"A Date Which Will Live In Infamy"

Sixty-eight years have passed since the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the United States entrance into WWII. My Dad did not serve in that war. I think the only time I asked why I was told he was deferred because of being in a necessary occupation (farming). I'm sure he could have enlisted. I'm glad he didn't.

A few years ago my older brother and I were looking at some old photos and talking about some of Dad's cousins who were in WWII. The pictures were of young men in Army uniforms. Ron said, "Who was the one in the Navy? The one Grandma Lynam always kept an 8x10 picture of on her dresser"? It took us awhile to figure out it was Harley Dean Figgins - the youngest son of Grandma's sister, Agnes.

Aunt Agnes (they called her Babe because she was the baby of the family), died young in 1935. We never knew her. We didn't remember Harley, though we both knew his brother, Ronald. It wasn't hard to figure out he must not have come home from the war, but we did not know any details.

A while after that, Bud and I watched a documentary on the Discovery Channel about the USS Indianapolis and the tragedy surrounding its sinking by a Japanese submarine July 30, 1945. The ship sank in less than 15 minutes, taking approximately 300 of the 1,196 lives aboard down with it. The remaining nearly 900 men faced exposure, dehydration and shark attacks as they waited for assistance floating in the water.

The real tragedy occurred when a series of errors left the knowledge of the sinking unreported. All but about 300 of the sailers died during the four days afterwards. It was only when pilots on a routine patrol flight August 2nd spotted the survivors floating in the water that help was dispatched.

I was putting flowers on my grandparents' graves at the Quincy cemetery Memorial Day weekend after I had watched the documentary. I remembered the conversation my brother and I had about Harley and decided to walk over to where his parents were buried to see if he was buried there, too. That was when I learned that no, he isn't buried there. But there is a stone and a bronze plaque with his name and birth and death years. And the fact that he served aboard the USS Indianapolis.

I doubt I will ever know if he was one of the lucky ones who went down with the ship or one of the ones eaten by sharks as he awaited saving by help that did not come in time. It is another thing I think about during those wee hours of the morning when I can't go back to sleep.