On Sunday, April 29, 2018, Jerry Krim, a WWII veteran and member of the Jewish War Veterans, will join us for our program, Remembering Jewish Delaware’s Greatest Generation. Krim is a survivor of a kamakazi attack of the aircraft carrier, Belleau Wood, in the Philippines, 30 October 1944.
It’s A Small World
About 3 years after the end of the war, I engaged in conversation a young man who came into my father’s place of business in my home town of Hazleton, Pennsylvania, a small city of thirty thousand souls in the hard coal region of northeast Pennsylvania. It wasn’t long until the fact that we both served in the navy came out and when i said i was on the U.S.S. Belleau Wood he excitedly announced that he was on the U.S.S. Patterson Dd 396 that had fished out of the ocean 13 crew members of the Belleau Wood on that fateful 30th of October 1944! When I told Jim (his name was James McHlarny) that I was one of the 13 it wasn’t long until we realized that because of a particular thing that happened that day, that Jim was the actual one who hauled me aboard and gave me his sack that night.
To make a long story short, when the Patterson, several hours after the kamikaze attack, came back to pick up guys who were forced by fire and explosions to go into the sea came upon four of us who where clinging to a lifenet. I missed the cargo net the Patterson had lowered about midship. The ship still had some forward movement and I managed to cling to the propeller guard just above the still turning screws. The sailor who climbed down from the poop deck was Jim McHlarny. As I told my experience that day we both instantly realized that we were the two involved.
Jim said “I got something at home to show you” and rushed to his house to bring back a picture of the burial at sea of two of our Belleau Wood shipmates that later died on the Patterson. The next morning we were transferred by breech boy and stretchers to a fleet tanker and then to the Belleau Wood being escorted back to Ulithi along with the damaged U.S.S. Franklin.
I lost track of Jim when I left the coal regions in 1949. Several years ago when in a letter from the U.S.S. Patterson reunion group appeared in our newsletter looking to locate guys from several different ships (including an Australian cruiser) that the great little ship rescued. I contacted them and discovered that Jim McHlarny unfortunately died in an industrial accident in 1978. For the information of all, the Patterson was one of the most decorated tin cans and a Pearl Harbor survivor and was in the Pacific for the entire war. Bravo zula to the great crew of the Patterson •… Jerry Krim (am3c) VI Div.
Make a reservation for Remembering Jewish Delaware’s Greatest Generation today.
