KIA: Pearl Harbor

(National Archives Image)

Last  updated: 22 November 2023 - gmc

A few minutes before 8 o'clock on a quiet Sunday morning, on December 7,  1941 [11:55 am in the Eastern Time Zone] the Japanese launched a surprise air attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.

Fredrick Holmes Christensen, 1877-1944, was a Beaufort born businessman with lumber, hardware, petroleum, real estate, automobile and truck farming interests here. From 1893 to 1944 he kept an almost daily diary. On Sunday, December 7, 1941, he wrote:

We were electrified today when it was announced from Washington after 2 o'clock that Japanese aeroplanes had attacked the United States Naval base in Hawaian [sic] Islands and Honolulu. 

The assault  lasted less that two hours. On Monday, December 8, 1941, Christensen continued:

The reports from Hawaii are sketchy and incomplete. The Japanese claim they destroyed two battleships, an aeroplane carrier and hit numerous other warships. Washington says one of the older battleships was damaged so badly that she capsized. One destroyer blew up and several other vessels were damaged while 3000 casualties included 1500 killed. Many aeroplanes destroyed. 

As Christensen noted "After one week of war we are still without information on the extent of the damaged [sic] inflicted on our fleet in Hawaii by the Japs last Sunday."  (Diary entry on 14 December 1941). In the chaos and fog of war, sometimes mistakes about damages and casualties are made.

Some lowcountry men are known to have been on Oahu Hawaii the morning of the attack.  Gen. Jacob E. Smart (USAF) authored Lowcountry Families in World War II, A Memorial: We Mourn the Fallen and Honor All Who Served. He compiled biographies of servicemen from Hardeeville, Bluffton, southern Colleton County, Jasper and Hampton Counties. Smart mentioned the following  men from these areas as being present at Pearl Harbor that morning:

• Oden Benton (Colleton County) was wounded by Japanese strafing runs at Bellows Field. He died of his wounds about two weeks later.
• Roland M. Byrd
• Richard A. (Ray) Malphrus
• Joseph Clinton Nettles
• Dr. Frank Ryan was the youngest captain in the United States Navy at the time. He was working at the Hospital. 

He also included Gerald H. Preacher who was a civilian engineer working for General Electric Company on the island and witnessed the attack.

Smart's book does not include service members who were from the population base of Beaufort County at the time, that is, the towns and rural communities of Northern Beaufort County: Beaufort, Port Royal, St. Helena Island, and Burton. However, we know that the effects of the attack impacted Beaufort County in a most significant way: The Beaufort Gazette issue on New Year's Day in 1942 proclaimed "Beaufort Lost Two Citizens at Pearl Harbor."

(BDC - Beaufort Gazette January 1, 1942)

It is significant that the Beaufort Gazette acknowledged the contributions and loss of these African-American brothers. It  went against commonly held views of the period to state "These two boys were citizens of Beaufort County ... and will prove to our state and national that all regardless of race, color or creed, we stand united in common purpose to destroy despotism and to free all peoples who now live under its barbarous masters." But you do notice the use of the now considered pejorative term "boys" in the column text. At the time of the bombing Leon Bush was a young man aged 21 years old. 

After the very popular former SC Representative Stratton Christensen was killed, Fredrick Christensen, his kinsman, wrote this in his diary June 14, 1942:

This has been a pretty "Blue" week for us. Niels [Christensen] went to Boston to tell his Grand-mother of Stratton's loss. I tried to speak of it at the Rotary Club, but though I had thought out what I would say [I] could only give the first two or three opening sentences and had to quit. Everyone is very much interested and sympathetic -- it is the first ^ white^ casualty from Beaufort though two colored boys were killed at Pearl Harbor and two or three have died at camps.

I originally posted this Beaufort Gazette article in a blog post written for the Pearl Harbor anniversary in 2009.  Some years later a Bush family relative visiting our Research Room, Leona Smith, said that Leon had survived the war and had lived to a ripe old age up North. 

When volume 3 of The History of Beaufort County, South Carolina by Lawrence Rowland and Stephen Wise was published in 2015, the authors mention the brothers as among the first casualties from Beaufort County during World War II. The Bush brothers are listed on the Beaufort County's World War II roll of honor along with 36 other men who sacrificed their lives. (pp. 365-366, 375). Given that it was time to highlight the anniversary of Pearl Harbor again by researching some of the local men who were there, I decided to see what documentation I could find to back up the notices of death given in the Beaufort Gazette article. I used printed materials in the BDC and searched the Ancestry Library Edition database which we make available to our customers.

The first place I looked was The Official Roster of South Carolina Servicemen and Servicewomen in World War II, 1941-1946, 5 vols. (South Carolina State Budget and Control Board, 1967), p. 617. There I discovered entries for both men:

"BUSH, LEON W   2626463.  B DALE SC 10 JAN 20. HA NEW YORK NY.    EAD USN 14 AUG 40. HON DISCH    MATT2C  28 JUL 42" which translates to Leon W. Bush's service number is 2626463. He was born in Dale, SC on January 10, 1920. His [current to 1967] home address is New York, New York. He entered active duty in the United States Navy on August 14, 1940. He received an honorable discharge at the rank of MATT2C on 28 July 1942. 

"BUSH, SAMUEL J SN UNKWN. HA BEAUFORT SC. USN    MAIC  KIA" which translates to Samuel J. Bush, whose service number is unknown to the compilers of the official roster, was from Beaufort, SC. He was a sailor in the United States Navy. MAIC isn't listed in the abbreviations list so I am not sure what that means. (Perhaps one of you old tars can enlighten me). Samuel Bush was killed in action. And Post 207, American Legion is named in his honor. 

There is plenty of documentation to confirm that Samuel Jackson Bush, son of Adam W. Bush, died on December 7, 1941:   

• The National Parks Service's World War II Valor in the Pacific website lists Samuel Jackson Bush (USS California) as killed during the attack.
• Official Roster of South Carolina Servicemen and Servicewomen in World War II, 1941 – 1946, p. 617
• Honolulu, Hawaii, National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific (Punchbowl), 1941 – 2011 (ALE)
• WWI, WWII, and Korean War Casualty Listings (ALE)
• World War II and Korean Conflict Veterans Interred Overseas (ALE)
• U.S., Navy Casualties Books, 1776-1941 (ALE)
• U.S. World War II Navy Muster Rolls, 1938-1949 (ALE)

Apparently the brothers were on the same ship, the USS California when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. The Bush brothers, like the majority of Black sailors during World War II, served as mess attendants.

U.S. World War II Navy Muster Rolls, 1938-1949 (ALE)

On the Muster Roll written on December 31, 1941, Samuel is listed as “Killed in action in the line of duty” and Leon is listed as having been transferred to the USS Salt Lake City on 13 December 1941. He went on to serve on the Nitro and West Virginia.

I have not been able to ascertain when the error became known to his family. I read all 52 issues of Beaufort Gazette for 1942 but did not see a retraction or announcement that Leon was alive. The Christensen diary entry in June 1942 indicates he believed that the Bush brothers were both dead. Although Christensen makes reference to an event held by the local Black community in memory of those lost at sea on 28 May 1944, the Beaufort Gazette did not cover the event. I was hoping to see if either brother was mentioned at the Memorial service. (In all fairness, the Beaufort Gazette was covering very little local news and was close to shutting down before a new editor leased it in mid-July of 1944). However, in the "Honor List of Those Who Gave Lives in Service" Beaufort Gazette, 19 July 1946, p. 1 only Samuel is listed - which leads me to surmise that news of Leon's survival had reached the area at some point between mid-1942 and mid-1946.

Leon is listed as a survivor in his father’s obituary. 

 

As indicated above, Leon is listed – very much alive -- in the Official Roster of South Carolina Servicemen and Servicewomen in World War II, 1941 – 1946, State Budget and Control Board, 1967, p. 617. He was honorably discharged on July 28, 1942. In 1967 he gave his residence as New York City. Another clue: According to Social Security Death Index records -- if I have the right Leon W. Bush as there are more than a few Leon Bushes listed -- he lived to be 90 years old and died in Barnstable Massachusetts on November 3, 2010.

Dr. Rowland assures me that when volume 3 is revised, the error will be corrected to reflect that only Samuel died in the attack.  

Though their names appear in the indexes to the Men and Women in World War II Scrapbooks, I was unable to find any other references to them in the two volumes. 

Post 207 of the American Legion was chartered and named in memory of  Samuel Jackson Bush in 1959.  

The moral of this post? Emulate President Ronald Reagan: "Trust but verify" using sources at hand in the Library. Identify the potential sources (which can change over time), check those sources, and corroborate what you think you know  - because sometimes what you think you know might be wrong.