Las Vegas veteran joins USS Arizona shipmates in Pearl Harbor’s warm embrace

The urn containing the ashes of Clarendon Robert Hetrick, who died in April in a Las Vegas hospital at 92, made its final journey in the arms of two divers, who carefully accepted it from Hetrick’s son, Bob, then descended about 35 feet and installed it inside a gun turret housing of the sunken battleship.

“There’s nobody in the world that’s going to take better care of my dad for eternity than the Arizona Memorial. This was his wish, and I’m honored to be able to carry it out,” Bob Hetrick said as he held a folded flag Navy sailors presented to him Wednesday afternoon. “He’s back in his ship with his shipmates. He’s back home.”

Bob Hetrick’s oldest brother, Ben Hetrick, 70, a Vietnam War Army draftee, also offered his thoughts. “One of the reasons he wanted to go back to the Arizona is because 1,177 people were on the ship that didn’t return. I think he wanted to be with them,” the Turlock, California, resident said.

The team of eight Navy SEAL and National Park Service divers made two trips below on this anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Minutes earlier, they placed an urn containing the ashes of John D. Anderson of Roswell, New Mexico, who died last year at 98, inside the sunken ship where his twin brother, Delbert “Jake” Anderson, died in the onslaught 75 years ago.

The names of both men also were etched on a block at the base of a wall inside the USS Arizona Memorial, which bears the names of the 1,177 sailors and Marines who were killed when the ship foundered on Dec. 7, 1941, after being blasted by torpedoes and bombs. The wall now has a total of 1,218 names, as 41 crew members who survived the attack chose the memorial as their final resting place, including Hetrick and Anderson.

Only five survivors from the ship are still living, four of whom journeyed to Pearl Harbor this week for official observances. All told, the surprise attack killed more than 3,000 U.S. servicemen.

The sight of his dad’s name in the war memorial brought tears to the eyes of Bob Hetrick, 53.

“This shows me that my dad is as large a hero to the rest of the country as he has been to me my whole life,” he said.”And his name will be there forever, showing that he’s a hero.”

‘PRESENCE OF THEIR GREATNESS’

Hetrick, who lives in Las Vegas, said the conflicting emotions that surfaced during a week that was both somber and uplifting were “really impossible to put into words.”

“I am just so proud to be here in the presence of their greatness,” he said of Pearl Harbor veterans. “These people saved us and the way of life we have today. They made America what it is. I am thankful for them every single day of my life and thankful that my dad went through what he did.”

Clarendon Hetrick — “Clare” to friends and family members — and Anderson, were among the 334 Arizona crew members who survived the attack. Both were regulars at USS Arizona survivors’ reunions over the years.

Reflecting on the days he spent with his father growing up in California, Bob Hetrick recalled attending many parades that his father participated in.

“We even had a couple white goats as Navy mascots that we would groom for the parades,” he said.

“When I was young, I didn’t realize what it meant because I was around him all the time,” he said. “I thought everybody had relatives and parents that had gone through this. It wasn’t until maybe my 20s that I realized that this isn’t normal. Not everybody has somebody that went through this tragedy.

“I’m just so, so proud.”

He remembers playing on the USS Arizona’s anchor, which was then displayed on a grass area outside the memorial’s visitor center, during one visit to Pearl Harbor in 1971

“Now as I look at it. I was playing on a piece of history.”

Clare Hetrick was born May 26, 1923, in Cheyenne, Wyoming. A mess cook from Lemon Grove, California, he joined the Navy in 1940 at age 17 with his parents’ permission.

In interviews over the years with the Review-Journal, he recounted how he was busing dishes that morning when the bombs exploded.

He ran to his battle station, the third-deck ammunition magazine, where he started handing up shells for topside guns.

“We took a hit. It knocked us all off our feet. We started smelling smoke, and somebody said, ‘Get the hell out of here,’” he said in one of his last interviews.

After scrambling to escape through a hatch, he climbed to the quarter-deck, which was normally 15 feet above the water line but by this time was only a foot above it because the ship was sinking so fast.

Then he plunged into the briny harbor and headed for Ford Island about 75 yards away.

“The only thing I could think of was ‘move!’” he recalled. “I don’t know whether I swam or ran across the water, but I happened to make it across.”

MISSING MAN FORMATION

Earlier Wednesday, four stealth F-22 Raptor jets thundered over Pearl Harbor in a missing man formation at 7:55 a.m., marking 75 years to the moment the beginning of the attack that thrust the United States into World War II.

The guided-missile destroyer USS Halsey signaled a moment of silence with the ship’s whistle at the appointed time, followed immediately by the flyover into a sunny sky festooned with angelic cumulus clouds.

About 4,000 guests, including several dozen Pearl Harbor survivors, gathered under a canopy on Kilo Pier overlooking the harbor for the official 75th commemoration ceremony of the attack.

Among them was Pearl Harbor survivor Ira “Ike” Schab, a former North Las Vegas resident who described the observance as “humbling.”

Schab, 96, who moved to Hillsboro, Oregon, in 2012, was a sailor in the band aboard the USS Dobbin when the attack erupted. Instead of playing tuba during the morning flag-raising, he found himself helping load ammunition for the destroyer tender’s guns.

“I was scared to death,” he said, minutes before Wednesday ‘s ceremony, the first anniversary observance he has attended. “I didn’t know if I was going to make it.

“It’s a fear no one can describe.”

Contact Keith Rogers at krogers@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0308. Find him on Twitter: @KeithRogers2