WWII vet reflects on service in the Pacific

Texarkana, Texas, native George H. Ponder poses for a photograph with medals and other memorabilia earned during World War II. Ponder, 91, served as a Navy signalman 2nd class in Pacific. He was aboard the USS John Penn when a Japanese torpedo plane "swooped down and dropped its torpedo," which sank the warship in about 19 minutes.
Texarkana, Texas, native George H. Ponder poses for a photograph with medals and other memorabilia earned during World War II. Ponder, 91, served as a Navy signalman 2nd class in Pacific. He was aboard the USS John Penn when a Japanese torpedo plane "swooped down and dropped its torpedo," which sank the warship in about 19 minutes.

While serving as a Navy signalman 2nd class in the Pacific during World War II, George H. Ponder noticed the dark sky suddenly become bright the evening of Aug. 13, nearly 75 years ago.

"For a while, it as so bright you could read a newspaper," Ponder, now 91 years old, said.

The, Texarkana, Texas, native, was standing aboard the Navy attack transport ship, the USS John Penn, when the sky lit up with enemy flares on that late summer evening.

"That's when a Japanese torpedo plane swooped down and dropped its torpedo which sped toward us-striking the vessel and causing the ship to sink in 19 minutes," he said.

This transport contained about 23 Higgins Boats being readied to deploy Marine Corps infantry units to areas in the Solomon Islands.

Ponder's warship was floating just off Guadalcanal Island, a strategic piece of land captured by U.S. ground forces six months before. At the time, the Navy was preparing transports for combat deployment further up the Solomon Island chain.

"The explosion shook the ship and it started going down by the stern," Ponder said. "At the time, I had on both my helmet and my life jacket- so I ran up toward the ship's bow as it rose out of the water. We jumped off the ship and fortunately made it to safely to the shores of Guadalcanal."

Born Sept. 2, 1926, Ponder-one of six kids-lived in a Texas-side house on what was known back then as West Eighth Street (now MLK Boulevard).

Ponder quit public school in about the eighth grade and eventually decided to join the Navy on Dec.14, 1942, while he was still just 16 years old.

"I joined one year and one week after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, Ponder said. "I went to Shreveport to join the Navy because I thought that if I went to the recruiting office here in Texarkana, they might have an easier time checking up on my age. I then took a passenger train out of Shreveport and headed west to San Diego."

Following basic training, the Navy deployed Ponder by merchant ship down to New Caledonia Island in the South Pacific in the late summer of 1943.

The day after the sinking of the U.S.S. John Penn (Aug.14) another Navy ship took Ponder and the other survivors off Guadalcanal and back to New Caledonia. There, the Navy re-assigned Ponder and the others to another attack transport-the U.S.S. President Hayes.

"When I went aboard the President Hayes, I was still just a Seaman First Class and I was told to report to the ship's bridge," Ponder said. "That's where I was told that the officers wanted to make a signalman out of me. They trained me on how to operate the ship's flashing signal lights and flags. It was with these signal lights and flags we sent messages to other ships."

Following about three months of signal training, Ponder participated in his first combat landing of Marines on Bougainville Island, in November of 1943.

"We could see our cruiser and battleship shells hit the shores in the morning," he said. "At that time, I also became a ammunition loader for a 20mm gun. During the landing, a Japanese dive bomber dived down and flew over us so close we could see the pilot as he dropped a bomb which exploded and sprayed water on our gun position. This caused our gunner to go berserk."

Ponder's transport subsequently helped land Marines on Guam during the June 15, 1944, invasion of that island in the Mariana island chain-some 1,500 miles southeast of Japan.

"We softened up the enemy shore positions on Guam with both battleship and cruiser shelling as well as with Navy dive bombing and strafing.The Army's P-38 Lightnings and P-51 Mustang fighters also helped.

Ponder's next and final participation in landing American ground forces on enemy held islands on Oct. 20, 1944, when his transport vessel landed Army troops on Leyte Island in the Philippines.

"This time, our transport had to go toward the beaches under a smoke screen to in order to hide us from the Japanese shore guns," Ponder said. "After Leyte Island we were told to go back to the States, so we headed back west for California."

Finally, Ponder received his discharge upon arriving in Norman, Okla.

"I left Norman and got to Paris, Texas, and caught a passenger train to Texarkana," Ponder said. "It was early in the morning when I got out of a taxi cab in front of my house and mom came sailing out of the door-just tickled to death to see me. It was great to be back home in Texarkana, but things were kind of slow when it came to finding work and getting jobs."

After a short time working in a local automobile paint and body garage as well as driving for a packing company, Ponder eventually took a career job with the railroad and retired in 1985 after putting in 37 years.

Looking back on his experience during the war, Ponder said he often recalls a time during the invasion of Guam, when both he and a radio man had been ordered to go to shore during combat. But as it turned out only one of them was needed so they sent for the radio man.

"The way it worked out would be that either one of us would be called on to response if needed and as it turned out, the radio man got called to the combat zone instead of me,"Ponder said. "About 30 minutes later they brought him back to our ship dead. I had known him for a while, and he was one of the nicest guys I ever met. He was as good as anybody ever could be and our equipment lockers were right next to each others. I watched as his locker was being cleaned out after he died. It was real sad because here he was as good a man as anyone I had met in my whole life and when I heard he got killed, it really made me think that it could have just as easily have been me. To this day, I still think about him and how close I came to being in his place."

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