OPPOSITE: Tom Larson (right) and William Lynch in front of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, Honolulu, December, 1941.
After two years of college at the University of Minnesota, I was restless and wanted to see the world. A Rover Eagle Scout, I decided to make a vagabond journey around the world and traveled all over Europe with my rucksack. I ended up getting out of there, working my way back on a cargo ship in 1939, just four months before the Germany invaded Poland and started the war in Europe. I worked passage home and joined the Naval Reserve. By August 1940, I’d spent time on several ships and had taken a Naval Reserve cruise on the battleship New York. I went through the V-7 program and was commissioned an ensign in the Naval Reserve in September 1941. They sent me out to San Diego, and I did some training in naval intelligence and was assigned to the destroyer base.
Then I got a very interesting assignment. I was to be the executive officer on a beautiful 115-foot pleasure yacht the Navy had acquired, named Elvida. Its Navy designation was “YP-109.” The YP stood for “yard patrol.” The Navy wanted the yacht sailed to Hawaii, where it would patrol the Hawaiian Islands. The other officer assigned to YP-109 had been in the Navy several months longer than me, and he was the reserve ensign in command. We had a crew of fifteen men to sail this thing to Pearl Harbor, after we had made a few trial runs off the coast of California. My assignment sounded like a dream: sail a yacht to Hawaii, deliver it to Pearl Harbor, and return on a Navy ship to the destroyer base in San Diego. It didn’t quite turn out to be that simple!
We sailed from San Diego on November 25, 1941, and accompanied a tanker, the Ramapo. A couple of days later we hit a big storm that made us all miserable. Only four of us on the boat didn’t get seasick, but the other ensign, from Hollywood, was in the sack all the way to Hawaii, seasick. But we finally pulled into Pearl Harbor the afternoon of Friday, December 5. After reporting to the section base commander, I remained aboard the yacht while the other ensign went into Honolulu for shore leave.
The next morning, Saturday, December 6, I reported to the section base commander, expecting to get information on doing some patrolling of the Hawaiian Islands in the YP-109, and on which ship I would catch a ride back to San Diego. Instead I was handed orders to report for duty the next morning, December 7, to CINCPAC (Commander in Chief, Pacific), at the submarine base at Pearl Harbor, for duty as a communicator! I was supposed to be trained to use an electric coding machine. That meant no cruising the islands in the yacht and no return trip to San Diego for a while. That afternoon I went over to the staff communications office of CINCPAC to meet my new boss, and then I moved into the BOQ close to the submarine base. For a BOQ it was pretty plush—a three-story building surrounded by palm trees, and I started contemplating some hikes up into the mountains I could see from Pearl Harbor. I was standing there late that afternoon, and a perfect rainbow spanned the mountains. This was looking to be pretty good duty, and I went to bed early that night because I had to report for duty first thing next morning.
So I got up bright and early on Sunday morning, December 7, ready to report for my first day of new duty at 8 A.M., but polite naval custom was to report a bit early to relieve the night watch, so I wanted to get over there about 7:45 A.M. I got dressed in my best tropical white uniform, and met up with Lieutenant (j.g.) Herb Fairchild to walk over to work. I remember it was a beautiful morning, and the tropical air was fragrant. There were all these beautiful tropical trees, and we were strolling slowly toward the submarine base at Pearl Harbor where CINCPAC had its headquarters.
As we were walking along, I noticed some small, low-flying, single-winged planes above us and to our left. I thought maybe they were doing maneuvers, but that seemed odd for a Sunday morning. As we continued to walk along, there was a large tropical tree ahead of us. One of the planes flew right overhead, and I waved at the pilot. Just as he went over, leaves from that tree fluttered down. I didn’t think anything of it until later, and it was only then that I realized he’d been strafing. The bullets going through the tree had knocked the leaves loose, and that’s why they were fluttering to the ground. None of this was registering at the time though. I did notice guys all around us running for shelter. More planes flew low right overhead, heading toward Ford Island where the battleships were moored. Now I noticed the sounds of gunfire, .50 caliber and antiaircraft. One of the planes flew very low over us, and I could see a large, red rising sun insignia on the wings, and just as I realized that, the plane burst into flames and plunged straight down into the water nearby!
We were still heading to work, and as we rounded the corner of the sub base headquarters building more men were running for cover into the building. I thought this was all unusual, but it hadn’t dawned on me yet what was actually happening. I still thought I was seeing some kind of elaborate American military maneuvers! The only thing I remember thinking was how unusual that they were doing this on a Sunday.
We went into the building and up to the second floor to report to work. Somebody there yelled at us that we were at war, and the Japanese were bombing us. Unbelievable! I was in a state of shock! I remember my only feeling was one of complete surprise. So there I was reporting for my first day of duty, and everyone was running around and no one was there to train me what to do. Suddenly a lieutenant shoved a clipboard into my hands and told me I was now the “officer messenger plugger.” This didn’t make any sense to me at all, so he quickly told me that I was to deliver freshly decoded messages to various staff officers. Though I was mainly just delivering messages, they were all top secret and urgent, and this work needed to be done with great haste.
So I started running around delivering decoded messages to the offices of the top commanders of the Pacific fleet, all there in that building. Among them was the overall commander, Admiral Kimmel, and I went into his office many times that morning with messages. He was middle-aged, lean, and was known for his fiery temper. Later on in movies they made about the Pearl Harbor attack, they always depicted Kimmel as cool and collected and reacting calmly to the attack. But it was exactly the opposite! I’d go in there with a message that contained more bad news, and he’d read it and start ranting and raving and cursing loudly. He was red-faced and flustered and highly agitated, not the cool and calm person of the movies! I couldn’t blame him. Those messages brought him news of the battleships sinking, the planes and hangars at Ford Island being blown up, and various other facilities being bombed and strafed.
Of all the staff officers I delivered messages to that morning, and there were many, I remember Admiral Kimmel the most vividly. He knew he had to take the blame, and he did. He was the only one on his staff who was fired. When Nimitz came to relieve him after the attack, the rest of his staff stayed on, but he was sent home.
If there wasn’t a message to deliver right away, I would run upstairs and go out on the roof and watch the attack for a few minutes. It didn’t dawn on me that there was any danger, and I didn’t experience any fear. I’d just stand there and watch the Japanese planes flying overhead, and look over at Ford Island where all the battleships were sunk or damaged. There were huge columns of black smoke pouring out of all the ships, there were explosions, ships were burning, and some of the Japanese planes were being shot down and exploding into the water. There were loud explosions, and the firing of the guns from our ships was echoing over the harbor. I’d watch all this for as long as I thought I could stay away, then I’d run back down and resume delivering messages. But periodically throughout the attack, I got chances to go up on the roof to watch the attack in progress. I guess I was kind of in a state of shock. It was hard to comprehend what I was seeing.
Later that day, some of the young officers who had been rescued from the sunken battleships, some still with oil on their clothes, were brought over and reassigned to our staff. All had harrowing stories to tell. One had been able to escape from a porthole when the Oklahoma rolled over. He said there was an officer behind him who was too big to fit through the fairly small porthole opening, and there was no choice but to leave him behind to drown. A few who showed up at our building had been lucky and had been ashore on liberty for the weekend. They had rushed back to Pearl Harbor and wanted to do anything they could to help.
I ran messages all day, and finally got back to the BOQ that evening. It was only then that it finally sunk in that we were at war. Everyone was restricted to base—no hikes in the mountains for me! That night there were sporadic explosions and gunfire. Everyone was tense. Rumors were racing around, and one was that the Japanese were on the way to make a landing on Oahu. During the night there was a big crash, and an antiaircraft shell went right through the ceiling and floor of the room next to me. There was more shooting of machine guns during the night, and I had a genuine fear of getting hit by stray bullets. I got down in a corner of my room thinking that I’d be safer there. I was terrified! We were issued side arms in case the Japs invaded. I heard later that some of our planes coming in that night were shot down by our own antiaircraft guns.
The next morning I went to work and felt really jittery. I hadn’t slept well at all, and I felt uneasy all day at work. If there was any loud noise, I’d jump. I was still doing the same kind of work, delivering messages, because no one in the communications office could take the time to train me for the work I was there to do. The flow of messages had slowed, so I had time to go up and spend more time on the roof. I talked to the machine gun crews up there, and we looked out at the mess in the harbor. The Arizona was still smoking heavily, and they had work crews with hydraulic drills over on the upturned hull of the Oklahoma trying to get guys out who were trapped inside.
During that day after the attack, I got a chance to talk to a lot of the sailors who had been on the ships that were damaged or sunk. They had many amazing and horrible stories, and they were telling these stories one after another.
Finally on December 11 I had a chance to go over and see the yacht I’d sailed on to Hawaii, the Elvida. I barely recognized her—she had been painted by the crew—but they were all still there and okay. A bomb had dropped nearby but no one had been hurt and the yacht was untouched. Then I hitchhiked over to Hickam Field, which was right by Pearl Harbor. The place was a mess! Some of the buildings were in ruins, many men had been killed when the big barracks building was bombed, and a lot of our planes were destroyed on the ground.
I continued in my assignment with CINCPAC at Pearl Harbor for another seven months, finally getting trained properly in communications. About a month after the December 7 attack, Kimmel was relieved and then Nimitz arrived. He was a wonderful guy, a German from Fredericksburg, Texas, and he appreciated having young reserve officers like me around. I was in and out of his office many times. He was always nice, and sometimes offered me coffee.
I spent eleven months at the naval base at Tulagi in the Solomons. While I was on Tulagi we’d go over to the PT base to drink torpedo alcohol mixed with lime juice and look for souvenirs from downed Jap planes. I ended up on the Lexington in Tokyo Bay with the Seventh Fleet when the Japanese surrendered.
I got out of the Navy and resumed my academic career at Berkeley. Before that I was on a six-month expedition to a remote area of Guatemala. I got a B.A. in anthropology from Berkeley, I’d heard about an expedition the University of California was putting together, so I signed on for it. I always liked travel and had many adventures during my life, but one of the best was the university’s Southern Africa Expedition in 1947-48. I wrote a journal during that expedition, and something interesting happened every day. I wrote a book about that expedition that will soon be published. I ended up getting a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Virginia. I got married, started a family, and began taking them along with me on my travels. I studied at Oxford, and then I got a teaching position in South Africa at the University of Witwatersrand, and we moved the whole family down there. During teaching breaks, I’d go to Botswana to study the Hambukushu people. I’d first gotten interested in them in 1950, and I’ve made a total of eight expeditions from 1950 to 1994 to study them. From my time in the Pacific during the war, I went back a number of times to the islands and got interested in what had gone on at Bora Bora during the war. There were a lot of relationships between the U.S. military personnel stationed there and local women, and I have been working on following up what happened to the offspring of those relationships. I published one small book on the wartime history of Bora Bora, and I’m working on another. In the last few years I’ve published or re-published five books about my experiences in Africa. I also recently published a book about my experiences on Tulagi during the war called Hell’s Kitchen: Tulagi 1942-43.