 days later on Christmas Day. But the war was just getting started for Arcand. He was assigned to USS Lamberton, an old four-stack destroyer. But his first days aboard were misery. For one thing, it was six weeks before he got his own bunk. He was given an Army cot, set up on the deck right in front of the No. 1 stack. And he ate his first Lamberton meal at sea boiled potatoes, sauerkraut and extra-greasy pork chops then became violently seasick. "I'd never been seasick on the Nevada," he said, "but on that old ship, I never got so sick in all my life. The chief of the radio shack says, 'You're no damn good to me!' " Worse, the swells rocked the boat back and forth, sending Arcand rocking into the ship's steel. The bumping caused his legs, still recovering from the burns, to start bleeding. Arcand eventually moved to another destroyer, USS Barton, which took part in the Battle of Santa Cruz and the Battle of Guadalcanal. After launching four torpedoes, the Barton came to a stop to avoid a collision with another ship. While nearly dead in the water, the destroyer was hit by two Japanese torpedoes. The Barton broke in two and sank, killing about 80 percent of the crew. Arcand was the only person to make it out of the radio shack alive. He and about 40 other men were in the water when the ship's depth charges exploded, causing the men severe pain, "like being caught in a big Russian bear hug," Arcand said. His injuries led to his second Purple Heart. This time, at least, the Navy got the notification right. His family was sent a telegram reporting he was wounded but expected to recover. After his reported "death" back in December 1941, city leaders in his Maine hometown of Sanford announced plans to name the town library after him. That library today is named for another hometown hero who actually was killed in battle. Arcand went on to serve 26 years in the Navy and became a father of eight and grandfather of 14. |
Information provided by Al Arcand. |
