Plankowner
Posts: 9165
Location: Upper lefthand corner of the map. | Subject: Thread started on Rontini's Board
http://messdeck.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=15208
Topic: Justice for Howard M. Walker
Posted: Today at 10:40
Ric613 and I have been talking about this. We think that the Navy needs to get with the program and recognize this sailor as it did all others. That he was treated shabbily is beyond question. My thought is to start with the Senators from Kentucky and see what can be done. Any help from the rest of the crew here would be appreciated.
Howard Madison Walker, DOB 6 Mar 25, service number 08557701. I have seen him reported as both SM-3, and SM-1. I have not done enough research to know if he has any living relatives
Howard Walker rode Tang from commissioning. He doted on Dick
O'Kane, having himself always called a half hour or so before his captain so he could always have coffee ready for him or whatever else O'Kane might need. He was well liked among the crew, and was the usual winner at any kind of gambling. Walker was one of the limited number of men that made it to the forward torpedo room as Tang went down by the stern after her own MK 18 torpedo struck the after room near the maneuvering room bulkhead. Everyone in the last three compartments was either killed by the blast or drowned as the compartments instantly flooded. Shortly after Tang settled on the bottom (she was deliberately flooded down forward to get her bow under so as to not be a conspicuous target) another group of twenty or so was trying to make the FTR from the after battery by passing through the mostly flooded control room and forward battery. HP air had been bled into the forward battery so when they forced the door open it blew inward and struck Walker full in the face, splitting it open, breaking his nose and blackening both eyes. Walker was one of the last men to try an escape. He made it to the surface, but his smashed face didn't allow proper use of the Momsen lung. He was in agony, probably from an embolism, and shortly sank and drifted away.
After the war every officer living or dead received the Silver Star or Navy Cross. O'Kane got the Medal of Honor. Every enlisted man known to have reached the surface was awarded the Silver Star. Except for the "negro steward" who got no recognition of any kind.
Racism was alive and well in the wartime Navy.
As far as I have been able to find out this gross injustice has never been corrected.
Edited by R.T. Moore - Today at 10:42
TM-1(SS) AS-18, SS-481, SS-483 Veritas Simplex Oratio Est. |
Thread started on Rontini's Board
