JOHNNY JOHNSON
Age: 83
Born: Jan. 30, 1927
Hometown: Buffalo, N.Y.
Residence: Desert Hot Springs
Military branch: U.S. Navy; USS Pasadena
Years served: 1944-1953
Rank: Gunner's mate first class
Family: Wife Hazel; five children, Gail DeForrest of Scottsdale, Ariz., Glenn Johnson of Pinecove, Robert Feldman of Loma Linda, Kenneth Feldman (deceased) and Guy Feldman (deceased); five grandchildren, five great-grandchildren.
About this series
Staff writer Denise Goolsby will profile desert veterans from World War II through the end of 2010 — the 65th anniversary of the end of the war.
Contact her at (760) 778-4587 or via e-mail at denise.goolsby@thedesertsun.com
Coming tomorrow
U.S. Marine Corps veteran Ken White of Palm Desert.
LEARN MORE: Read about other Coachella Valley residents who served in World War II at www.mydesert.com/WWII
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U.S. Navy veteran Johnny Johnson had just finished eating breakfast and was standing on the deck of the light cruiser the USS Pasadena when he saw a Japanese plane heading straight for the USS Franklin.
“I was right alongside the (USS) Franklin when it got hit,” Johnson said, calling the attack on the aircraft carrier one of his saddest memories of the war.
It was March 19, 1945, and the USS Franklin had maneuvered within 50 miles of Japan's mainland — closer than any other U.S. carrier during the war.
“It was 7 a.m.,” Johnson said. “I just came up from the mess hall. Planes were on the (USS Franklin) flight deck, engines were running, bombs were loaded. The kamikaze came out of the sky and hit dead center.”
The flight deck — lined with fully-fueled aircraft loaded with bombs — exploded when the Japanese pilot rammed the plane into the ship.
“I saw it coming down,” he said. “It hit the flight deck. It was like a ball of fire.”
“The poor sailors,” he said, his voice trailing off. “I can still see them floating in the water,” he said, as tears welled in his eyes.
Unfortunately, the ship couldn't stop to rescue survivors.
“If you stopped, you were a sitting duck,” he said.
“We had to go at flank speed and go through all of those guys in the water,” Johnson said.
As the USS Pasadena sailed by, the crew threw life jackets and some life rafts to the men who had gone overboard.
Johnson, who served as a gunner's mate first class, started and ended the war on the USS Pasadena, the flagship of Cruiser Division 17.
“I was on that ship when it was commissioned to the day it was decommissioned,” he said.
Johnson worked his way from handling ammunition in the bowels of the ship to jobs of increasing responsibility, including powder man and shell man, then up to gun captain, trainer, pointer and turret captain.
The 6-inch diameter projectiles weighed 127 pounds — and the charges — used to ignite the explosives — weighed in at 72 pounds each.
“I studied hard,” he said. “I wanted to get up from down below.”
The light cruiser was responsible for thwarting enemy attacks on aircraft carriers.
“The carrier was the queen bee,” he said. “We had to do everything we could to protect her,” he said.
The Battle of Okinawa, which lasted nearly three months and claimed the lives of 50,000 U.S military personnel, was a long one for the men at sea.
“The battle for us lasted 79 days,” he said. “Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.”
Ashore, the Japanese were waging all-or-nothing attacks on U.S. troops.
“They were desperate,” he said. “Okinawa was their last stand.”
Johnson, who earned six battle stars for his service in the Pacific and later served in the Korean War, got his first taste of combat in the Philippines.
“My first one was Leyte Gulf,” he said. “That's when I wished I wouldn't have lied to the recruiter.”
Johnson's mother wouldn't sign for her son to join the Navy when he was 17, so he had his sister sign his mom's name and Johnson faked his dad's signature.
“If you were breathing, walking or talking, they didn't care if you lied,” he added. “They didn't check the signatures.”
“After the first two or three battles the fear subsided,” he said. “We didn't ever think we could get hurt.”
Iwo Jima was five days of continuous battle, he said.
“Just constant, constant, constant bombardment,” Johnson said.
“Actually, Mother Nature raised more hell with us than the battles,” he said.
A typhoon in the South China Sea in December 1944 churned up 60-foot waves that gave the ships a thrashing.
“We lost three destroyers, we lost the bows off our heavy cruisers,” he said.
The USS Pasadena was credited with knocking down four kamikazes.
“The four we got almost got us,” he said. “We knocked a kamikaze out that was headed for the carrier Gerald Ford was on (USS Monterey).
“We were lucky, we had a good gunnery crew,” he said. “We were the fifth-best shot in the whole fleet.”
