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10/08/1999

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The Arizona Republic

Dear Veteran editor:

I graduated from the Naval Academy at Annapolis on February 7, 1941 and was ordered to report to the battleship
West Virginia at Pearl Harber. I had the duty as Junior Officer of the emo and se was en beard during the Japanese
attack the morning of December 7,1941.

The attached letter dated January 19th 1942 was addressed te my father, Captain Frank H. Kelley, USN (Naval
Academy Class ef 1910) who, at the time, was evacuating British civilians frem Singapere as skipper of the navy's
newest troop transport, the West Point.

The letter dated Jan 19, 1942 was the first opportunity I had after the blitz to sit down and write a letter to Dad. I
knew that as a senier officer he would have better means te get my messages to mother and the rest of the family than
I would have. Also by addressing them to the commanding officer of a ship, they had a better chance of not being
held up by the censors. We had been warned that any letters that even hinted at revealing classified information (and
almost everything was classified) would simply be trash canned without feedback to the writer. By writing to a senior
combat officer, I was able to use the Clipper mail rather than the snaillike ship mail system.

Dad at the time (unbeknownst to me) was having his own problems. He had taken the West Point, unescorted by
destroyers (they couldn't have kept up with her without frequent, and dangerous, refueling) inte Singapore harber te
evacuate British civilians during an aerial bombardment by the Japanese. The West Point received one hit but with
minor damage and was able to make it out with a full load of British including one woman who gave birth shortly

after getting on board. Dad got a well deserved medal for this mission.

Definitions:

"G.Q." is general quarters or the bugle eall te man your battle stations. Ensign Roman Brooks, te give it more
emphasis, said on the loudspeaker system "General Quarters, No Shit!" I was scheduled to relieve Brooks at 0800,
but G.Q. atitomatically changed that.

"fish" is, of course, torpedo (we received 7 of these specially designed aerial torpedos with enormous war heads) I
played a role in determining the size ef the warheads by transfering the name plate of an unexpleded one found later
during unwatering (raising) the West Virginia. The Japanese maid of my Honolulu girl friend (and later wife for 50
years) translated it for me, and I passed this =e to my sister's husband, Joe Pearson, who was in Naval
intelligence in Honolulu.

"condition Zed" making the ship ready to receive battle damage (closing doors and hatches, setting up firehoses, etc.
ete.

"D.C.O." damage control officer. LCDR Harper, my boss was third in command and with the skipper dead and the
executive officer having abandened ship in his pajamas at abeut 0830, Harper was now skipper. Harper saw me
holding the water tight door closed against three men who were frantically trying to undog it from the other side and
nodded approval, thus easing my guilt somewhat, over the death of these three, whose bodies we found after raising
the ship in June, 1942.

"dog" the heavy latches surrounding the periphery of a water tight door.

"sound powered phone" The West Virginia had one experimental telephone circuit to the damage control parties (the
men distributed abeut the ship who did the eounterflooding ef compartments on the high side). This is the only phone
circuit that worked since the others were powered by a lead-acid battery that was flooded with salt water.

"bilged" flooded with water.

"counterflood" deliberately flooding intact compartments on the high side of a listing ship to reduce the list. The
Oklahoma with the identical torpedo damage as the West Virginia rolled ever with a heavy loss of life because they
apparently were unable to set condition "Zed" and failed or were unable (no sound powered phones) to counterflood.
We counterflooded so severely that we sank to the bottom of Pearl Harbor. But fortunately it was not deep enough to
submerge the upper decks,

"escape tube"-Central Station was the lowest compartment in the ship-just above the double bottoms. The deck

above us was completely india, but fortunately for this letter writer and 39 other men there was a slender (30 inch)
~ * tube fer electrical cables running vertically te the conning tewer above the bridge of the ship. This tube had erude
� steel ladder rungs making it possible to escape to the unflooded portion of the ship above the water level, however this
operation took over an hour and when the DCO and I took our turn (last, naturaliy) the compartment had only a one
foot bubble of air left.

"first looey" another derogatory expression for the Damage control Officer.
"ne mean pigeenT an ebseure expression fer "difficult".

"overhang" The West Virginia had four sixteen inch gun turrets. To counteract the weight of these enormous rifles
there was an everhang at the rear ef the turret which provided a shielded space on deck of reughly 20 feet by 15 feet.

Note: we were very lucky that the bomb hitting turret 3 did not explode since this was the corresponding bomb that
apparently blew up the Arizona's pewder magazines. The Japanese had made these bombs from 18" armor. plereing
Shells. They went through the 9 inch armored turret tops without resistance and penetrated all the way down to the
powder and shell magazines at the bottom of the ship. I believe that the same complement of bombs and torpedoes
was selected for each battleship.

"Solace motor launch" The Solace was a hospital ship that had no damage. Her motor boats and launches cruised
the harber picking up survivers. These that were wounded were taken baek te the Selace, the rest of us were taken te
the officers landing.

"Boyntons"-friends of Dad and Mother who had a daughter with one of the Honolulu newspapers.
"oke" - a native drink called Okolehau. The island was dry by martial law for several months after Pearl Harbor.
"kKamaaina"-a residence of the islands for least 7 years. Before that time, you were a "malihini".

"War Plans and Operations"- my temporary job while awaiting orders to a new destroyer. I manned a top secret
telephone cireuit linking the several war eperations offices at Pearl Harber- the decoding office, the several fleet
command headquarters, the Army radars, the ship movement plotting office, etc. ete. While the. job sounds like
nothing more than a "telephone talker" we had to use our own judgement on which info,among much gibberish and
routine data to pass on to the duty officer, The job was considered too sensitive for enlisted men.

Ranks of officers were not to be mentioned, so I mention a few admirals who were friends of Dad. Stedman was the
original civilian captain of the West Peint (then named "Ameriea". When the navy teek ever the ship they made Dad
the skipper and Stedman the exec. In spite of this demotion, they became good friends for the rest of their. lives. The
reasoning was that the civilian skippers of merchant ships would not have the requisite background in
communications, gunnery, strategy and tactics of career naval officers.

The second letter, dated March 23, 1942, is of less historic interest than the January 19th letter, but adds further
infermatien abeut seme of the senier officers known to dad. The eaptain of the West Virginia, Mervin Bennion, was
killed in the attack and was a classmate of my father's. Vice Admiral Calhoun ("uncle Bill') was a good friend of the
family and as Commander Service Forces, Pacific Fleet had a critical job for the rest of war. Captain Earle was Chief
of Staff to Admiral Kimmel, who was later court martialed for his actions (or lack thereof) before the attack.

Not mentioned in these letters (and I am appalled at this omission) was that dad's brother, then Commander Bruce
Kelley, was gunnery officer of the battleship Arizona, and had eseaped certain death by swapping duties with the first
lieutenant of the Arizona (who was killed) the night before the blitz. While both the Arizona and the West Virginia
received identical ordnance from the Japanese (three 18" bombs converted from battleship armor piercing
ammunition and seven torpedos), the Arizona was unlucky enough to have one of the bombs penetrated to the
powder magazines near the bottom of the ship.

i include a copy of the envelope from the later letter, which may be of interest since it shows the censor's stamp and
the "Via Clipper airmail" designatien.

Archie P. Kelley

Capt. USN (Retired)
183526 Amarado Circle
Rio Verde, AZ 85263
(480)471-2322
nukesub@june.com
Fax (480)471-7924

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