75th Anniversary of Pearl Harbor

USS Ward photo from 1918, near the end of the Great War (World War I)

December 7th.

Yes, it's Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day--the 75th Anniversary. And it's so much more.

You see, my grandfather was at Pearl Harbor, the most devastating attack upon American soil until 9/11. Notice, please, that I didn't say "in" Pearl Harbor. No, he was on the USS Ward, an insignificant destroyer, a remnant of the US Naval fleet from the Great War (WWI), that was patrolling outside the harbor in the early hours of 7 December. It was within the first 24 hours of LCDR William Outerbridge's first command. My grandfather, Richard Edward Farwell, was the First Officer, also his first command.

Captain Richard E. Farwell--my grandfather

And what happened next is a oft-forgotten event of history: 

From Wikipedia:

On the morning of 7 December 1941, under the command of LCDR William W. Outerbridge, Ward was conducting a precautionary patrol off the entrance to Pearl Harbor when she was informed at 03:57 by visual signals from the coastal minesweeper Condor of a periscope sighting, whereupon Ward began searching for the contact. At about 06:37, she sighted a periscope apparently tailing the cargo ship Antares whereupon she attacked the target.^[4] The target sunk was a Japanese Ko-hyoteki-class two-man midget submarine and thus Ward fired the first American shots of World War II a few hours before Japanese carrier aircraft formally opened the conflict with their attack on the Pacific Fleet inside the harbor. The submarine was attempting to enter the harbor by following Antares through the anti-submarine nets at the harbor entrance. Ward fired several rounds from its main guns hitting the conning tower of the sub and also dropped several depth charges during the attack.

And from the Minneapolis Star Observer:

At 4 a.m., a minesweeper signaled the Ward that it had sighted a submerged submarine in the area.

The crew conducted a search, but nothing was found until, at 6.30 a.m., several of them spotted what appeared to be a conning tower or buoy moving in the water. Alerted, the Ward’s captain spied the object and confirmed to his satisfaction that it was a submarine preparing to enter the harbor channel behind another Navy ship. The fact was alarming because all U.S. submarines in the area were under orders to operate on the surface with a destroyer escort.

If there was any hesitation about what to do next, it was short-lived. At 6:45, the captain ordered to “commence firing!” A shell from the ship’s No. 1 gun missed, but the nine-man crew of the No. 3 gun next fired a shot that was seen to hit the base of the conning tower. The sub disappeared beneath the waves. The crew had sunk a Japanese two-man midget submarine (the wreckage, with a shell hole in the conning tower, was discovered in 2002).

The Ward immediately notified Naval Command at Pearl Harbor that it had attacked and fired upon a submarine operating in the restricted area. But in a frustrating counterpoint to the swiftness of her captain’s and crew’s reactions, the message was essentially ignored.

And thus, the crew of the USS Ward discharged the first American shot of World War II. 

In 2002, the Japanese midget submarine was found by divers, right where the Ward reported discharging their weapons. Here's the link to the article in the Honolulu Observer. 

Japanese midget sub sunk by the USS Ward, 2005 expedition

Then 7 December became even more important for my family three years later. On 7 December 1944 in the Leyte Gulf, the Ward was struck by a Japanese kamikaze pilot and my grandfather, Captain Farwell, managed to evacuate all personnel with no casualties. In fact, from Pearl Harbor to the Leyte Gulf, the USS Ward sustained no casualties.  

USS Ward, sinking in the Leyte Gulf after being hit by a kamikaze. My grandfather is the man with the helmet and jacket all the way to the left on the USS O'Brien, watching the Ward ship sink.

The crew of the Ward were rescued by the USS O'Brien, commanded by William Outerbridge, the captain the Ward at Pearl Harbor. Outerbridge had to give the order to scuttle the Ward, so with my grandfather, captain of the USS Ward at his side, the two men who had captained the Ward watched it disappear into the sea. 

For those of you who love naval history, here's the whole history of the USS Ward, from being built in a mere 15 days to the sinking in the Leyte Gulf: http://destroyerhistory.org/flushdeck/ussward/.

This afternoon my mother is giving a talk on the USS Ward and her father's part in firing the First Shot to the Honolulu Rotary Club. I wish that it could be recorded as I really want to be there to soak up all of the family history. 

Other 7's run through my family: my grandparents were married on 7 January 1943, and my mother was born on 7 October 1943. 

Then I gave birth to our youngest child on 7 December, and we named him for my grandfather by giving him the middle name "Edward." My grandfather was not alive to meet his namesake, but I think he'd be proud just the same to have a great-grandson born on this memorable day.

So Happy 17th Birthday to Benjamin Edward, born on this most important day in the history of our family.

In remembrance,

Genealogy Progress

(Family photo at California Adventure, March 2009, L to R: my parents, my brother and his kids, and our four kids)

I have been spending hours since school ended entering my family research into the genealogy software, Roots Magic 4, that my parents purchased for me. Their 45th anniversary is this Saturday, and as our gift to them, I want to get as much research as possible on both sides of the family entered into the program and then printed and bound in a binder for the party. We'll have family members from both sides of the family attending the party on Saturday afternoon, so I want to be as complete as possible with the more recent family members as well as the generations in the past.

I have traced my paternal grandfather's family back to 1732 in Germany. My maternal grandmother's family is going to require a great amount of untangling as there are so many of them in one area that I'm not sure who is whom. Fortunately, two of her brothers are still living in Orange County (Dana Point, I think), and I hope to see them this summer and get their help in sorting out their branches of the family tree.

I'm working on my mother's side of the family this week. Over a year ago, I Googled my maternal grandfather's family as they were a rather well-known architectural firm here in San Diego in the 20's and 30's who designed several San Diego landmarks (Balboa Stadium, the old Police Station, the North Park Theater, etc.) and many family homes, schools, firehouses, etc., as well. And as I checked them out, I discovered an incredible resource: in 1984 a woman named Karna Webster wrote a Master's thesis at University of San Diego (where I received my own Master's degree and also taught there after graduating, so my library card is still active) on the Quayle family of architects, and she did painstaking research on my family who came to San Diego in 1900. I checked out the unpublished thesis from the library and photocopied a great deal of it; she had interviewed the descendants of the older brother (the senior partner of the firm), and my family is descended from the younger brother, the junior partner. Through her invaluable research, I have been able to trace William Quayle, their father who first started the architectural firm, to the Isle of Man where he was born on Christmas Day, 1835. Very cool stuff. I definitely need to find Karna Webster and thank her. I have also been able to research my maternal grandmother's family as well, tracing them also back to the mid-1800's.

So I'm entering all of this information into Roots Magic 4, the newest version that came out just a couple of months ago. I can also scan in and add photos and make pages for each person in our family tree. I have barely scratched the surface, but I am having so much fun; researching is definitely in my blood. My brother-in-law has apparently traced back my husband's side of the family to 1850, so when I can, I'll add in his research to the program as well.

This is my "big project" for the summer, and I'm enjoying every keystroke. :)

Tuesday night update: I "Googled" Karna Webster and found a possible e-mail, address, and phone number. I e-mailed the address, asking if she was the one who wrote the thesis on the Quayle architects, and tonight she responded that yes, she was, and sent me her phone number (which matched the one I found earlier). And guess what? She lives a mere 35 minutes away from me in La Mesa, the city in which our church is! I'll be calling her tomorrow to thank her and ask her a few questions about the veracity of some family stories about landmarks the Quayle Brothers Firm alledgedly designed. Yay!

The Joys of Genealogy

I have been interested in genealogical research for the past fifteen years or so, ever since my dad became interested in the subject and wanted me to trace our family line as so many of his family members, including several uncles in their late 80's and early 90's, are still quite sharp and can help us greatly. But the project has been sitting on the proverbial back burner until this past winter.

Our local library advertised a genealogy class in December, and although I had often seen such classes on the large marquee next to New Releases, for some reason I felt the pull more strongly this time and found myself showing up for the Tuesday evening class that met just an hour before our monthly writers' group. Ken, a member of the San Diego Genealogical Society, led a few of us through the basics of researching through Ancestry.com and several other sources. And immediately, I was hooked on genealogy research.

It made sense, really. Research has always been my passion. I love unearthing new material, copying it down, organizing it, and then rewriting it clearly and concisely. I could research forever and never actually settle down to write the main work ... as seen with my theological project on liturgy and the evangelical church which I started nearly five years ago and continue researching. And, obviously despite my complaining, I do love teaching the MLA research method, even if grading the papers takes forever. So genealogical research and I were destined to meet and fall in love.

Ken mentioned his favorite software program, Roots Magic (see illustration above from the Roots Magic site) was coming out with a new fourth version which my parents purchased for me last month. And I have really enjoyed plugging my research into it -- it's all so cool! I've only had access to the software for a month and have been rather overwhelmed with MLA student conferences and now with grading them, so I haven't had as much time to enter information as I would like. That's my plan for the summer ... lots of research, sourcing, and data entry. And from that data I'll be able to trace family trees, lineages, make a separate page for each family member, and even collate all the material into book form. Cool!

Ancestry.com is a great site, but it costs $15 each month to access its wonderful depths. However, the San Diego County Library system provides a free (limited) library version which must be accessed from their own computers; from this source I have gained the vast majority of information on occasional Saturday visits. But I also accessed the LDS genealogy site in the last month from home and was delighted to find a family tree already completed of my father's family which we always assumed was English. I found out, however, that the first Lower (pronounced Lauer), a Michael Lower, came to the colonies before the American Revolution from Germany. He was born in 1732 in Zweibrucken (wish I knew how to make umlauts work!) but married in Pennsylvania in 1750, so he obviously emigrated sometime between those dates. My dad was flabbergasted and amazed.

My parents will be celebrating their 45th anniversary later this month, and we'll have a good number of extended family members joining us for the party. At least one of them is interested in genealogy, so I hope to glean more information as well as share what I've found. And I also want to be able to demonstrate what I have discovered about our family to whomever may be interested. It's just such a great opportunity, but I have so much to pull together before the party on June 27!

I have barely scraped the surface of my genealogical research and of Roots Magic (can't wait to start scanning in photos and really adding in-depth material), but I think I know what I will be doing with a sizable chunk of my summer "free" time.

So tonight it's off to our genealogy class to learn even more about research methods and documentation! Be still, my heart....