I thought this video from three weeks ago remarkable. This sailor is 101 years 'young'. Watch as he clambers around USS Iowa as if he was 75 years old. Guess 101 is the new 75!
Freeman Johnson was a 20-year-old crew member of the USS St. Louis cruiser in Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. A year later he was assigned to the brand new USS Iowa, the most powerful battleship ever built. Two months later, on Washington's birthday, Iowa was commissioned, and Freeman was a member of the first Iowa crew.
This young man was aboard Iowa during its months-long training cruises. He was there when Iowa transported FDR and the highest civilian and military brass to North Africa on the president's journey to the Tehran Conference with Churchill and Stalin (and in the Atlantic, the Iowa came under torpedo attack - by a U.S. destroyer. That's another story, if someone wishes I'll link the story, and it's a fun story!).
In the 18 months Freeman served aboard as a member of Iowa's propulsion crew (the ship's 212,000 hp is the most powerful non-nuclear power plant ever employed in a USN warship), the battleship steamed nearly 200,000 miles all over the western Pacific and was part of the legendary naval battles that led to Japan's defeat.
Freeman was there on Sept. 2, 1945, high on Iowa's funnel grid walks as his ship served as the Guard of Honor, with Adm. Bull Halsey aboard, just hundreds of feet distant when Japanese officials signed the articles of surrender, on the quarter deck of Iowa's sister ship USS Missouri, ending the second World War.
And here in this video Freeman is, last month visiting his old haunts remembering the most momentous times in human history. Maybe a handful of members here will enjoy this video (his war remembrances begin about the 19:00 mark, before that is his tour among his old stations).
Cheers.
Freeman Johnson was a 20-year-old crew member of the USS St. Louis cruiser in Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. A year later he was assigned to the brand new USS Iowa, the most powerful battleship ever built. Two months later, on Washington's birthday, Iowa was commissioned, and Freeman was a member of the first Iowa crew.
This young man was aboard Iowa during its months-long training cruises. He was there when Iowa transported FDR and the highest civilian and military brass to North Africa on the president's journey to the Tehran Conference with Churchill and Stalin (and in the Atlantic, the Iowa came under torpedo attack - by a U.S. destroyer. That's another story, if someone wishes I'll link the story, and it's a fun story!).
In the 18 months Freeman served aboard as a member of Iowa's propulsion crew (the ship's 212,000 hp is the most powerful non-nuclear power plant ever employed in a USN warship), the battleship steamed nearly 200,000 miles all over the western Pacific and was part of the legendary naval battles that led to Japan's defeat.
Freeman was there on Sept. 2, 1945, high on Iowa's funnel grid walks as his ship served as the Guard of Honor, with Adm. Bull Halsey aboard, just hundreds of feet distant when Japanese officials signed the articles of surrender, on the quarter deck of Iowa's sister ship USS Missouri, ending the second World War.
And here in this video Freeman is, last month visiting his old haunts remembering the most momentous times in human history. Maybe a handful of members here will enjoy this video (his war remembrances begin about the 19:00 mark, before that is his tour among his old stations).
Cheers.
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