HARRY FRIES

Harry Fries was in the aft wash room of the repair ship he was assigned to on December 7, 1941.  He heard explosions coming from Hickam Field on Ford Island and wondered why practice runs had been scheduled on a Sunday morning.

He went up on deck and then he saw them.

Wave after wave of Japanese airplanes were swooping down over Battleship Row, some skimming just fifty feet over the water, some barely missing the rigging on his ship.  One pilot flew so close to him he could see the man's face.  That pilot waved to Harry as he flew by!  But the Japanese pilot didn't fire or drop a bomb or torpedo on Harry's ship.  His target was the United States fleet of Battleships.

The repair ship Medusa on which he stood was in a place of relative security above the northwest side of Ford Island right off Pearl City and away from the bulk of the battleships docked in Pearl Harbor.  The next day, the Medusa was scheduled to tie up next to the Battleship Utah, which Harry was soon to discover had rolled over after taking a torpedo, leaving few survivors.  The Utah was a target ship for the enemy because it carried sophisticated gear the Navy had developed for use when firing their armament.  The difference of one day kept Harry out of the apex of the biggest sea disaster in history.  

Fries later learned that one man caught in the hold of the overturned Oklahoma tried to organize a couple dozen men still alive and get them to safety.  He urged them all to hold hands and make their way out of the ship by going through a hatch which was then beneath them and under water.  That hatch would lead them outside of the ship and they could then swim their way to the surface, if they could hold their breath that long.  Only three would go with him.  They survived.  The rest did not.

Harry Fries believes the Japanese made one very big mistake in sighting on crucial targets, a mistake he felt no regret about.  There was a group of gigantic oil tanks standing in Pearl Harbor that were full and  had quite recently been painted up, all bright and shiny.  Apparently the Japanese figured them to be decoys and ignored them entirely.  Had they hit those tanks, there would have been a tremendous fire.

The Medusa survived the attack and stayed in Hawaii until the spring of 1943, with Harry Fries on board. 

Harry had been born in Lexington, Nebraska, moved around a bit with his family, then settled in Pullman where he enlisted in the Navy for six years, being inducted on February 11, 1941.  He was sent to San Diego for training, then boarded the Medusa on September 18, 1941 and set sail for Pearl Harbor. 

The Medusa was launched April 16, 1923 and commissioned September 18, 1924 at Puget Sound in Washington.  She was designed as a fleet repair ship for major repairs beyond a ship's own capabilities, without benefit of a Navy Yard.  She was equipped with foundry, blacksmith, electrical, pipe, carpentry, machine, and motion picture shops.  Her machinery included lathes, radial drills, milling, slotting, and boring machines as well as optical repair apparatus, armature bake ovens, and coil winding machines.  She also had a large laundry, bakery, and refrigeration units.  Her deck rode about fifty feet above the surface and her superstructure extended another fifty feet.  The ship had a huge hold that could have contained a two bedroom house with room for a car to drive around it.  The repair ship was put to good and immediate use repairing other ships damaged in the surprise attack.

Harry's ship had some mounted guns and gunner crews, one of which crews he was a member.  Gunners were commonly strapped in on a 20mm gun, knowing they were to stay in place regardless of what went on until the gun didn't need him any more.   If the ship was hit, all on board knew they had three minutes until the ship would sink.  Harry considered what his chances might be if his ship were caught at sea without destroyer protection as they moved on to other islands to repair stricken ships.  He decided in advance he would go down with the ship rather than get in the water and hit a depth charge which might harm men around him when it exploded. 

On April 4, 1943 the Medusa did indeed get underway for a combat area.  At Efate, New Hebrides she found more than enough work to keep her and her crew busy for the next year.  On March 27, 1944 she departed for a series of shorter assignments, first New Guinea, then Guadalcanal.  As they moved from island to island they saw no action from enemy ships nor were they attacked by airplanes, Kamikaze or otherwise.  The only serious situation Harry's ship and crew faced was once when they grounded on a coral reef.  The ship rocked from side to side finally floating free at high tide, much to their relief.  On June 1 she steamed to Sydney for repairs to her hull damaged by that grounding on Buna Shoal before continuing on to Manua. 

Mid-January 1945 Harry and the Medusa departed for Hallandia to join a convoy for San Pefro Bay where she serviced ships engaged in the capture of Luzon, other Philippine Islands, and the Ryukyus until July 18.  After the A-bombs fell, she steamed to Manila, from where she eventually headed back to the United States.

Harry Fries, in the meantime, had returned stateside earlier in 1945 because he had leave coming.  He was then stationed at the San Diego Navy Station, from where he was discharged.  He pulled Post Office duty there, "good duty," according to Harry.  It was while he was in San Diego that he and Elsie got married.

He and another sailor, Lissie from Texas, worked alternate days.  When Harry decided he wanted a week off to marry Elise, he asked, "Who will stand by for me for a week?"

Lissie answered, "I will for you this week if you'll stand by for me next week."

"Done," said Harry, and so they each worked their own shift and also that of the other for a week, and got a week off without the Navy knowing about it, until now.

One of the moves Harry made when he was a youngster was a year spent in Denmark.  A few years ago he and his wife Elsie, mother of their two children, took a trip to Denmark with the express intent of finding a Danish bakery he had told her about for years.  Elsie just could not believe anything could be as good as Harry described that shop's Danish pastries to be.  Happily, she discovered it was everything he had said it was!