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Skagit River Journal

of History & Folklore
Subscribers Edition
The most in-depth, comprehensive site about the Skagit
Covers from British Columbia to Puget Sound. Counties covered: Skagit, Whatcom, Island, San Juan, Snohomish & BC. An evolving history dedicated to committing random acts of historical kindness

Noel V. Bourasaw, editor

810 Central Ave., Sedro-Woolley, Washington, 98284
Home of the Tarheel Stomp

Mortimer Cook slept here & named the town Bug

Pearl Harbor, 0755, 7 December 1941

(U.S.S. Arizona burning after the attack)

U.S.S. Arizona burns after the attack

Victor Andrew Bourasaw was born in Festus, Missouri, on Nov. 30, 1901. He ran away from home in his late teens to mine boron by hand near the Old Mines District on the Mississippi river. At the end of the summer of 1922 he had his fill of wearing out his arms and he bummed a ride with a friend to the Great Lakes Training District in Chicago to visit military recruiters. He said years later that he could not get into the Army because he was more than two months shy of his 21st birthday and he did not have his parents' permission. The Navy recruiter was not such a stickler. He entered Victor's year of birth as 1900. After 19 years of duty, Victor was a chief petty officer on the destroyer, U.S.S. Ramsay at Pearl Harbor on the early morning of Dec. 7, 1941.

Vic Bourasaw's diary This is a diary of what I saw that Day of Infamy, 7 December 1941. Ordinarily I would have been home in Honolulu but my ship had the "Ready" duty beginning at 0800. Our liberty was up at 0730. I came aboard about 0735 and went down to our (chief petty officer) quarters. There were eleven of us CPO's. We were sitting around shooting the breeze and having our morning cup of mud (coffee).
There was some blasting as one of the chiefs remarked, starting at 0755. I got up and looked out from the forward hatch and what I saw caused me to say: "fellows man your stations we are being bombed by the Japs!"
I saw first the U.S.S. Utah turning over with two (fish) torpedoes in her and Jap dive bombers giving her hell.
We had received a set of new awnings when we arrived in port Friday. I sent the first man I saw to the galley with orders to get every knife and cleaver he could find there. When he reported back to me, he had an armful. We passed them out to the men and we cut our brand new awnings down. I would judge we had our guns firing at the yellow bastards in under ten minutes time.
At a few minutes before eight the Japanese had begun an air raid on Pearl Harbor and Hickman Field. The hangars at Hickman were set afire and all the grounded planes strafed; also numerous oil tanks were set afire, burning for two days and nights. The Utah and the Raleigh were hit by torpedoes launched by special torpedo planes and dive bombers. They dropped bombs of all kinds, incendiary, shrapnel and high explosives. then I saw the hangars at Hickman Field and Ford Island ablaze, and the Raleigh listing, many men in the water, oil covered water and it was afire in many places.
There were some flying fortresses arriving from the mainland. It was heart rending to see them coming in with a Jap riding astern of one only a few feet. The gunner and tail gunner just sitting there, taking it, not a round of ammunition to fire back. We brought one down as he finished strafing one of gallant fortresses. He fell in shallow water just a few feet away on our port side.
About 8:15 a submarine was discovered inside of the harbor, astern of the destroyer tenders, Medusa and Curtis. A nest of destroyers were alongside the Medusa, and all were taking pot shots at [the sub's] conning tower. One 3-inch shell hit her bow and tore it off. She then submerged and reappeared again. The Monahan, D-354, had got under way and made for her, ramming her and letting go two depth charges. A mighty cheer went up from the crews of the ships around. Of course she has never reappeared since. Unfortunately the Monahan ran her bow onto the beach on Ford Island and she had to back her engines full speed and, at that, had difficulty backing off.
The Ramsay crew [Victor's destroyer] acted like veterans under fire. Each man to the lowest rating did his duty and did it well. Am proud to be a member of a crew like this.
The enemy aircraft, having dropped their bombs, now turn to strafing. They sure are bum shots. We were strafed five times and have only one bullet hole to show on the ship, through the rail on the flying deck.
When we got under way we left in such a hurry we left our two boats in port. I told the coxswain to be sure and be over there when they picked the plane up and to get me a souvenir from it. Well, he did, a big piece of the pilot's parachute. We were under way at 0835, the third ship to leave the harbor. It was terrible to have to go through that oil-covered water on the way out, seeing our shipmates struggling in it and not being able to help them. We threw life buoys to the ones we saw that needed one.
We found submarines in wait outside. We dropped depth charges as did the other destroyers. The navy authorities are sure that we got four subs. The subs evidently were waiting for the battleships to come out but of course they never did. It would have been suicide. We have heard that the West Virginia and the Oklahoma were damaged. We could see the West Virginia listing considerably as we were leaving port. All this morning the destroyers were busy tracking down subs, pounding them with depth charges.

We will soon update Vic's diary items and complete the record of his diary. The updates will tell the story of how the destroyer Vic served on chased midget submarines outside the harbor. Then he tells how they returned and he saw the havoc that had been wreaked, and how in the days after the attack the U.S. Navy tried to recover and continue their mission. Victor retired from the Navy in 1946 and moved to Skagit County with his wife Hazel and young sons, Jerry and Noel. He passed away on Feb. 11, 1882, after living in Sedro-Woolley for 34 years in a Jimmy Stewart-style It's a Wonderful Life. Vic would have been proud on Pearl Harbor day of 2001 when the American Legion George Baldridge Post #43 of Sedro-Woolley opened up their new club lounge (link is repaired). He was commander there in 1958. If you or your relative has a memory of Pearl Harbor, we welcome you to email us with their thoughts so we can share them in future issues. email. If you would like to read more about the U.S.S. Arizona, we director you to this terrific site by Phil Dein, who shares a letter from his uncle, John George Dine, who died on the ship. You can find many photos and details there. And here is a Journal site about the Sedro-Woolley American Legion, George Baldridge Post No. 43. And you might want to keep in mind that the Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor is slowly sinking in the soft soil and $34 million is needed in donations to shore it up and create room to house the many donated mementos.

Above: U.S.S. Arizona memorial at Pearl Harbor

Right: Vic Bourasaw when he was chairman of the Loggerodeo festivities in connection with the American Legion; Barber Hank Geary behind him, who still lives above his old barber shop on State Street when not snowbirding down south.

Story posted on Story posted Dec. 7, 2000, last updated on Oct. 7, 2004 . . . Please report any broken links so we can update them
This article originally appeared in Issue 16 of our Subscribers-paid Journal online magazine

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