By Charlie Warner
Argus News Editor
“When we still heard the five-inch guns firing, we didn’t have to get too nervous. But when we heard the 50 calibers, that’s when things got nerve-wracking,” recalled Harold Van Gundy of rural Houston about his three-year stint in the U.S. Navy.
Van Gundy, who was a Machinist Second Class, spent much of his time deep in the bowels of the USS O’Bannon in one of the two engine rooms making sure the Navy destroyer continued its motion through the waters of the Pacific Ocean.
“When he heard the 50 calibers, we knew the Jap planes were attacking us. We could hear the bombs going off all around us. We were in the belly of the ship. There wasn’t a lot we could do but keep everything working properly.”
Van Gundy said the crew of the O’Bannon was very lucky. During his time in the Pacific Theater, the destroyer he called home for more than two years was never hit by a bomb, a suicide bomber or a torpedo.
Van Gundy grew up in the Money Creek area. After high school he attended NYA School in Winona and he studied to be a machinist. After completing his studies in Winona, he headed west to Washington state and worked in the shipyards repairing the damaged battleships from Pearl Harbor.
In 1943 Van Gundy was drafted by the Army. Because he had learned quite a bit about the inner workings of large battleships, Van Gundy volunteered for the Navy.
“It wasn’t that I liked water so much, but I figured I already knew something about the ships.”
He took his basic training at Farragut Naval Station, Idaho’s inland naval base. From there he was transferred to San Francisco and assigned to the O’Bannon. The destroyer had sustained major damage during the battle at Guadalcanal. It had been repaired and set sail for Hawaii and back to battle the Japanese.
When he got to Pearl Harbor in 1944, much of the carnage that had occurred during the attack in December of 1941 had been cleaned up. But there were still reminders of the horrific damage the Japanese had caused.
“We’d head out to sea each morning at 7 and not return until dark. We did that for 10 days. Then on the 11th day, we didn’t come back,” Van Gundy said with a smile. “We were done practicing.”
The O’Bannon was one of about 20 destroyers assigned to the Third Fleet. The destroyers formed an outer ring around the large battleships and aircraft carriers. They were the first line of defense. They were also the first ships to engage with the enemy.
“We started taking back the islands, one by one. The battleships and airplanes would bomb the islands first, and soften them up, and then we’d move in and drop the Marines off.
“When we were moving across the Pacific, we’d send one ship out as a scout. That ship might be 20 miles ahead of the rest of the fleet. The scout ship always got attacked. When we were taking back the Philippines, out of the 10 destroyers we sent out, only two returned.”
Van Gundy said the O’Bannon was never chosen to serve as a scout. He figures the reason it was never chosen was during the battle of Guadalcanal, the O’Bannon had received a Presidential citation.
“I think that had something to do with it. I guess they figured the O’Bannon was kind of special.”
Van Gundy said the worst fighting was when the U.S. was attempting to overtake the Japanese at Okinawa. When the Third Fleet first engaged the Japanese they would fly one kamikaze plane at the ships. “They were pretty easy to shoot down before they could hit us.” But as the American fleet moved closer to Japan, the number of suicide bombers increased, sometimes five or six planes at one time bearing down on a ship.
When asked how long it took this Houston County farm boy to get his sea legs, Van Gundy laughed, “there were a few times when I got pretty sick. The seas were so rough one time about half the men were puking all over the place. I puked so much I got dehydrated. So I drank some cold water and puked it back up before it got warm,” he recalled with a roar. “It took some time before I got over being seasick.”
Because the destroyers were quite small, just 300 feet long and 25 feet wide, they could only carry enough provisions for two weeks. If they started running out of supplies in the middle of a sea campaign, they would have to get whatever they could from the larger battleships and aircraft carriers.
“And those guys gave us what they didn’t want. I had to eat Spam for breakfast, Spam for lunch, and Spam for supper. I ate so much Spam that I still can’t eat it to this day.”
Van Gundy was on the O’Bannon for “the long haul.” The O’Bannon was one of two destroyers that got to sail up the Bay of Tokyo with the USS Missouri for the official signing of the peace treaty.
“We were still a little nervous when we sailed into Tokyo Bay. We really didn’t trust the Japs. There could have been subs just waiting for us. But there weren’t, and the peace treaty was signed.”
When Van Gundy returned to the United States, he contemplated making a career in the Navy. He had 90 days to re-up.
“I got a call from a Navy officer who told me they had a lot of Machinist Second Class sailors who had decided to stay in the Navy. He asked me if I would be willing to take a demotion. He promised if I did, I would get my old rank back in a short time. I didn’t trust him, so I turned them down.”
Van Gundy came back to Houston County and worked for the Fitting brothers as a farm hand near Money Creek. He married his wife of more than 60 years, Deloris.
They moved onto a farm they still reside on between Houston and Mound Prairie on CSAH 21. The couple’s family lives in the area too. They had six children: Dennis “Gunner”, Gary (deceased), Dianne “Dino”, Cheryl, Shelly and Steve, 11 grandchildren and one deceased grandchild, and three great-grandchildren.
Van Gundy has been a member of the Houston American Legion for more than 60 years and a member of the Caledonia VFW for over 50 years.
When asked what the best and worst experiences he had during his tenure in the Navy, he said the very lengthy and very bloody battle of Okinawa was the worst and getting his honorable discharge was the best.
When asked what he wants people to think about on Veterans Day, he thought for a moment and said people should thank those who have served and remember those who are still serving.
“It would just be nice if we could get all of our troops in the Middle East home. But it doesn’t look like that is going to happen any time soon,” he concluded.
You can contact Charlie Warner at
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