Here is the story of the attack on Pearl Harbor Dec 7th 1941 as I saw it as a member of the Marine Detachment on the USS helena, CL-50, and my experience in World War II as a Marine with K Co, 3rd Bat, 1st Marines, 1st Div and a member of the President’s guard detachment at the Marine Barracks, 8th and I St. Washington DC, the oldest post in the Marine Corps.
After High School my buddy and I decided to join the Navy and see the world. We were both 18 years old and jobs were hard to find in those days, so we went over the NY City, took the test for the Navy and were told to go home till they called us. We waited four weeks and were not called, so we went back to NY City and took the test for the Marine Corps. They told us the same thing. This was now February, and I had just turned 19 on February 3. We went home and two weeks later the Marines called me to report to N.Y. to get sworn in. I was put on a train and the next day arrived at Parris Island, SC. This was March 15, 1939. My buddy was called up four weeks later, so I never got to see him till about six months later in Quantico, Va, at the Marine base. I had been transferred to Marine Barracks 8th and I washington, D.C. and in May some of us had to go down to Quantico for some training for two weeks and my buddy was there in the 3rd defense Battalion.
On June 10th the First Sergeant came through the squad room and asked, “who would like to go sea duty aboard a cruiser?”
I asked for it right away but I didn’t think he would accept me because when I finished boot camp, I asked for “Sea School” and I was told I had to be at least 6’ tall to go to Sea School. That was policy in those days, but I guess they changed it because I got the transfer. I reported aboard the USS Helena CL-50 a Light Cruiser just built and put in commission six months before. A month later a Nick Lenden reported aboard and He was by my height (5’8”) so were were the two shortest Marines in the 43-man detachment. In October we sailed through the Canal and up to Long Beach, California, and then out to Pearl Harbor to join the Pacific Fleet. We sailed back to Mare Island, California, in June of 1941 for repairs and overhaul and I was given a 28 day furlough. I only had about $10.00 on me, so I packed a bag and hitchhiked home to Pompton Plains, NJ in five days and still had four dollars left when I got home. My Father wanted to give me money to go back on the train, but I had so much luck and fun that I decided to hitchhike back. I was on the outskirts of Salt Lake City when two Army Lieutenants stopped and picked my up. They told me if I went to operations at the Air Field I might get a hop on a plane to California. I waited all day, had supper at the mess hall and then went back to Operations and found out that they had eight B-17 bombers leaving at 8:00 M for Sacramento, California, Army AIr Base. I reported back aboard ship two days early. We sailed down to Long Beach and a week later sailed for Pearl Harbor with several other ships. We left Long Beach at night and the next morning, when we were at chow, the ship went over on its side and all the tables and everything went crashing against the bulkhead. I headed for topside to see what was going on. All the hatches were closed, so I had to spin the wheel to open the small round hatch. I looked out and saw the wave that looked like it was going to come over the the ship, but we just rolled over it. The waves looked like they were about 50 feet high. This was a storm we hit all of a sudden and we rolled 32 degrees according to the roll meter on the bridge. This storm lasted the next four days. I never saw such big waves in my life. We arrived at Pearl Harbor Saturday Afternoon and I think most of the crew slept 12 hours or more, because we all had a hard job trying to sleep in the storm.
The Helena broke all fleet records that year, for gunnery and launching four air craft. we had four scout planes aboard.
On December 4th we came into Pearl Harbor after conducting gunnery practice off the big Island of Hawaii, and tied up at the north end of Ford Island, the Navy airbase, on Saturday morning we went over to 1010 dock and tied up with our port side to the dock. The battleship Pennsylvania, the flag ship of the Pacific Fleet, had been tied up there, and moved up ahead into a dry dock, on Friday afternoon. The destroyers Downs and Casson had gone in ahead of her. I had found out that my home town buddy was at the Marine Barracks there in Pearl Harbor with the 3rd Defense Battalion, so we went in to Honolulu on liberty. I returned to my ship about 11:00 PM.
On Sunday morning, December 7, I finished breakfast and then went up topside about 7:45 and walked back toward the fantail. I stopped near the number five turret on the Port side. The color guard was getting ready to raise the flag on the fantail flagpole. All of a sudden, I looked over toward Ford Island, the Navy Air Base, and saw these planes diving down on the field. At first, I thought they were practicing bombing but then the lead plane pulled out and dropped a bomb on a Navy PBY patrol plane on the cement ramp. Just then, they sounded General Quarters and the word was passed over the PA system, “Japanese Planes attacking Pearl Harbor, this is not a drill.” I turned to run forward to my daytime battle station. We had two 50-caliber water-cooled machine guns above the bridge, on on each side of the forward range finder. As I turned, I heard a loud sound behind me. I turned back to look and a Japanese plane flew over the fantail about 20 feet above it as I turned to run a big explosion that knocked me against the bulkhead, it was probably that plane that had dropped a torpedo and it went under the old mine layer USS Ogalala that was tied up to our starboard side. The torpedo hit us mid-ships and blew out the forward boiler room and engine room. We sank about three feet on the starboard and that was all because we had gotten all watertight doors shut. We had about 30 Sailors killed and one Marine. By the time I got up to my 50, above the bridge, the Japanese planes were all over the place, coming up the channel about 20 feet above the water, we opened up on them. I could see some of our bullets hitting the water they were flying so low. One could say that all hell broke lose for the next hour or so. The destroyer Shaw was in a floating dry dock about 400 yards off our starboard bow and she received a direct hit on the forward ammo locker and there was a great explosion and a lot of the ship, in small pieces, landed on the Helena. I noticed the Battleship Oklahoma rolling over on its side but I couldn’t look too long at it because of so many things happening. We were credited with shooting down 6 Japanese planes and a possible 7. This is probably why the Japanese decided not to come a low anymore and started to bomb from high up. I think the reason the Helena was the first ship to be hit by a torpedo is because the Japanese thought we were the Pennsylvania, the Flag Ship of the Fleet, because after we were hit they started to torpedo the Battleships tied up along Ford Island across the channel from us. The two popular picture shown when they shop pictures of Pearl Harbor attack are the Shaw and the Arizona explosions. One of the mistakes the Japanese made was not bombing the oil tanks around Pearl Harbor. The attack lasted about 2 hours. It ended as fast as it started and everybody’s nervous system took a beating, I know I was really beat. The mess cooks started getting some food out and we started to get back to normal. That night as soon as it got dark there was a lot of firing. Some planes flew in to land at Ford Island Navy AIr FIeld from the carrier Lexington and they were shot down because there were told to come in from the left side and with their landing lights on and some didn’t.
We went into dry dock #3 which wasn’t completely finished and when they drained all the water out I left the ship and walked around the dry dock to the side where the torpedo hit and there was a hole 20 feet across in the side, amidship. That night, I had the 12 to 4 watch and I had to patrol around the dry dock, everything was blacked out, we didn’t know if the Japanese were going to come back or not. There were all kinds of rumors going around some were that Japanese were landing troops at different places on the Island. The second day, a company of Marines came in and that night they put them on guard duty. I was patrolling around the dry dock and when I walked across the caisson, a guy calls out to me, “Halt! Who goes there?” No one told me they had put guard at the dry dock, I almost got shot. Another time, patrolling around the dry dock I walked down a few steps to a platform inside the dry dock to check out the platform. I shown my flashlight down there and there were two guys laying down there, they yelled, “Don’t shoot, were are yard workmen.” They came off watch at 12:00 midnight and they were sleeping there waiting till sun light to go home because there were afraid they might get shot. Everybody was trigger happy. I reported right away to the Officer of the Day, and he said it was all right for them to stay there. After we got a steel patch put over the hole, we sailed back to Mare Island Navy Yard in California on one engine (half speed). In June, my two year hitch was up and I was transferred to the Marine Barracks at Mare Island for a few months then I was transferred to the Camp elliot near San Diego on infantry training school where I had a platoon of 65 boots just out of boot camp. About four months later I was transferred to K Co, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines, 1st Division, on the Canal, in December and a few weeks later we all left for Melbourne, Australia. We were relieved b the Army, In July we boarded transports and left for New Guinea, and on September 22, 1943, we participated in the New Guinea Operation and Fenschhafen occupation. My four year enlistment was up so I reenlisted for four years and was paid $280.00. I sent e money home to my parents because we expected to go into action again in a few months. In October we moved over the Goodenough Island, and Island off the coast of New Guinea. In December we went aboard LST’s and LCT’s on Christmas Day and hit Cap Glouster, New Britain Island the next morning. Two days fighting our way up the beach dirt road for about three miles. We had to help of one Sherman Tank. When we got on the edge of the Air Field the Japanese attacked from grassy hills a the other end of the air field. They came across the air field on seven tanks. The Sherman tank that was with us opened up with its 75 and blew the Japanese tanks apart. All the Japanese were killed and the the tanks only got within 100 yards of us. We also had one marine in our company that had a bazooka and he knocked out two of the tanks. We only had one wounded and the Japanese lost at least a company. This ended most of the fighting in the Air Field area and we set up our front line just over the grassy green hills that surrounded the inland part of the air field. the 7th Marines were still fighting about four miles south of us trying to take a hill in the Bargan Bay area. We were here fro three months and then left for Pa Vu Vu Island in the Russell Islands for rest. Around September 1st or 2nd, we wend aboard transports and sailed for Palalu Island. After a tremendous shelling from the big fleet we had there, we hit the beach in Amtracks and we lost half of the knocked out before we hit the beach. I could hear bullets pinging off the side of the Amtrack as were were going in. This invasion turned out to be the worst the Marines had. By the third day, K Company only had about 15 Marines left. I was knocked out by a mortar when we were pinned down in our fox holes and sort of came to in the hospital ship. I found out later that I was buried under coral sand and rock and a Navy Corpsman had pulled me out. He had been in another fox hole and saw what had happened to me. The night of the third day, the 1st Marines were relieved by the 7th Marines, because the 1st had about 60% wounded or killed. There were also 60 Amtracks knocked out and burning on the beach and corral reefs by the third day. This was probably the biggest fight the Marines had come up against since Pearl Harbor. Colonel Chesty Puller was the Commanding officer of the 1st Regiment but I don’t think he liked being relieved by the 7th. I think he got another Navy Cross on Palalu, but he lost a lot of good Marines and Ch Puller once stated, “if you follow me I promise you will get the medals, but I can’t promise you anything else.”
The hospital ship dropped us off at Manis Island and a lot of us were flown out the next day to a hospital on Guadalcanal in C-47s on stretchers. On our flight to Guadalcanal, we flew over a Japanese occupied island and they fired at us with anti-aircraft guns. I could see out the round window and I saw some shells explode. After a week at Guadalcanal hospital I was flown south to Espirito Santo and a week later boarded a transport for San Francisco, California and the Navy Hospital in Oakland. Two weeks later, I was transferred to the redistribution center in San Diego. A few days later I appeared before a couple of Captains behind a desk looking over my records and the told me they were going to give me a 30 day furlough, and transfer to any place I wanted to be stationed. I hadn’t been home in three years, so I told them as close to home as possible. I was transferred to the Marine Barracks, Navy Weapons Center, Earle, NJ, 26 miles from home. I arrived there in December. The nex day a runner came up to my rom and told me that Captain Hoover wanted to see me. I asked him who he was and he said, the commanding officer of this Navy base. A Navy Captain. I went down to his office and walked in, and right away I knew who Captain Hoover was. He was the Captain of the USS helena, the ship I was on during the attack on Pearl harbor. He took over command of the Helena in the South Pacific and got the Navy Cross when the Helena sank four Japanese ships in a night battle. When He looked over my record that morning he noticed I had served two years on her so he wanted to talk to me. We sat in his office for on hour and that was when I found out all about the Helena up to her sinking gin a night battle in the Kula Gulf, July 6, 1943, by 3 torpedoes from a Japanese destroyer that got in close because of the fast firing of her 15 six-inch main batter guns of the Helena. One Japanese Admiral once stated that he thought the Helena had 6-inch machine guns. The Helena broke the all-Navy record when they fired 1000 rounds of xix inch main batter guns in 10 minutes. The 6 inch 47 shell is the largest shell that can be load manually. 8 inches and up have to be fired by machines.
In February 1945 a letter came in requesting my transfer to the Presidents Guard detachment, Mare Barracks, 8th and I streets, SE Washington DC. In July I met Doris Wilhelm, in a pool in Bethesda, Maryland, with her girl friends. She was a 2nd class yeoman in the Navy Waves and worked in Arlington, Virginia for Navy Bureau of Personnel and her home was in Keansburg, New Jersey. She was discharged in n1946 and we were married September 7, 1947.
In August, I was told that the Marines had just come out with a point system and if you had a lot of combat over sea duty or a couple of young kids at home, you could get a discharge, or you could stay in. I had six and a half years in and at that time a Marine wasn’t paid very much, so I told the Marines, “Let me out.” I can make twice as much money in one week then the Marines paid me in a month. SO I got an Honorable Discharge. I put in 6 1/2 years of very dangerous duty and came out in one piece, of course some of those years were very happy ones and very exciting. I learned a lot from the Marines and I am very proud I was a Marine, but then again, they say, “Once a Marine, always a Marine.”

The da I was discharged (August 1, 1945) I walked out the main gate of the Marine barracks, Washington DC, and flagged down a cab that was coming up from the Navy Yard a block down the street. He stopped for me and when I got in the back seat, there sat a Navy Captain, and it was Captain Duke, our gunnery officer on the Helena in 1940 and 1941. He was a Lt. Commander then. He used to come to our 50 caliber machine guns and crack one joke after another, so I asked him, “Do you have any good jokes?” Right away, he remembered me. I asked him where he was going and he said, to Union Station to get a train to Norfolk Virginia Navy Yard to take over command of the USS Missouri (BB63). On September 2, I read in the paper that he was out in Japan with the ship and the surrender of the Japanese, ending World War II. I said to my parents, “I know who the captain of that ship is.”

I still keep active at 84 by working around the house and grounds and doing the same thing from December May and our house in Holly Hill, Florida.
I spent over 20 years as a sales representative for the H J Heinz Company, of Pittsburgh PA and my wife retired from Sealand Shipping Company, Elizabeth, NJ. We bought our house here in Carteret when we got married September 7, 1947 with the help of the GI loan and we bought the house in Florida in 1987. Doris doesn’t like Florida in the Summer and I don’t like NJ in the winter. We have two daughters, Beth and Jill. Beth was born in 1951 and Jill was born in 1959. I have two grandsons, Noah Todd Bosley, 21, and Evan Petre, 14.

I am a member of the following:
VFW post 2314 (Life Member)
AMerican Legion post 26e (52 years)
Marine Barracks 8th and I reunion association
Navy League (North Jersey Council)
US Navy Cruiser Sailors Association
USS HElena Association
Pearl harbor Survivors Association
World War II Memorial (Life Member)

My wife Doris is the only woman Veteran of AMerican Legion Post 263 and is a member of the Women in Service Memorial in Arlington, Virginia (a Charter member)

Semper Fi
Ray Hechler