Published March 8, 2004
Hendersonville Times-News

 http://www.blueridgenow.com/article/20040308/NEWS/403080321/0/search

Two Henderson County men entered the Navy together in 1943

By Jennie Jones Giles
George Justice of Dana and Thomas Dillard of Mills River were lucky enough to be assigned to the same ship, the USS Bush, which served in the South Pacific in World War II.
Justice would return home; Dillard would not.
Justice, one of eight children of the late Albert and Tammie Justice, was 18 when he joined the Navy. Two of his brothers, Ernest and John, were already fighting in Europe with the Army.
After basic training outside Chicago, Justice left for San Francisco to join the new USS Bush, a destroyer named for a Marine, William S. Bush, who died aboard the USS Constitution in the War of 1812.

Hawaii to New Guinea

“I did everything on deck, from handling the lines to cleaning the deck,” Justice said.
The crew sailed for Hawaii and firing practices onboard the new destroyer.
“A five-inch projectile exploded just as it got out of the barrel,” said Justice, who now lives in Mountain Home. “It killed six and wounded four.”
The destroyer returned to Honolulu for repairs and to have the ammunition removed.
“We figured it was bad and re-stocked new,” he said.
The crew set course for the islands of New Guinea in late 1943, where soldiers and Marines were fighting the Japanese.
“Going around the equator, I got my initiation,” Justice said. “I became a seaman.”
Justice and other sailors were blindfolded for the initiation. They crawled down the line of seasoned sailors.
“We went down on our bellies and were busted on our rear ends,” the 79-year-old said.
At the end of the line stood King Neptune, with his belly saturated in fish and sardines. After slamming their faces into the oily belly of the king, the new seamen were dropped into the ocean and pulled back up.
“During peacetime they were let down in a big net with a buoy,” Justice said. “It’s a rough initiation. Officers have a worse time. They had to eat food off the deck.”
Justice remembers the first Japanese attack he experienced off the coast of New Guinea in the early months of 1944. The crew was bombing an island as soldiers were fighting.
“Once we were attacked with 12 planes. Four were bombers and four fighters. We shot down four of them,” he said. “Another time the captain maneuvered the ship between two torpedoes. Japanese planes were after us all the time.”
Later in the year, the destroyer, with its five, five-inch 38-caliber guns and 10 21-inch quintuple torpedo tubes was sent to escort the USS Nashville, which was carrying Gen. Douglas MacArthur.

Philippines to Iwo Jima

After the Japanese had taken the Philippines from America in 1942, Gen. Douglas MacArthur vowed to return. Justice was a witness to the return in late 1944.
“MacArthur didn’t go in with the first guys like some say,” Justice said. “He left on the third wave. The soldiers were 10 miles inland before he got there. We were in the full battle for the Philippines and were shooting planes down. We did that until things were secure.”
The destroyer was ordered back to New Guinea for a camouflage paint job and to restock supplies.
“It didn’t help much,” he said. “We still got plenty of attacks.”
In January 1945, Justice was again in the Philippines. The USS Bush escorted LSTs, which are small boats carrying supplies and troops, and transport ships from the Gulf of Leyte and other parts of the islands to the island of Mendora.
“During one 24 hours we were attacked continuously,” he said. “Once there were five cargo ships and an ammunition ship. We hit a plane and it pulled off and went straight for the ammunition ship. It went up like a bomb. There was nothing left of that ship. All the shrapnel went up and we had to hit the deck. We were about 300 yards away, just broadside of it.”
A Japanese plane flew down toward the LSTs, he said. All five cargo ships were hit.
From Feb. 19 to March 6, 1945, Justice witnessed the Marines fighting for control of the rocky island of Iwo Jima.
“We were firing star shells at night,” he said.
The star shells exploded over the island to light up the area so Marines could see to fight. Justice said the destroyer was close enough to the island to see the fighting.
“I’ll never forget those Marines,” he said. “I saw Marines swimming in the ocean with the fighting going on. We bombarded the Japanese whenever we could locate them with our five-inch guns. That island was nothing but rocks and caves, but they finally took it.”
Following a return trip to the Philippines, the destroyer headed for Okinawa.

Disaster at Okinawa

“We escorted troop ships to Okinawa for the invasion,” Justice said.
It was about 3 p.m. April 6, 1945, and Justice was loading a 40mm gun when a Japanese plane came toward the destroyer.
“He was right above the water when he was hit,” Justice said. “He still kept on coming and hit the ship between the No. 1 and No. 2 stacks. I was on the other side, about 25 to 50 feet above where he hit.”
The plane went into the forward engine room and fire room. The ship lost power and Justice took off down the deck just as it blew up.
“It blew me down the passage,” he said. “I thought my rear end was blown off.”
About 5 p.m., a second kamikaze hit the ship on the opposite side and cut the ship in two, he said.
“I had got back on my gun, there wasn’t much other place to go,” he said. “It wouldn’t fire.”
Within 45 minutes a third kamikaze plane was coming at the destroyer.
“I just went over the side,” he said. “Lt. Woodhurst and I were in the water on a rubber inflatable life raft. A plane was strafing and put a hole in the raft. We didn’t have any more. The lieutenant must have gotten hit because he said, `You get on out of here. I’m not going to make it.'”
Justice began swimming toward the bow of the ship.
“The plane hit right above me,” he said. “It killed a lot of men on the bow. The current was pushing me out. I could see a bunch of men way out in the ocean on what I thought was a raft so I took off for it.”
Justice said he swam past the chief electrician who was floating with a life jacket. He told his fellow sailor to swim, but the man would not.
“He shook his head and didn’t even try,” Justice said. “I finally caught up with that thing. It was an old wooden boat turned upside down. I just joined the crew around it.”
Ten to 14 men were clinging to the sides of the overturned boat, he said. An injured sailor was on top. Another man kept trying to climb on top and the men were pulling him off.
“At some point I never saw or heard from him anymore,” Justice said. “He had a life jacket. We couldn’t let him on the boat or it would sink.”
Justice and the other men clung to the sides of the overturned boat for at least 12 hours before they were spotted by a rescue ship.
“The water was cold,” Justice said. “When a plane would come over, we would get down. If they saw us, they would strafe. It was a relief when darkness came. I just kept talking to God. It was still dark when the rescue ship came. Some of the guys tried to swim to the ship too quick. One guy was sucked in the screws of the propeller.
“They had to pull me aboard,” he said. “I couldn’t move from the hips down. I almost froze to death. The next morning I saw three or four of the guys with tags on their toes. They died from hypothermia.”
By the third attack, darkness had settled in, official Navy reports state. There was a strong current and a breeze, which spread survivors over a wide area of rough, cold water. Some men became hysterical and violent. They were wearing life jackets and appeared unhurt, but would give up and slide out of their life jackets and go down or swim out into the darkness. There were 33 lost in this period. Some let go and swam toward rescue ships only to lose strength and sink or be lost. Some were knocked out on the hulls of the rescue ships. Twelve died after being hauled onboard.
Within days of the tragedy, the surviving crew members from the destroyer were placed aboard the USS Henrico for the journey back to the United States.
Thomas Dillard of Mills River, Justice’s buddy, was one of the men who died April 6, 1945, aboard the USS Bush.
Justice served two more years in the Navy at duty posts in Washington state. His last assignment was guard duty on a tugboat. When he was discharged in 1947, he spent four years at a vocational/agricultural school at the Dana School.
He was an apple grower for 25 years in the Upward community and served 18 years as a constable in Henderson County. He worked 28 years managing an apple packing house. Justice currently works part time at the Ingles store in Laurel Park and has a small nursery on his property.
He and his wife, Editha, have a daughter and Justice has two children from an earlier marriage.