Payton Vanderpool |
USS Pennsylvania |
The following has been submitted by Lawrence McNabb, friend and shipmate of Payton Vanderpool. The night before the attack, I was up most of the night, so I didn't get much sleep. I enjoyed hearing the different bands plan, and then I had to stand the "cold iron watch" in the Pump Room from midnight to 4am. When I returned to my bunk room, a very good friend of mine, Payton Vanderpool, was getting ready to go on his watch, the 4 am to 8 am watch. Payton was from Lawson, MO, and I was from a farm in Kansas and somehow that made us feel a little closer. Vanderpool's duty was to go over on the dock and feed wood into a Donkey boiler which would make hot water for the cooks and those taking showers. Because we were in the dry dock, the ship had to cut off all their energy supplies. Vanderpool had just started feeding fuel into the boiler when he was bombed by a close flying Japanese plane. He died, I was told, on the way to the hospital. Another sad thing was that this happened off the ship and no one knew him, so he was buried as an "unknown", and he is, to this day, among the "unknown". I have had correspondence with his family since and I try to get them what information I can. I understand there is now a bill in Congress for identification to be made in some cases, which is now possible, and to add their names and ship to the unknown markers. |
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Gainesville Sun Newspaper Article Honolulu Star Bulletin Newspaper Article Shawnee West Dispatch Newspaper Article Honolulu Advertiser Newspaper Article Honolulu Star Bulletin Newspaper Article CNN Article History News Network Article Basehor Sentinel Article - At Last, Pearl Harbor victim coming home (Click on star to retrieve article) |
P.L. Vanderpool, Jr. was mortally wounded at his post of duty at Pearl Harbor on Sunday, December 7, 1941, and died on the way to the government hospital. This picture was taken in front of a grass hut not long prior to the sneak raid by the Japs. Vanderpool was a second class fireman in the United States Navy and was scheduled to be promoted to the first class rating on January 1, 1942. The captain of the ship wrote the following fine statement to Vanderpool's parents. "P.L. Vanderpool, Jr., carried out his duties unflinchingly, and was a credit to the Navy and the Nation. He was a fine shipmate, and his loss is felt by all who knew him. Please accept the deepest sympathy of myself and the other officers and crew of the vessel." Mr. and Mrs. Vanderpool had received conflicting information about their son, first that he was dead, and then that he was wounded but alive, followed by the official notification from the Navy, telling of his being wounded at his post of duty, followed by his death en route to the hospital. P.L. Vanderpool was buried in a government cemetery near Honolulu (Punchbowl National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific). |
