TWO STREETS AT THE CARL VINSON VA MEDICAL CENTER NAMED FOR PEARL
HARBOR HEROES



On the hospital grounds of the Carl Vinson VA Medical Center Dublin, Ga., you will find two abiding memorials to those who lost their lives on that infamous Sunday in December, 75 years ago.   Nearly three years after their deaths, the Navy Department named the streets of the naval hospital under construction in Dublin after naval personnel killed during World War II.  Among those honored were two officers who were killed at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

Johnson Drive, the main drive which runs from the entrance to the west toward the west end of the VA campus, is named for  Commander Samuel E. Johnson, of Clanton,
Alabama, was killed while serving as a physician aboard the U.S.S. Arizona.

Commander Johnson, a 24-year veteran of the U.S. Navy, was serving aboard the Arizona as the Senior Medical Officer in the forward dressing room when the attack began.

         Commander Johnson and 1176 other men were killed as the ship was destroyed and sunk by enemy aircraft bombs and fire.

U.S.S. ARIZONA

(above)

Alexander Drive, which runs from the Middle Georgia State University building, by the water towner and toward the  rear entrance along Bellevue Road was named for a dentist,  ieutenant Commander, Dr. Hugh Rossman Alexander.

Lieutenant Commander Hugh R. Alexander, of Belleville, PA, was awarded the  Navy and Marine Corps Medal  for heroism in operations against the enemy Japanese forces on  December 7, 1941, while attached to and serving on board the U.S.S. Oklahoma.  Lieutenant Commander Alexander was aboard the U.S.S. Oklahoma during the attack made by the Japanese against the United States Naval Forces at Pearl Harbor. As a result of damage by the enemy the Oklahoma capsized shortly after the attack was begun, entrapping Lieutenant Commander Alexander and others in a compartment where portholes provided the only possible means of escape.

U.S.S. OKLAHOMA
(left)


Despite his knowledge of the desperate situation in which he was placed and with complete disregard for his own safety, Lieutenant Commander Alexander heroically went about the crowded compartment and deliberately selected the more slender of those entrapped whom he conducted to the portholes and aided them in making their escape through these narrow openings. Continuing his intrepid action until the end, Lieutenant Commander Alexander gallantly laid down his life in order that his shipmates might live. This action on his part rendered him individually conspicuous among his comrades and was in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.

THE LAST OF THE GREATEST GENERATION

This picture of the American flag was signed by those local veterans of World War II who attended the ceremonies commemorating the 75th anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor held at the Carl Vinson VA Medical Center, December 7, 2016. 

HEADLINE, DUBLIN, COURIER HERALD, DECEMBER 8, 1941

EYEWITNESS TO INFAMY

EYEWITNESS TO INFAMY

Pancakes were all that Marjorie Wilson could think about as she drifted in and out of her Sunday morning dreams. It was just another normal sunny day, or so Marjorie thought. When she could practically smell pancakes, Marjorie rubbed the sleep out of her eyes, got out of bed, put on her robe and headed downstairs to the kitchen.

Marjorie perhaps was thinking of the grand times  she and her husband Bob had  when they first arrived in the tropical paradise of Hawaii in the spring of 1940.  Pleasant thoughts turned into nightmares. Did it not seem real? Was it all a bad dream?

The date was December 7, 1941. The place was Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The clock in the Wilson house was about to strike eight. Marjorie Hobbs Wilson, daughter of Walter A. Hobbs and Mary Arnold Hobbs, awoke from dreaming about pancakes to witness a nightmare, the momentous bombing of Pearl Harbor, which turned the world on its head.

Marjorie's husband, Marine Gunnery Sergeant Major Bob Wilson, had been  stationed for more than a year and one half in Hawaii at Pearl Harbor. Relations between the United States and Japan had begun to deteriorate. Many expected a war, but not that soon, and not in this way.

Bob was the first to awake that morning in the Wilson household. The Wilsons heard no alarms, no air raid warnings. Bob, running up the steps of the couple's two story house, said, "Honey, you are missing a good mock war." The roar of planes near the naval base wasn't unusual. In fact, the Wilsons and other servicemen and their families had grown accustomed to planes engaging in maneuvers. Sgt. Major Wilson looked out the window again and realized that this time, it was no drill.

Marjorie, who had been working as a war nurse,  looked out the window. "The Jap planes were flying so low over our house that the wheels were almost rolling on the roofs. I knew it was the real thing when I saw a bomb make a direct hit," she recalled.

Bob Wilson, a veteran of the first World War, ran to his closet and began to put on his Marine uniform. Marjorie turned on the radio. Frantic broadcasters were constantly announcing that Japanese planes were attacking the Island of Oahu and for all men to report for duty at once. Bob got to his unit as soon as he could.

Marjorie Wilson first ran to the home of her girlfriend, Margaret De Sadler. Then Marjorie and Margaret went over to Harriett Hemmingway's house. As they ran down the streets, Mrs. Wilson recalled running along a quiet street, but seeing real bombs exploding nearby.

"Several girls had gathered there and we were there when the worst part was going on," Marjorie wrote in a letter to her parents later in the day. Mrs. Wilson recalled, "There were about seven kids there and all scared stiff. Harriett was almost out of her head. She has two little boys, one three and one five." I haven't been scared so far. I don't guess I've got enough sense to be."

More of the wives and their children gathered in the house. While the attack was on, the ladies kept their children calm by lying on the floor with them and drawing pictures. "I never knew anything about drawing before, but after that session, I think I am a pretty fair artist," Wilson chuckled. When one piece of shrapnel came inside the house, the children were herded into an interior room. Marjorie reached down and picked up the metallic souvenir.

Margaret accompanied Marjorie back to the Wilson house, where they put some clothes in a suitcase just in case they needed to evacuate to the hills. Bob Wilson returned to his house to make sure Marjorie had a radio to hear special announcements as all regular radio programming was suspended.

During the carefully premeditated surprise attack, Mrs. Wilson observed, "Some of the youngsters in the service ran out on the field shaking their fists at the Japanese planes even when they saw a bomb falling their way." She observed one Marine cook firing away with his anti-aircraft gun. The man suddenly remembered that he had a chocolate cake in the oven and ran to make sure it wasn't burning. "It was a silly thing to think of at a time like that - but those boys did enjoy the cake when the fireworks were over," she fondly recalled.

On that Sunday night, practically every light in Pearl Harbor was turned off. Marjorie and Margaret pulled down a mattress from the upstairs and tried to get some sleep on the downstairs floor. Marjorie took out a pen and wrote a letter back to her parents promising to let them know how she was doing as often as she could. " I know you are frantic with all the news you are getting over the radio today.   As soon as I can, I'll send you a wire, but I don't know now when that will be possible," she also wrote.

"We spent a pretty quiet night. Of course, Margaret and I both slept with one eye and one ear open," Marjorie recalled. The ladies had some comfort in the fact that a sentry was stationed right in front of her house.

At one o'clock in the morning, Alfred Sturgis rang the door bell and invited the ladies to come stay with him. Sturgis, who had worked all day at the Navy yard, couldn't drive his car during the blackout periods. Sturgis took Marjorie's letter and made sure it made it back to Dublin, just in time for Christmas.

After the initial shock, things at Pearl Harbor seemed to return to normal, or at least as normal as it could be under the circumstances. Marjorie remembered the blackouts every night. She recalled seeing Japanese merchants being rounded up and hauled in front of late night tribunals. She regretted that she and the other wives rarely saw their husbands. The ladies had gas, lights and water for the next day, but military officials cut off the water after reports that insurgents had poisoned the water supply.

Marjorie Hobbs returned to Atlanta three months after the attack on Pearl Harbor. She didn't want to come home and leave her husband behind. "I got my orders so here I am - and I am going to try to find some kind of war work to do as soon as I can," she told Celestine Sibley of the Atlanta Constitution.

Marjorie eventually returned to Dublin. She was a member of the John Laurens DAR, the Shamrock Garden Club and the first president of the Dublin Service League. Bob Wilson made it home safely too. After retiring as a Warrant Officer from the Marine Corps, Bob owned and operated the Western Auto Store in Dublin.  Later Bob managed  the Muse's Department Store in Atlanta.. He died on October 28, 1980. Marjorie Hobbs Wilson died on July 20, 2002 and is buried beside her husband in Westview Cemetery in Atlanta.

It was on this day, seventy-five years ago, when Marjorie Wilson woke up from a comforting  dream to witness "a day which will live in infamy," a day when the  world changed forever.