thedrifter
12-07-08, 08:28 AM
St. Louis veteran remembers the Pearl Harbor attack, 67 years ago Sunday
By Tim O'Neil
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Sunday, Dec. 07 2008
ST. LOUIS — Marcus Butts is a cheerful man who begins his day in Carondelet
Park. He walks his dog, tosses bread to the waterfowl and happily greets
everyone he sees.
At 83, he moves slowly and with short steps. He uses a cane. He and Krissy, his
dog, never venture far from his green 1998 Lincoln Continental. The ducks and
geese, who appear to know the car by sight, cackle loudly and splash toward him
in a frenzy before he opens their daily loaf.
"They're hungry and appreciate the bread," Butts said. "And I enjoy the fuss."
Of his disposition, he says simply, "I am satisfied with how my life turned
out."
The only evidence that the gentle Butts once was an American warrior is his
favorite faded Navy-blue windbreaker. It bears the name of the Sigsbee, a
destroyer on which he served on the Pacific Ocean in World War II. His station
was deep in the boiler room.
"I loved that ship," he said.
Sixty-seven years ago this afternoon, Butts was among the boys and young men
jolted into fury by news bulletins of Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.
Japanese pilots killed 2,390 Americans, sank or damaged 21 ships and wrecked
the American airfields. The most enduring image is of the shattered battleship
Arizona, on which 1,177 sailors and Marines died when a bomb exploded its
forward magazine.
Butts, like so many other Americans, heard the first sketchy reports over the
family Philco radio. Still only 16, he went downtown two days later to enlist
in the Navy. A sharp-eyed recruiter told him to come back on his birthday.
"Everybody was swept up," he said. "The recruiting station was mobbed with
guys, all smoking cigarettes and talking how they would do this or that. I
thought I was as big and tough as everyone else down there. Why not take me?"
He got his chance in June 1942 when, with his parents' permission, he
entered the Navy barely a month after he turned 17. (Then as now, applicants
needed parental permission to enlist before turning 18.) His enlistment record
shows a popular reason for signing up: "Patriotism."
When he reached the Navy's Great Lakes training station near Chicago, he joined
3.8 million young Americans already in uniform. By war's end, 16.1 million had
served, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs. More than 405,000 were
killed in action or died from other causes.
Today, about 2.5 million World War II veterans are still living. Of those 84 or
older — old enough to have enlisted as of Dec. 7, 1941 — the number dwindles to
1.5 million.
That sobering roll call explains the simple plan of the local Pearl Harbor
Survivors Association for its commemoration Sunday, one of only a few events in
the area. Two of the few remaining members of the association are to meet for a
flag raising at 11:55 a.m. — the beginning of the attack in Hawaii in Central
time — in the city of Pacific, at the Tri-County Senior Center, 800 West Union
Street. The flag to be raised has flown over the battleship Arizona memorial
in Pearl Harbor.
Bill Hogue, 84, of Catawissa, said it would be a simple ceremony. "No speeches,
no bands," Hogue said. "We've tried to keep it going, but eventually you have
to give it up a bit. We're not getting any younger."
PAST CEREMONIES
Time was when the annual observance was a big deal. On Dec. 7, 1966, the 25th
anniversary, a ceremony on the St. Louis riverfront included a volley by a
Coast Guard honor guard on a riverboat. In 1991, the 50th, about 75 people took
part in dropping a wreath into the river.
The association did that every year until 1993, when the flood of that year
ripped the Inaugural minesweeper from its tourist mooring on the downtown levee
and sank it. The annual event then moved to Jefferson Barracks National
Cemetery. No observance is planned there Sunday.
Many of the survivors association here had been Navy reservists who had been
called up earlier in 1941 and were serving in Pearl Harbor on World War
I-vintage "four-piper" destroyers, so named because they had four tall
smokestacks.
Butts' Sigsbee was a Fletcher-class destroyer, the Cadillac of the World War II
destroyer fleet. It had two stacks, five main gun turrets and could hit 40 mph.
Before he joined the brand-new Sigsbee at a New Jersey shipyard in January
1943, he served in the Atlantic on the Jouett, an older destroyer.
He was on the Sigsbee for a bombardment of Wake Island in October 1943 and the
bloody invasion of Tarawa one month later.
He finished the war on the Sebec, an oiler that carried fuel for other ships.
Inside that vulnerable target Butts took part in invasions of the Philippines
in September 1944 and Okinawa the following spring.
He returned home, finished his education at Roosevelt High School and joined
the St. Louis Fire Department in 1949. He was promoted to battalion chief in
1978 and retired in 1984. Butts is divorced and has no children.
Butts said he attended a few ship reunions but didn't enjoy talking about young
men killed in battle or the peacetime deaths of older veterans. He keeps his
service medals mounted on a framed photograph of the Sigsbee in his living
room, nine blocks west of Carondelet Park. Nowadays, he enjoys the racket of
ducks feasting on bread.
"The lake is a long, long way from Okinawa," he said. "Truth is, I don't think
a lot about it anymore."
toneil@post-dispatch.com | 314-340-8132
Ellie
By Tim O'Neil
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Sunday, Dec. 07 2008
ST. LOUIS — Marcus Butts is a cheerful man who begins his day in Carondelet
Park. He walks his dog, tosses bread to the waterfowl and happily greets
everyone he sees.
At 83, he moves slowly and with short steps. He uses a cane. He and Krissy, his
dog, never venture far from his green 1998 Lincoln Continental. The ducks and
geese, who appear to know the car by sight, cackle loudly and splash toward him
in a frenzy before he opens their daily loaf.
"They're hungry and appreciate the bread," Butts said. "And I enjoy the fuss."
Of his disposition, he says simply, "I am satisfied with how my life turned
out."
The only evidence that the gentle Butts once was an American warrior is his
favorite faded Navy-blue windbreaker. It bears the name of the Sigsbee, a
destroyer on which he served on the Pacific Ocean in World War II. His station
was deep in the boiler room.
"I loved that ship," he said.
Sixty-seven years ago this afternoon, Butts was among the boys and young men
jolted into fury by news bulletins of Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.
Japanese pilots killed 2,390 Americans, sank or damaged 21 ships and wrecked
the American airfields. The most enduring image is of the shattered battleship
Arizona, on which 1,177 sailors and Marines died when a bomb exploded its
forward magazine.
Butts, like so many other Americans, heard the first sketchy reports over the
family Philco radio. Still only 16, he went downtown two days later to enlist
in the Navy. A sharp-eyed recruiter told him to come back on his birthday.
"Everybody was swept up," he said. "The recruiting station was mobbed with
guys, all smoking cigarettes and talking how they would do this or that. I
thought I was as big and tough as everyone else down there. Why not take me?"
He got his chance in June 1942 when, with his parents' permission, he
entered the Navy barely a month after he turned 17. (Then as now, applicants
needed parental permission to enlist before turning 18.) His enlistment record
shows a popular reason for signing up: "Patriotism."
When he reached the Navy's Great Lakes training station near Chicago, he joined
3.8 million young Americans already in uniform. By war's end, 16.1 million had
served, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs. More than 405,000 were
killed in action or died from other causes.
Today, about 2.5 million World War II veterans are still living. Of those 84 or
older — old enough to have enlisted as of Dec. 7, 1941 — the number dwindles to
1.5 million.
That sobering roll call explains the simple plan of the local Pearl Harbor
Survivors Association for its commemoration Sunday, one of only a few events in
the area. Two of the few remaining members of the association are to meet for a
flag raising at 11:55 a.m. — the beginning of the attack in Hawaii in Central
time — in the city of Pacific, at the Tri-County Senior Center, 800 West Union
Street. The flag to be raised has flown over the battleship Arizona memorial
in Pearl Harbor.
Bill Hogue, 84, of Catawissa, said it would be a simple ceremony. "No speeches,
no bands," Hogue said. "We've tried to keep it going, but eventually you have
to give it up a bit. We're not getting any younger."
PAST CEREMONIES
Time was when the annual observance was a big deal. On Dec. 7, 1966, the 25th
anniversary, a ceremony on the St. Louis riverfront included a volley by a
Coast Guard honor guard on a riverboat. In 1991, the 50th, about 75 people took
part in dropping a wreath into the river.
The association did that every year until 1993, when the flood of that year
ripped the Inaugural minesweeper from its tourist mooring on the downtown levee
and sank it. The annual event then moved to Jefferson Barracks National
Cemetery. No observance is planned there Sunday.
Many of the survivors association here had been Navy reservists who had been
called up earlier in 1941 and were serving in Pearl Harbor on World War
I-vintage "four-piper" destroyers, so named because they had four tall
smokestacks.
Butts' Sigsbee was a Fletcher-class destroyer, the Cadillac of the World War II
destroyer fleet. It had two stacks, five main gun turrets and could hit 40 mph.
Before he joined the brand-new Sigsbee at a New Jersey shipyard in January
1943, he served in the Atlantic on the Jouett, an older destroyer.
He was on the Sigsbee for a bombardment of Wake Island in October 1943 and the
bloody invasion of Tarawa one month later.
He finished the war on the Sebec, an oiler that carried fuel for other ships.
Inside that vulnerable target Butts took part in invasions of the Philippines
in September 1944 and Okinawa the following spring.
He returned home, finished his education at Roosevelt High School and joined
the St. Louis Fire Department in 1949. He was promoted to battalion chief in
1978 and retired in 1984. Butts is divorced and has no children.
Butts said he attended a few ship reunions but didn't enjoy talking about young
men killed in battle or the peacetime deaths of older veterans. He keeps his
service medals mounted on a framed photograph of the Sigsbee in his living
room, nine blocks west of Carondelet Park. Nowadays, he enjoys the racket of
ducks feasting on bread.
"The lake is a long, long way from Okinawa," he said. "Truth is, I don't think
a lot about it anymore."
toneil@post-dispatch.com | 314-340-8132
Ellie