Sunday December 7, 1941

[bhambulldog]

Sunday December 7, 1941

[dship]

As I mentioned in another thread today:

My dad was a Pearl Harbor survivor. Was serving on the battleship USS Oklahoma. Happen to be up on deck when the torpedoes hit and capsized it within 10 minutes. He was thrown overboard and eventually pick up by a shore patrol boat. He served 3 tours in the Pacific and 2 two tours in the Atlantic during WWII. He also served 2 tours in Korea. He retired with 30 years Navy as Sr. Chief Gunners Mate...1936 to 1966. I lost him in 1981 ...he was only 63.

[bhambulldog]

http://www.al.com/news/birmingham/index.ssf/2014/12/post_158.html

Birmingham News Dec 7 2014

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -- Julius Ellsberry was the first resident of Birmingham or Jefferson County -- and the first African-American serviceman from Alabama -- to die in World War II. He is listed by some sources as the very first serviceman from Alabama to die.

Ellsberry, a Mess Attendant First Class on the USS Oklahoma, was one of 413 crewmen who lost their lives on the doomed battleship on the morning of Sun., Dec. 7, 1941, when Japanese planes launched a devastating sneak attack on the U.S. Naval Base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

This shattering event -- in which more than 2,000 U.S. military personnel were killed -- pushed America into World War II.

And Ellsberry's sister, Birmingham resident Louise Ellsberry Whited, believes that Americans should do a better job of remembering their own history, including events like the infamous Japanese attack.

"Pearl Harbor is a part of history, and I think we are getting away from the important things," Whited, 78, said on Wednesday. "We are focusing on things that don't matter. I watch the news all day. That mess with Bill Cosby. And the football stuff -- the boys beating their wives. That's not news. What is important is history."

Whited opened a thick scrapbook filled with photos and clippings for some visitors to her home in Crestwood and shared some of what she has read or been told about her brother, who went off to the Navy in 1939 when his baby sister was only about two years old.

Whited, who seems to have become the keeper of the flame for her brother's legacy, talked about the sense of loss but also sense of pride felt by her family, including her mother and father.

She also recalled the pride her brother's sacrifice created in the black community in Birmingham during the war.

Eager to enlist

Ellsberry was one of seven children of John Ellsberry, who worked at Stockham Valve, and his wife, Florence, according to Whited. "He was the second oldest and the oldest son," she said. "My parents had a girl, then five boys, and I am the youngest."

Ellsberry graduated from Industrial High School, later called Parker High School, in May 1938, and joined the Navy in 1939, as soon as he turned 18.

One of Ellsberry's old high-school classmates, retired Birmingham doctor Dodson M. Curry, told The Birmingham News in December 2010 that Ellsberry wasn't financially able to go on to college, so he wanted to join the service.

"He really wanted to join the service before his 18th birthday, but my parents would have had to sign, and they wouldn't do that," Whited said. "He had to wait."

"The Spirit of Ellsberry"

The U.S. armed forces were still largely segregated at the time that Ellsberry joined the Navy. In fact, he was one of only 62 African-Americans serving in the entire Pacific fleet, according to Whited, who has done research about her brother and about Pearl Harbor.

There were reports that Ellsberry behaved bravely that day on the Oklahoma, helping some of his fellow sailors to reach safety, according to Whited.

The young man's death in combat was reported widely by The Birmingham News and other local papers, and his example engendered a tremendous amount of pride in the African-American community in Birmingham.

Emory Jackson -- the publisher of The Birmingham World, an African-American newspaper -- likened Ellsberry to Crispus Attucks, a black man who was killed in the first engagement of the Revolutionary War.

The members of the Housewives League, an African-American civic group, sold war bonds and financed the building of a B-24 Liberator bomber that was christened as "The Spirit of Ellsberry."

According to one source, the group raised about $300,000, a sum equal to more than $4 million today, in the African-American community. "These were some very industrious women," Whited said.

Her brother "was remembered for years," she said.

Louise Ellsberry-White Remembers Her Brother Julius Ellsberry Who Was Killed In The Pearl Harbor Attack Dec. 7, 1941Louise Ellsberry-White remembers her brother Julius Ellsberry, who was the first service member from Jefferson County killed in World War II in the December 7 attack on Pearl Harbor.

Too young to remember her brother

The irony is that Whited was too young to form her own memories of Ellsberry. "You have to understand this was a brother I never got to know, because I was quite young when he left home," she said. "What I know comes from stories I have been told and from reading and research since then."

Whited does have a few memories of that fateful day of Dec. 7. "By the time we got the news (of the attack), it was late Sunday afternoon," she said. "I guess we were six or seven hours behind. It was cold, and we had come home from church. We had an old-fashioned radio, a Philco, and whatever program we were listening to was interrupted with the news of the bombing."

She said she does not remember how or when she learned that her big brother had been killed, but she has a clipping from The Birmingham News, dated Dec. 17, 1941, which refers to her brother as the "first Birmingham man to give his life for his country in WWII" and states that her parents had been notified of their son's death by a telegram from the Navy.

How did word of Ellsberry's death impact the family, including her mom and dad? "That I can't remember," she said. "I can imagine. Initially it was just a terrible shock."

Tremendous local pride

The members of the Ellsberry family -- who lived in the Kingston neighborhood -- could take some comfort in the way Julius's memory was celebrated among other African-Americans in the city, according to Whited.

"When I was a child... (Pearl Harbor) was still fresh, so people talked about it, and in my neighborhood, I guess if you went in any house... you would find a picture of Julius, because the picture went -- as we would say now -- viral," Whited said, laughing.

And this was true not just in Kingston, Whited believes. "Everybody in our neighborhood had his picture, and I imagine in black Birmingham," she said.

Whited and her family felt what she calls "a sense of pride" when they saw Ellsberry remembered this way. "My parents saw (his death) as a sacrifice, but... the fact that it was their son (made them proud)," she said.

Julius comes home

One sad event that Whited remembers well is her brother's funeral, held on a hillside at New Grove Hill Cemetery in southwest Birmingham in September 1948.

It took several years after the war before all the bodies of dead U.S. serviceman could be brought back stateside for burial, so this delay -- however painful -- was not unusual.

"I was about 11, too young to understand why it took so long," Whited said.

In December 1981 -- the 40th anniversary of the attack -- Whited told Birmingham News reporter Tom Gordon that she remembered the playing of taps and a 21-gun salute at the funeral.

She also recalls other aspects of the solemn ceremony, in which Ellsberry received full military honors. "From the time the body was brought to the funeral home to the time the casket was lowered in the ground, there were honor guards with him," Whited said.

What was Julius like?

Born Aug. 21, 1921, Ellsberry only 20 years old when he was killed in the attack. "There is not a lot you can say about someone that young," Whited said.

But baby sister has learned a few things about her brother. "I was told he played in the high school band, but I don't even know what instrument he played," she said. "He was active in church. He taught a children's Sunday school class and was on the Junior Usher Board, they called it then."

The Ellsberry family, who were "very religious," according to Whited, attended Harmony Street Baptist Church in Avondale.

And it seems that Ellsberry -- like a lot of the young men who never made it home from the war -- should have had a bright future ahead of him. "From what I was told, he was very smart," Whited said. "He graduated high school at the age of 16."

Ellsberry displayed that intelligence -- as well as a lovely writing style -- in a letter he sent to Curry from the Pacific, in which he asked about how he could order his class ring. Curry shared the letter with The Birmingham News for that December 2010 article about Ellsberry -- another clipping in Whited's scrapbook.

"Now that I'm away from everything that should remind me of the good old days, I would like very much to have that ring," Ellsberry wrote.

Ellsberry, who told Curry that he had been unable to afford the ring when he graduated, also offered a funny, insightful description of his post in what was known then as the Hawaiian Territory. "In this place I find little or no enjoyment," he wrote. "There is such a thing as 'Hawaiian hospitality, but it is very, very expensive. You might call it the rich man's paradise of the Pacific."

"He also had nice handwriting," said Whited, who pulled out a thick scrapbook and showed a visitor her brother's signature -- written in a fine, sure hand -- on his Oath of Allegiance, signed Oct. 13, 1939.

Time marches on

Ellsberry's memory is kept alive in Birmingham by an impressive monument that was installed downtown in 1975 with such dignitaries as African-American businessman A.G. Gaston, U.S. Rep. John Buchanan and Birmingham Mayor George Siebels in attendance.

The monument is in Kelly Ingram Park -- an appropriate place, since the park is named after a sailor from Birmingham who was the first American killed in World War I.

Ellsberry Park near Finley Boulevard in Birmingham was dedicated in Julius's honor in 1979.

However, as the years roll past, there are fewer and fewer people left alive who knew or had a personal connection to Ellsberry.

Only three siblings survive, according to Whited. Her brother Daniel, age 83, who served in the U.S. Air Force for 30 years, lives in Savannah, Ga. Her brother Edward, age 88, lives in an East Orange, N.J., nursing facility after suffering a stroke a few years ago.

Some of Whited's older cousins -- those who would have remembered, for example, Ellsberry's visit home on furlough after basic training -- are "all gone now," he said.

But some of Whited's younger relatives have expressed an interest in preserving Ellsberry's story, and she eagerly shares the images and information she has accumulated. "Every chance I get," she said, laughing.

A worn but impressive Purple Heart

One of Whited's prize possessions is the medal, a Purple Heart, which her brother was awarded posthumously. "My mother was given the Purple Heart, and she wore it till she wore it out," Whited said.

Whited is concerned about the condition of the medal that she cherishes as her mother did. "The ribbon looks sort of bad, worn," she said, as she brought out the medal in its case to show it off. "I would like to get it refurbished, but I'm afraid if I sent it somewhere, I might not get it back."

But the Purple Heart is still impressive, with the profile of George Washington on the front and Ellsberry's name engraved in beautiful script on the back. "It's almost like his handwriting," Whited said.

"Bittersweet feeling"

When she thinks of her brother now, Whited said she experiences "a bittersweet type of feeling," especially after learning about 20 years ago that Ellsberry may have missed a chance to meet a different, better fate.

While attending her brother Edward's class reunion, she met a man who told her that he had served on the Oklahoma with Julius. "He said he went on shore leave," Whited said. "That's the reason he survived."

The man told Whited that he had tried to get Julius to join him and go ashore. "He said he told (Julius), 'Just take the day off and go and have some fun,'" Whited said. "He said my brother told him, 'No, I have some chores to do,' or something."

Whited can't help but ponder the might-have-beens. "Just the thought that if he had gone he might have survived like this other guy did."

"I just wish what happened hadn't happened," Whited said.

Whited said that the people who have died for their country, and not just her brother, should be honored.

"I feel that anytime a person gives his life -- all these deaths that have occurred, say in Iraq and in Afghanistan even now, we have to think of them as sacrifices for our country, and it didn't begin with Julius," Whited said. "It began so many years before that."

[hddennis]

Bhambulldog, I couldn't help but wonder if a replacement ribbon couldn't be found so I located this and hope you can get the information to the owner.

Howard Dennis

https://www.etsy.com/listing/193302547/vintage-military-purple-heart-ribbon?ref=sc_2&plkey=c8658afdb978163592a7482ff166913a3cf3b92a%3A193302547&ga_search_query=purple+heart+ribbon&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery

[bhambulldog]

Thank You!

I will get that information to Mrs. Whited !