Image shared via Wausau Daily Herald
Will Lehner, of Stevens Point, Wisconsin was only 20 years old in 1941 and serving in the Navy, where he was assigned to the USS Ward.
“At the entrance to Pearl Harbor our job was patrolling back and forth for a week at a time,” Lehner told NPR.
He was on one of these patrols during the early hours of Dec. 7, 1941. During that time, before the surprise attack, is when Lehner says the Japanese navy sent small surveillance submarines to the harbor.
He says his crew saw one, and fired.
“I saw the shell when it hit the sub, right in the hole,” Lehner says. “It was about 75 feet long and about 4 or 5 foot in diameter.” (source: Pearl Harbor Survivor Recounts Sinking Of Japanese Sub Before Aerial Attack)
Tin Hut BBQ founder Frank Diaz was humbled and honored for the privilege of seeing and making history, and serving Will Lehner and fellow heroes; great men honored at the 75th Anniversary of Pearl Harbor at the Hawaii Remembers Block Party hosted by The Brewseum on Sunday December 4, 2016.
The event, hosted by the Tomlinson Family and the Pearl Harbor 75th Anniversary Commemoration Committee was a historic evening to remember, honor, and salute local and visiting Pearl Harbor Survivors, their families, WWII Veterans, and U.S. Military.
The ship to which Will Lehner was assigned, the USS Ward (DD-139), is the most talked about destroyer from the Pearl Harbor attack. Not because the ship is incredibly impressive, but because she fired the first shots of WWII in the Pacific.
“At the entrance to Pearl Harbor our job was patrolling back and forth for a week at a time,” Lehner told NPR.
“He was on one of these patrols during the early hours of Dec. 7, 1941. During that time, before the surprise attack, is when Lehner says the Japanese navy sent small surveillance submarines to the harbor.
He says his crew saw one, and fired.
“I saw the shell when it hit the sub, right in the hole,” Lehner says. “It was about 75 feet long and about 4 or 5 foot in diameter.'” (Source: NPR)
The sinking of that sub was disputed until 2002 when a University of Hawaii submarine found the wreckage of a Japanese submarine at the bottom of the ocean floor. This confirmed not only did USS Ward fire the first shot, but she sunk a submarine as well. (Source: Pearl Harbor Memorials.com)
Three U.S. battleships are hit from the air during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. AP
Because there was no proof, many doubted for more than half a century that the Ward had sunk a submarine. But in 2002, after an extensive underwater search conducted by the Hawaii Undersea Research Laboratory — with the help of USS Ward crew member, Willett Lehner — the Japanese midget sub was discovered and is now considered the most significant find since the war. (Source: Pearl Harbor Memorials.com)
My job was to get the shell in the gun. And it was about, probably forty-eight inches high. They would hand me the shell, the fuse-setter, they’d set the fuse on the shell and then they’d hand it to me and I’d put it in the magazine, be sure it got in the magazine, and after it was fired it would eject, and then we had a hot shell man with asbestos gloves, he would catch the casing at the end, and as soon as it was empty, I would put another one in…. I never got any big medals. I was never a hero. I was just there. (Will Lehner, excerpt from “Transcript of an Oral History Interview with WILL S. LEHNER Gun Loader and Cook, Navy, World War II. 2002”) Read the entire interview here.
