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Pearl Harbor Vet Shares Story with Teens
By Natalie Lopez and
Ramona Ross
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World War Two Veteran and North
Plainfield native Joe Waller was among the first to fight back against the
Japanese after their attack on Pearl Harbor.
A Chief Petty Officer with the Navy, Mr. Waller
fought the Battle of the Coral Sea and lived to tell about it.
“We went to Pearl
Harbor and saw the disaster,” Waller told North Plainfield High School students,
JROTC cadets among them, on the 66th
anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. After being reassigned from Europe to the South Pacific, Waller’s aircraft carrier, the USS Yorktown, and one other USS aircraft carrier saw heavy action against three Japanese aircraft carriers. “We’d attack em’ at port and we sunk quite a few (Japanese ships) that day,” recalled Waller. “The Japanese made more mistakes than we did that day.” But the USS Yorktown ultimately met its match. After the ship was destroyed at sea, Waller and the other survivors had to abandon ship and swim through the oily water to an awaiting rescue boat. Waller managed to pull an injured man out of the water. He said his ears rung for three days after the battle. Waller settled in North Plainfield after the war and remains here to this day with his wife, Carmella. The Wallers have five children, all of whom graduated from North Plainfield High School. |
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:added 12/17/07