This morning Jim and I headed out to West Warwick to take part in their Memorial Day Celebration. As always I was amazed by how eloquent and what a great speaker my husband is. I also loved the Patriotic Biker group who stood around the Ceremony area holding large American flags. Lastly -- another thing that really brought home to me the reality that this is not just history we are remembering, but also the present was when the Mother's of two soldiers who died in the Middle East just in the last ten years -- laid a wreath on the Memorial to those who have died in the Global War on Terrorism. I've included some more photos below the text of Jim's remarks. Thank you -- and thank you to our Veterans.
"Two
thousand years ago the Greek historian Plutarch believed that men of action could
learn how to conduct themselves virtuously by studying the lives of famous Greeks
and Romans.
By
comparing and contrasting among great figures from antiquity—including Pericles,
the first citizen of classical Athens; the Macedonian conqueror Alexander the
Great; Julius Caesar, a figure so consequential that his very name came to mean
emperor—we can learn what is worth
thinking and doing. Just as important, we can learn what’s worth shunning
because it’s low, or base, or unbecoming.
Now, I
am no Plutarch. No one will read my works in two thousand years. But I want to
step onto that eminent Greek’s turf this Memorial Day, and tell you a story
about one of my personal heroes: a U.S. Navy Medal of Honor recipient by the
name of Ernest E. Evans. I believe Plutarch would find Evans a fit subject for
one of his biographies.
And
he’s not just my hero. So revered a figure is Commander Evans that a building
at the Naval War College is named for him. Evans Hall stands directly across
from the Surface Warfare Officers School, where each generation of American
naval officers—including myself in the late 1980s—is groomed for seamanship and
combat.
They
who go down to the sea in ships—gray-hulled U.S. Navy ships—live in Evans’s
shadow while they’re with us in Newport.
Who
was Evans? No one has written a biography of him. He lived a short life, like
many of those we commemorate on this day. Maybe we just don’t know enough about
him to fill a book. But I’ll relate what we do know. It’s a parable of valor
and derring-do that no one would believe if it came out of Hollywood.
Commander
Evans looked like a stockier Clark Gable, for those of you of an age to remember
the actor of Run Silent, Run Deep and
Gone with the Wind fame. And he was
“a fighting Cherokee Indian…short, barrel-chested, loud of voice, a born
leader,” according to Samuel Eliot Morison, the chronicler of U.S. naval
operations in World War II. That meant his nickname at the U.S. Naval Academy
at Annapolis was, inevitably, “the Chief.”
Nor
was this nickname misplaced. As Morison notes, the Chief was the sort of leader
all mariners—indeed, all warriors—aspire to be. Evans was the sort of person
who strides into a room and takes it over through force of character. You’ve
known the type. My first and best boss in the navy, a Filipino named Ernesto
Zambrano, stood just over five feet tall. Yet a roomful of people of all ranks would
go quiet when Mister Zee walked in.
Evans
wasn’t a tyrant, but his officers and men feared him. Or, more precisely, he
commanded such respect that they feared letting down the Old Man, as navy crews
have called their skippers since time immemorial. Disappointing him was the
worst failure they could imagine.
Evans
had a chip on his shoulder. He was ashamed of being forced to flee from the
Battle of the Java Sea aboard the destroyer Alden
in early 1942, when the Imperial Japanese Navy was rampaging through the South
China Sea.
When
Evans assumed command of the destroyer USS Johnston
in 1943, he channeled John Paul Jones, who once made the Narragansett
Bay his operating grounds. He told well-wishers at the ship’s commissioning
ceremony: “This is going to be a fighting ship. I intend to go in harm’s way....Now
that I have a fighting ship, I will never retreat from an enemy force.”
And he
made good on his vow never again to flee. He quickly earned a reputation for venturing
into close quarters with the enemy to support ground troops ashore. Off Guam,
for instance, Johnston’s gunners
fired until the barrels glowed red—and then Evans demanded, and got, more
ammunition beyond the ship’s allotment.
In
October 1944 Johnston was part of
Task Force 3, or “Taffy 3,” cruising the Philippine Sea, northeast of Leyte
Gulf and due east of the island of Samar, in the Philippine Islands. Taffy 3
was Admiral Clifton Sprague’s flotilla of 6 light, “jeep” aircraft carriers, 3 destroyers,
and 4 destroyer escorts. Its mission: to cover General Douglas MacArthur’s
landing force on Samar.
Taffy
3 was not a battle fleet. And yet on the morning of October 25 it had to fight for its
life against
one of the most formidable armadas ever to sail Pacific Ocean waters—a force
built around the battleship Yamato,
the biggest, most heavily gunned battleship ever built.
Think
about that. Johnston was a 2,700-ton
destroyer, or “tin can,” festooned with five 5-inch guns and some torpedoes. That’s
lightweight armament. Arrayed against Johnston
and her consorts was an enemy force that was both superior in numbers—boasting
23 vessels, all equal to or exceeding the American tin cans in firepower and
displacement—and headed by a 70,000-ton dreadnought.
Each
of Yamato’s 18-inch gun turrets weighed
as much as a destroyer. Her nine main guns, each 69 feet long, could fling
projectiles weighing as much as a Volkswagen over 25 miles. David had it lucky
by contrast when he squared off against Goliath.
Admiral
Takeo Kurita’s “Center Force” was part of a larger Japanese fleet converging on
Leyte Gulf. Kurita’s mission was to sink or drive off the American fleet. That
would strand U.S. Marine and Army forces ashore—bereft of air cover, naval gunfire
support, and shipborne supplies, and under the big guns of Japanese battleships
and cruisers.
If
successful the Japanese assault would have slowed down, complicated, or perhaps
even halted the American reconquest of the Philippines—and stymied MacArthur’s
drive across the South Pacific.
So
what do you do when confronted by an enemy force that outnumbers and outclasses
you by every measure? If you’re Ernest Evans, you attack!
When
Kurita’s fleet was sighted coming over the horizon that October morning, Commander
Evans instantly ordered Johnston’s
helm hard over. The destroyer turned, rung up flank speed, and charged the
enemy before even receiving the signal from Sprague to do so. This was the
first of two mad dashes she would make that day before meeting her fate.
Johnston zigzagged her way into
firing range for her torpedoes, “or fish,” dodging enemy gunfire on her way. Gunnery
officer Lieutenant Bob Hagen swore he could see Captain Evans’s heart
“grinning” as Johnston joined battle.
She dueled the heavy cruiser Kumano with
guns before disgorging her ten fish. Her torpedoes ran “hot, straight, and
normal,” scoring a hit on Kumano
before she turned to rejoin Taffy 3.
At
that point the tin can’s luck ran out. She took three hits from 14-inch battleship
guns, losing one of her two engineering plants and half her speed. She lost
fire control and steering. Evans lost his shirt and two fingers in one of the
blasts, yet oversaw repairs that restored partial control of the guns, and
rudder control from the fantail. The ship looked like a wreck.
Then
the destroyer escorts started their torpedo run. When Johnston passed them, Evans ordered the rudder hard about so she
could provide them with gunfire support. Thus began the second charge of the
tin-can sailors.
Johnston engaged the battleship Kongo, and took on a five-ship destroyer
squadron all by herself—badgering the Japanese ships into muffing a torpedo
attack on Ziggy Sprague’s flattops. Ultimately, though, an avalanche of shells
crashed into the ship—depriving her of propulsion and compelling the crew to
abandon ship.
Commander
Evans made it into the water alive but was never recovered. How he met his
maker remains unknown. What we do know is this: Johnston and her sisters threw the Japanese fleet into disarray,
preventing it from striking effectively at the carriers. Their audacity left Kurita
dazed and confused. He lost all taste for battle—calling off the Center Force’s
advance short of its goal. The ground campaign in the Philippines went on.
Taffy
3 wrote a remarkable chapter in the annals of naval warfare. Evans and his
shipmates charged a crushingly superior force and won.
So
what would a Plutarch take away from the story of Ernest Evans, the Chief? That
Evans was decisive. He had swagger. He inspired his men to be their best selves,
and empowered them to do their duty. And, most importantly for our purposes
today, he was prepared to give the last full measure of devotion for the cause
of liberty. That gives anyone who wears the uniform of the United States an
example to strive toward.
Can we
live up to the standard set by Ernest Evans? I believe so. People of valor live
today. Some of them wear military uniforms. I have the pleasure to work with
them every day.
But
gallantry is not exclusively a military thing. Just read the daily news. How
often do we hear about Americans—regular people like us—running into burning
buildings, or performing other feats demanding what looks like superhuman
courage?
We
need not look far away, or into the age of Plutarch or Evans, to find such
examples. Thirty-five firefighters have given their lives in
the line of duty just this year. Last year a nine-alarm fire engulfed a
four-story building on Beacon Street, in Boston’s Back Bay. Fire Lieutenant
Edward J. Walsh Jr. and Firefighter Michael R. Kennedy went into danger—rescuing
the people trapped in the building before succumbing to flames, heat, and
smoke.
They
did their duty—and then some. Like Evans, Walsh and Kennedy gave the last full
measure of devotion for the common good. I believe the fallen from Leyte Gulf
would welcome them into a fellowship of honor, alongside military heroes of
old.
Let me
close by quoting an General George S. Patton. Shortly after World War II, at a
gathering not unlike this one, Patton pronounced it “foolish and wrong to mourn
the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.” Yes. I would
only add that such people walk among us today—still.
Thank
you."
