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| Petty Officer Harry Nelson was a radioman/gunner for VB-6 during the Battle of Midway. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/1028953/harry-william-nelson https://www.worldwarphotos.info/gallery/usa/aircrafts-2-3/sbd/sbd-vb-6-4mar42-enterprise-marcus-island-raid/ |
Harry Williams Nelson, Jr. never had a chance to reach 100 years old today. Instead, he sacrificed his life for our freedom.
He was born on March 25, 1919 in Oakland, California. His parents Harry and Dorothy were both born in Utah. They were living in Utah by the time of the 1920 census. His father worked as a casket company bookkeeper and later as a casket company manager. The family moved to Santa Monica, California in 1936. A year later Harry senior was killed when he was struck by an automobile. Dorothy moved back to Salt Lake and worked at a department store. Harry had one younger sister.
Harry junior joined the Navy in August 1937, three months before his father died. He was trained as a radioman and served on the destroyer USS Jarvis. In January 1941 Harry had advanced to the rank of Petty Officer. He signed up for a two year extension in the Navy and was transferred to the carrier USS Enterprise to serve in Bomber Squadron Six (VB-6). During leave in 1941 he married Winona Hutchins, a young lady who had been helping his mom who was in ill health.
Enterprise was not in Pearl Harbor on the day the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. It took part in the mission to escort the Doolittle Raiders for the surprise attack on Tokyo.
Harry's mother died of lung cancer on March 1, 1942, leaving an eight year old daughter without parents. PO Nelson may have been able to request a discharge to take care of his little sister but did not. She was raised by an aunt.
Because the Americans had broken the Japanese Naval code, Admiral Nimitz knew the Japanese were steaming to invade Midway Island. He sent the carriers Enterprise, Hornet, and Yorktown to take on the superior Japanese forces.
After the Americans identified the general location of the enemy carriers on the morning on June 4, 1942, Harry and his pilot Lt. John J Van Buren were part of the fifteen VB-6 SBD-2 Dauntless dive-bombers launched off of Enterprise to attack the enemy. The dive-bombers did not originally find the enemy fleet, but after spotting a lone enemy destroyer, they vectored off in that direction and found the enemy carriers. PO Nelson's plane attacked the carrier Kaga with 24 other dive-bombers. They scored at least four hits, enough to doom Kaga. Low on fuel, VB-6 lost some planes when they ran out of gas. Others were likely shot down by flak or Zeros. In all, only four of the fifteen VB-6 planes made it back. Van Buren and Nelson did not make it back.
His cenotaph grave is at Fort Logan National Cemetery in Denver, Colorado. The date on the headstone reflects the practice of declaring a seaman dead one year and one day after he went missing. His widow died in 1972.
Last year on this date I profiled B-25 bombardier Maurice Granger and his Navy flyer brother Albert. You can read about the Granger brothers here.
On behalf of the fallen, if you would like to see more people become aware of this project to honor the WW2 fallen, be sure to share with others on Twitter, Facebook, etc. Thanks for your interest!
I created this video to explain why I started this project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXt8QA481lY.
Please consider joining the public Facebook group to increase the exposure of this project. Go to: WW2 Fallen 100
The Greatest Generation was truly great. Thank you for your sacrifices. The “Z” Generation doesn’t have it in them to wash your feet.
ReplyDeleteFrom Mark Horan at the Facebook group Douglas SBD Dauntless:
ReplyDeleteRadioman Harry William Nelson, ARM1c's fate is similar to those mentioned in the post above. His pilot was the third division leader Lt.(jg) John James Van Buren, USN. Van Buren was a noted college southpaw football quarterback that decided to join the navy, was piloting (6-)B-13. On pullout they immediately came under fighter attack and took hits in all four fuel tanks as they withdrew, eventually joining up with the second division leader Lt. Joe Robert Penland, USNA35 and Harold French Heard, ARM2c in (6-)B-7.
With his plane's life blood pouring out of his wings, he was only able to get about 25 miles out from the target before his tanks ran dry. Penland and Heard watched their squadron mate mate a perfectly executed forced water landing and get in their life raft. Sadly, they were not sighted by search planes before, or after, the big storm on 8 June.
Nelson had been a good friend of Heard, who spoke very highly of him. Likewise the VB-6 CO, Lt. Richard Halsey Best highly rated Van Buren. Best's squadron was the first in the Pacific Fleet wherein he chose his combat division leaders by ability and not by rank.