The History Lesson of a Lifetime from a 101-year-old World War II Veteran

I asked him “what does a ‘torpedo communications officer’ DO?” His response was just laughter.

Jack Slaughter was 28-years-old when he went to sleep the night of Dec. 6, 1941 on board a U.S. Destroyer based in Manila Bay of the Philippines. At three o’clock in the morning the next day (eight o’clock in the morning Hawaii time on Dec. 7, 1941), he was shaken awake to read an urgent “ALNAV” message, a mass Navy message directed to all Navy units worldwide issued by the United States Secretary of the Navy (the head of the Department of the Navy of the United States). As a young Communications Officer, Slaughter was mostly accustomed to reading ALNAV messages announcing standard drills for regular practice which specifically ended with, “this is a drill.” So looking back on reading this early-morning note, he vividly remembers the bolded and underlined words, “This is not a drill” following the devastating news that Pearl Harbor had been attacked by the Japanese.

After their attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese later attacked the Philippines where four U.S. Destroyers, one which Slaughter was serving on, sat unassuming and completely and utterly vulnerable in the Port of Manila. Slaughter swears luck is the reason that the first ship he ever served on was the only one in the group of four to survive the battle. “We did not have adequate aircraft guns, let alone a single gun which would reach 4,000 feet where the Japanese were flying. So we just sat there,” said Slaughter. The other three vessels never made it out of the Port. “We were no better. Had we been where they were, we’d have sunk, too. We had no defense.”

Upon surviving the attack on the Port of Manila, Slaughter was transferred to the USS John D. Ford, a ship he would later command as captain from two years of wartime promotions after 1941. “Wartime promotions were made in a span of three years which would have taken me ten years to achieve (in peace),” said Slaughter.

In a counterattack, The 59th U.S. Navy Destroyer Division composed of USS Paul Jones, Parrott, Pope and Slaughter’s ship, John D. Ford, attacked the Japanese navy at Balikpapan where they successfully sank at least four Japanese transport ships and one patrol boat in torpedo attacks. As the Torpedo Communications Officer aboard the John D. Ford, Slaughter was responsible for the visual communication of targets and aiming torpedoes with consideration for “lead” and speed. Slaughter remembers commanding the firing of missiles with a loud, but crisp,“FIRE ONE! FIRE TWO!” and so on until all torpedoes had been deployed.

You can read about the Battle of Balikpapan; it’s a part of World War II history.

The battle was the first offensive surface engagement in Southeast Asia that the U.S. Navy had participated in since the Spanish-American War in 1898. Capt. Slaughter tells the story of reprisal with immense pride for having successfully sunk Japanese vessels. He shared his first-hand account that they’d suspected their torpedoes had taken down more ships, but only four or five were actually confirmed and reported in history.

The destroyer fled the Battle of Balikpapan through the Sundra Strait. He said when the John D. Ford made it to the coast of Australia some ten days later, everyone thought they’d already been sunk.

Slaughter is 101 this Memorial Day, which makes this story more than 70 years old.

His ALNAV message-reading days are behind him, and his life is now much more relaxed than the “minute-by-minute” days he led in battle. “I don’t live in the past,” said Slaughter when asked about remembering his 30 years of Navy service in honor of the Memorial Day holiday.

“I was doing what I was supposed to be doing.”

For Captain Jack Slaughter, celebrating Memorial Day isn’t about remembering it, because he already lived it. He’s a part of the history and the history is a part of him.

“I was never afraid.”

(To read more stories like this one, visit http://rolandparkplace.org/news-stories/rpp-stories.)