Few may know about one certain WWII hero who was just “an ordinary Joe.” It is unlikely this humble and ordinary Joe ever dreamed his own courageous deeds would result in his becoming an American hero, but it happened.

On December 7, 1941, a date destined to “live in infamy,” Japanese military forces attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, leading America into WWII. During this attack Joe George, Petty Officer Second Class (to become Chief Boatswain’s Mate) in the US Navy saved the lives of six fellow sailors.

Decades later when two of the surviving sailors attended a White House ceremony the President said, “They are here because one man, Joe George, stopped at nothing to save them. Joe George rescued six men that day. He is no longer with us, but [we will] always honor and remember a man… whose courage knew no limits.” The President called him “a true patriot… and a total hero.” I believe those words offered an accurate description of “ordinary” Joe George.

One rescued sailor, Donald Stratton, declared, “Had Joe George not stood up for us — had he not been a rebel and refused to cut the line connecting the Vestal to the Arizona — we would have cooked to death on that platform. If anyone deserved a Medal of Honor that day, in my opinion, it was him. And I know at least five others that would second that.”

Ready to follow a direct order to sever the tether between the repair ship USS Vestal and the burning USS Arizona, he saw sailors on the tower of the Arizona. Postponing that direct order he chose instead a chance at saving those six who had no other hope.

Stratton described their desperate situation, “Up where we were there was no one directing us, no way of escape, and no hope. I looked at myself, surveying the damage the blast had inflicted. My T-shirt had caught fire burning my arms and my back. My legs were burned from my ankles to my thighs. My face was seared. The hair on my head had been singed off, and part of my ear was gone.”

“I stood in a stupor and would have continued to stand there were it not for a breeze that parted the smoke revealing a sailor from the Vestal. It was Joe George.

“We called to Joe through a seam in the smoke, motioning for him to throw us a monkey’s fist, a lightweight heaving line knotted around a metal ball and attached to a thicker rope,” Stratton wrote.

I believe it is no coincidence that George was “perhaps the strongest man in the harbor, an All-Navy boxer,” and he was successful in his third throw, according to Stratton, who explained, “… we tied it off to a bigger line and proceeded to go hand-over-hand to the Vestal after we suffered burns. The Japanese were firing at us as well as the oil in the water under us was burning.”

The six sailors were already badly burned but now moved hand-over-hand on the rope to the Vestal and toward survival.

Of George’s reluctance to follow his order, Stratton wrote, “Had he been a more compliant person, more respectful of authority, I wouldn’t have lived to tell the story. None of us who climbed across that line to the Vestal would have.”

For those men that were saved Joe George was a hero, their only hope, and the difference between living and dying. Approximately 20 years after his death Joe finally was awarded the Bronze Star with Valor on December 7, 1941.

I write today on December 7 to honor the memory, valor, and heroism of Joe George. I remember being at his gravesite at the national cemetery in Little Rock, Arkansas, with my grandchild in 2017. It was a visit with personal purpose… to strengthen patriotism in a future generation and to teach a lesson from the Greatest Generation. That thought gives me hope.

 

For more about this experience read Donald Stratton’s memoir, ALL THE GALLANT MEN: AN AMERICAN SAILOR’S FIRSTHAND ACCOUNT.

“Therefore if there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion, make my joy complete being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. Do nothing in selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus,” (Philippians 2:1-5)