When the USS North Carolina steamed into Pearl Harbor in July 1942, men cleaning up the wreckage from the surprise Japanese attack seven months earlier stopped their work and stared in awe. People ran from airplane hangars and machine shops to watch. Other ships saluted by lowering and then raising their flags. Everyone in the harbor broke into cheers.
Though the North Carolina had yet to fire a shot in battle, she represented the hopes of a wounded nation now on the rise.
“Aren’t you glad she’s on our side?” one witness remarked.
At the time of her commissioning, the North Carolina was the biggest, fastest, best-armed battleship in the United States fleet. Yet Boys of the Battleship North Carolina is less a saga of a ship than the story of her “boys.” They converged on the battleship from New Jersey, Minnesota, Arkansas, California. They tore themselves from sweethearts, escaped broken homes, suspended promising baseball careers. Some had never spent a night away from home; precious few knew anything about the sea. They requested assignments as photographers or printers but were instead put to work learning radio, watching gauges, loading powder bags into guns, or “holystoning” the deck.
How well did they learn their jobs?
The North Carolina’s 15 battle stars testify to that.
How quickly did they grow up?
The eagerness with which the now-aged shipmates continue to gather at their “Showboat” suggests that they will always remain those boys of World War II.
Cindy Horrell Ramsey was raised just 15 miles north of where the North Carolina now rests. She was one of the countless children who took change to school to help save the ship. She holds an M.F.A. in creative writing from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. Ramsey now lives in the North Carolina foothills, where she serves as director of the Polk County campus of Isothermal Community College.
Though the North Carolina had yet to fire a shot in battle, she represented the hopes of a wounded nation now on the rise.
“Aren’t you glad she’s on our side?” one witness remarked.
At the time of her commissioning, the North Carolina was the biggest, fastest, best-armed battleship in the United States fleet. Yet Boys of the Battleship North Carolina is less a saga of a ship than the story of her “boys.” They converged on the battleship from New Jersey, Minnesota, Arkansas, California. They tore themselves from sweethearts, escaped broken homes, suspended promising baseball careers. Some had never spent a night away from home; precious few knew anything about the sea. They requested assignments as photographers or printers but were instead put to work learning radio, watching gauges, loading powder bags into guns, or “holystoning” the deck.
How well did they learn their jobs?
The North Carolina’s 15 battle stars testify to that.
How quickly did they grow up?
The eagerness with which the now-aged shipmates continue to gather at their “Showboat” suggests that they will always remain those boys of World War II.
Cindy Horrell Ramsey was raised just 15 miles north of where the North Carolina now rests. She was one of the countless children who took change to school to help save the ship. She holds an M.F.A. in creative writing from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. Ramsey now lives in the North Carolina foothills, where she serves as director of the Polk County campus of Isothermal Community College.
