Pearl Harbor Survivor Dies at Age 87
Vern Jacobson: Navy Veteran Also Fought in the Korean War
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By Becky Bartholomew / For The Chronicle | 0 comments
Vern Jacobson, a Pearl Harbor survivor who jumped from his torpedoed ship and swam through burning flames on that “Day of Infamy,” died Monday. The veteran of two wars was 87.
Jacobson was born Nov. 30, 1922, in Portland and grew up in Cathlamet. In 1941 he enlisted in the Navy, attending boot camp at San Diego. His first assignment was to the battleship U.S.S. California stationed in Hawaii.
His ship was hit three times, killing 105 and injuring 60. He watched men jumping from the U.S.S. Oklahoma nearby as it burned and sank after the surprise Japanese attack.
When the order finally came to abandon his own ship, he climbed down to retrieve life jackets and found himself one short.
“I didn’t need a life jacket,” he told The Chronicle in 2008. He jumped nine feet from the bow of the California and started swimming through thick oil that covered his face. At times he dove under the burning flames.
With his ship out of commission, Jacobson was assigned to help rebuild the U.S.S. West Virginia, also sunk but less damaged.
It was months after the attack and soon after being posted to the West Virginia that Jacobson witnessed a scene that impressed his war experience on him for the rest of his life.
“When workers finally welded through one chamber at the bottom of the damaged ship,” he told The Chronicle in 2004, “they found a roomful of bodies and a calendar hanging on the wall marking each day that passed until the men ran out of breath. The last day marked was Dec. 22.”
According to Lee Grimes, director of the Veterans Memorial Museum, Jacobson spent the rest of the war on the West Virginia, “taking the battle back to the Japanese.”
In 1947 Jacobson left the Navy, logged for a time near Cathlamet, then worked in a Seattle glass plant. Soon after the Korean War began in June 1950, he reenlisted and was assigned to the destroyer U.S.S. Tingey. The Tingey patrolled Korean waters, firing on enemy bridges, mines, and troop concentrations. Jacobson mustered out in September 1954. Some years later he met and married Amiko. During their long marriage he affectionately called her “my lady love.”
In civilian life Jacobson worked as an equipment operator building power lines for the Bonneville Power Administration. Later he was custodian at Toledo Elementary School, retiring in 1990.
Reminiscing in 2002, Jacobson said many Pearl Harbor Days passed with little or no mention of the lives lost in 1941. That began to change in 1995 when the Veterans Memorial Museum opened. Jacobson attended nearly every museum function and told his story to visitors whenever asked. Then came Sept. 11, 2001, and a sudden resurgence of interest in Pearl Harbor. In recent years Jacobson was often invited to speak at local schools.
“It is so nice to be acknowledged,” Jacobson said at one gathering honoring him and other World War II veterans.
Grimes says Jacobson was “an extremely strong supporter of what we do here.” He recalls Jacobson never had a bad to thing to say about anyone “unless you said something bad about the museum, and then he was on you.”
But in Grimes’ opinion, Jacobson’s most important contribution was his Pearl Harbor service.
“As far as I’m concerned,” Grimes said, “he’s one of the heroes of our nation.”
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Memorial
A memorial service for Vern Jacobson will be held 11 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 25, at the Christian Fellowship, Winlock, with a reception to follow in the church social hall.
A celebration of life will follow at 3 p.m. at the Veterans Memorial Museum, Chehalis.
To all the veterans of the world who fought in the name of their country, you will be remembered.
Chez
