Mediaboss Marketing

s s

Sections

You've read 3 of 10 free articles this month.

Get unlimited access to PressDemocrat.com, the eEdition and our mobile app starting at 99 cents per month.

You've read 6 of 10 free articles this month.

Get unlimited access to PressDemocrat.com, the eEdition and our mobile app starting at 99 cents per month.

You've read all of your free articles this month.

Get unlimited access to PressDemocrat.com, the eEdition and our mobile app starting at 99 cents per month.

We've got a special deal for readers like you.

Get unlimited access to PressDemocrat.com, the eEdition and our mobile app starting 99 cents per month and support local journalism.

Thanks for reading! Why not subscribe?

Get unlimited access to PressDemocrat.com, the eEdition and our mobile app starting 99 cents per month and support local journalism.

Want to keep reading? Subscribe today!

Ooops! You're out of free articles. Starting at just 99 cents per month, you can keep reading all of our products and support local journalism.

SRJC to cut hundreds of temporary jobs to close budget gap

Sebastopol looks warily at rent control after Santa Rosa defeat

Local cases of child abuse and neglect up 17 percent

Earl Smith, former SRJC instructor, Pearl Harbor vet, dies at 94

Attorney: Oakland warehouse fire defendant in near mental breakdown

State money available for cleaning pot grow sites in Sonoma County

CHRIS SMITH

THE PRESS DEMOCRAT | June 9, 2017, 5:01PM

| Updated 43 minutes ago.

The day before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, an 18-year-old sailor named Fred Earl Smith, quite a baseball player, took the infield for two intra-Navy games.

Smith and his shipmates from the battleship USS Tennessee took on the team from the Arizona, then from the West Virginia.

The first game was close, the future Santa Rosa Junior College instructor recalled in an interview in 2015, until he hit a home run.

It won the game against the Arizona, Smith told Hawaii Public Radio. The West Virginia, we stomped em.

The Navy baseball players partied that Saturday night in Honolulu. Early the next morning, torrents of Japanese bombs, torpedoes and bullets turned Pearl Harbor awash in death and fire.

For the following 76 years, it pained Smith to read the names of the sailors who died that day.

Half of the West Virginias ballplayers were killed and all the Arizonas ballplayers were killed, he said two years ago.

The career Navy man and former 26-year resident of Sonoma County died May 21 at his retirement home in Rio Vista. He was 94.

Smith, who taught electronics at SRJC through much of the 1980s and 90s and for a short time ran a Texaco service station on Santa Rosa Avenue, returned many times to Oahu and to Pearl Harbor. He was there most recently for the 75th anniversary observances last December.

Smith recalled then to a Los Angeles Times reporter that after the attack he was sent into the burning harbor in a motor launch to recover injured and dead sailors.

I felt like I was trying to save lives, he said. And we did pull a few out who were injured. But most we just had to tie a rope to the leg and pull them out and stack them like cords of wood.

Smith remarked after the 75th anniversary ceremonies that he might not be physically or emotionally up to any more return visits to Pearl Harbor. The veteran also carried with him memories from the historically deadly Battle of Tarawa in November 1943. His role as crewman with the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga earned him a Presidential Citation.

Smith was born in 1923 in Tulsa, Okla., and upon graduating from high school went into the Navy. On the day of the attack by the Japanese Imperial Navy, his hands were badly burned as he fought fires and helped to remove injured and dead sailors from the oil-coated and burning harbor.

He was hospitalized for several weeks and then transferred from the damaged Tennessee to the aircraft carrier Saratoga.

After the war, Smith made a run at big-league baseball. He was signed onto a major league farm team and hadnt played long when a base-runner took him out at second base, injuring the shoulder of his throwing arm badly enough to put him out of the sport.

So he re-upped with the Navy. He was assigned to a mobile electronics unit and rose to the rank of chief warrant officer.

He was back on Oahu when, in 1950, his life changed when his eyes met those of Anna Marie Petersen, a tourist from San Francisco.

Most Popular Stories

Santa Rosa gang member gets 33 years in 2 shootings

Sebastopol man gets 10 years for grisly crash that killed his sister

Woman arrested after Rohnert Park-Healdsburg chase

Gloria Estefan cancels Rohnert Park concert

Deputies jump from helicopter, arrest man near Sonoma Raceway

He met my mom in the lobby of the Ala Moana Hotel, underneath the banya tree, said son Robert Smith of San Mateo. The couple married in 1956 and settled in San Mateo. Earl Smith worked at Naval Station Treasure Island.

He and his family spent many weekends on the Russian River. Earl Smith retired from the Navy in 1970 and six years later he and Ann moved their family to Monte Rio.

The combat veteran went to work teaching electronics at SRJC. He eventually grew tired of the commute and he and Ann moved to Windsor.

For a number of years, they flew each summer to Oahu, where he taught summer courses at the University of Hawaii.

Smith retired from the JC in 1994. In 2002, he and his wife moved to Rio Vista, in eastern Solano County. Ann died in 2006.

Her husband, a longtime member of the former Pearl Harbor Survivors Association, felt duty-bound to attend the Dec. 7 commemorations alongside the sunken remains of the USS Arizona, right up to and including last years.

It was important to him, said son Robert Smith. He was telling me it was probably his last one.

Earl Smith is survived also by son Michael Smith of Orinda and two grandchildren.

You can reach Staff Writer Chris Smith at 707-521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.

Most Popular Stories

Santa Rosa gang member gets 33 years in 2 shootings

Sebastopol man gets 10 years for grisly crash that killed his sister

Attorney: Oakland warehouse fire defendant in near mental breakdown

Hwy. 101's 'Big Pave' set to begin

Deputies jump from helicopter, arrest man near Sonoma Raceway

Woman arrested after Rohnert Park-Healdsburg chase

Traffic fines based on income? Lawmakers look to reduce state-set fines

Odessa Gunn on a mission to save dogs from infamous Chinese festival

See more here:
Fred 'Earl' Smith, Pearl Harbor vet, former Santa Rosa Junior College instructor, dies at 94 - Santa Rosa Press Democrat