oracle
05-28-2001, 04:23 PM
Pearl Harbor sailor given rightful place in history (http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2001/May/28/ln/ln02a.html)
By Mike Gordon
Advertiser Staff Writer
Even now, after thinking about it for 10 years, Elmo Rash can't explain how he knew there was someone missing from the list of dead shipmates.
He had read the names of the men assigned to the USS Shaw, all of them casualties of the Japanese attack Dec. 7, 1941, on Pearl Harbor. They form two neat columns of 12 on a plaque behind the USS Arizona Memorial Visitors Center.
Ernest Porter Jr. was not among them.
Rash said he never knew Porter, even though both served on the Shaw and fought the attackers. Yet something moved him to unearth Porter's contribution. And Rash, an 83-year-old retired Navy senior chief, quietly rewrote history.
This morning, during a special Memorial Day ceremony at the visitors center, the National Park Service will add Porter's name to the list of casualties. A civilian, Virgil P. Raphel, also will be added.
Rash, of Lakewood, Calif., will be there. So will Porter's nephew James Porter, who traveled from his home in Wake Forest, N.C., after learning about Rash's effort to bring Ernest Porter's story to light.
"Everybody deserves recognition," said James Porter, a 57-year-old owner of an auto body repair shop. "Words really can't explain it."
Rash doesn't see anything special in what he did, even though it took nine years of letter-writing to convince the Navy that he was right about Ernest Porter.
"I kind of took it on myself to follow through and get (Porter's) name on the plaque, seeing how he got lost in the shuffle," Rash said. "Otherwise, he would have gone to the wayside, and nobody would have known anything about him."
The Shaw was in drydock when the attack began. Rash had only been with the crew for seven months, and he didn't know everyone on board.
....
Click here to read more (http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2001/May/28/ln/ln02a.html)
By Mike Gordon
Advertiser Staff Writer
Even now, after thinking about it for 10 years, Elmo Rash can't explain how he knew there was someone missing from the list of dead shipmates.
He had read the names of the men assigned to the USS Shaw, all of them casualties of the Japanese attack Dec. 7, 1941, on Pearl Harbor. They form two neat columns of 12 on a plaque behind the USS Arizona Memorial Visitors Center.
Ernest Porter Jr. was not among them.
Rash said he never knew Porter, even though both served on the Shaw and fought the attackers. Yet something moved him to unearth Porter's contribution. And Rash, an 83-year-old retired Navy senior chief, quietly rewrote history.
This morning, during a special Memorial Day ceremony at the visitors center, the National Park Service will add Porter's name to the list of casualties. A civilian, Virgil P. Raphel, also will be added.
Rash, of Lakewood, Calif., will be there. So will Porter's nephew James Porter, who traveled from his home in Wake Forest, N.C., after learning about Rash's effort to bring Ernest Porter's story to light.
"Everybody deserves recognition," said James Porter, a 57-year-old owner of an auto body repair shop. "Words really can't explain it."
Rash doesn't see anything special in what he did, even though it took nine years of letter-writing to convince the Navy that he was right about Ernest Porter.
"I kind of took it on myself to follow through and get (Porter's) name on the plaque, seeing how he got lost in the shuffle," Rash said. "Otherwise, he would have gone to the wayside, and nobody would have known anything about him."
The Shaw was in drydock when the attack began. Rash had only been with the crew for seven months, and he didn't know everyone on board.
....
Click here to read more (http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2001/May/28/ln/ln02a.html)