Pearl Harbor sailor given rightful place in history
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By Mike Gordon
Advertiser Staff Writer
Even now, after thinking about it for 10 years, Elmo Rash can't explain how he knew there was someone missing from the list of dead shipmates.
Advertiser photo illustration/Photos courtesy of Jimmy Porter
He had read the names of the men assigned to the USS Shaw, all of them casualties of the Japanese attack Dec. 7, 1941, on Pearl Harbor. They form two neat columns of 12 on a plaque behind the USS Arizona Memorial Visitors Center.
Ernest C. Porter Jr. of North Carolina was on the USS Shaw when he was mortally wounded in the attack on Pearl Harbor. Yet his name was never listed on a USS Arizona Memorial Visitors Center plaque honoring the casualties of the Dec. 7, 1941, attack. That oversight will be corrected today.
Ernest Porter Jr. was not among them.
Rash said he never knew Porter, even though both served on the Shaw and fought the attackers. Yet something moved him to unearth Porter's contribution. And Rash, an 83-year-old retired Navy senior chief, quietly rewrote history.
This morning, during a special Memorial Day ceremony at the visitors center, the National Park Service will add Porter's name to the list of casualties. A civilian, Virgil P. Raphel, also will be added.
Rash, of Lakewood, Calif., will be there. So will Porter's nephew James Porter, who traveled from his home in Wake Forest, N.C., after learning about Rash's effort to bring Ernest Porter's story to light.
"Everybody deserves recognition," said James Porter, a 57-year-old owner of an auto body repair shop. "Words really can't explain it."
Rash doesn't see anything special in what he did, even though it took nine years of letter-writing to convince the Navy that he was right about Ernest Porter.
"I kind of took it on myself to follow through and get (Porter's) name on the plaque, seeing how he got lost in the shuffle," Rash said. "Otherwise, he would have gone to the wayside, and nobody would have known anything about him."
The Shaw was in drydock when the attack began. Rash had only been with the crew for seven months, and he didn't know everyone on board.
As the Japanese attackers swept down on the Shaw, 20 crewmen stood on the drydock with Springfield rifles, shooting back. One of them was Porter. Another was Rash.
Several bombs turned the Shaw into a fiery, smoky platform. Rash was the only one left standing. The other men were blown over the side and into the harbor 50 feet below.
But Ernest Porter didn't die on that tragic Sunday. Navy doctors shipped him to Mare Island Naval Hospital in California, where he hung on.
James Porter said his uncle had a pound and a half of shrapnel removed from one of his legs. He also suffered injuries to his head and neck.
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One of the Porter children — there were three boys and a girl — was on his way to the California hospital when Ernest died March 1, 1942.
Elmo Rash of Lakewood, Calif., spent 10 years trying to get the name of shipmate Ernest C. Porter Jr. added to a plaque listing casualties of the attack on Pearl Harbor back in December 7, 1941.
The family brought Ernest home to Durham, N.C., and buried him in the family plot. There was never any discussion about plaques or memorials.
Decades later, at ceremonies marking the 50th anniversary of the attack, Rash stood before the plaque at Pearl Harbor that lists the Shaw dead.
"I just knew his name wasn't on it," Rash said. "I have wondered about that to this day."
He wrote a letter to the Bureau of Naval Personnel in Washington, D.C., to point out the mistake. He sent a second letter, and a third and a fourth. He waited, as patient as he could be.
Last year, the Navy told Rash he was right. Officials at the Arizona Memorial confirmed it and invited Rash to attend today's ceremony.
"I'm glad to see Porter recognized for what happened to him," Rash said. "He gets his place in history."
But what of the Porter family?
"I sent out about 40 postcards to all the Porters I could find on the Internet who lived around Raleigh, N.C.," Rash said. "I waited two weeks and got nothing."
Then a Raleigh newspaper printed Rash's story. James Porter read it, and he was stunned. Porter called Rash and thanked him.
"I just wish my daddy was living, or one of his brothers, to be there with us," James Porter said. "They would be so proud."
When the ceremony starts today, across the harbor from the Arizona Memorial, Rash will say a few words about what he did.
He's nervous and excited. He said the whole thing feels a little unreal.
"Somebody said I was changing history," Rash said.
