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Jack Hammett

Jack Hammett. World War II Hero. Jack Ray Hammett. Born in 1920 He was an only child. He was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio. He graduated in 1983 from high school. He lost his father at the age of 17. He decided to join the Navy to see the world.

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Jack Hammett

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  1. Jack Hammett World War II Hero

  2. Jack Ray Hammett • Born in 1920 • He was an only child. He was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio. • He graduated in 1983 from high school. • He lost his father at the age of 17. • He decided to join the Navy to see the world.

  3. He joined the Navy in 1937, he said that boot camp was very difficult. They had to sleep in hammocks and had to live out of sea bags. • The sea bags were 12-14 inches around and 3ft tall. After boot camp they found out that he played the saxophone. • Since he played they sent him to Navy Band School Afloat. • After that he was moved to the USS Argonne flag ship. He got paid $36 a month.

  4. One evening they went to the Slab Hall which was a dance. That evening Hammett saw a beautiful brunette. • He asked her to dance and she accepted but then he found out that she was 15 yrs old.

  5. In 1939 he was transferred into the deck force. The USS Medusa. • He became a sea man. They made him a compartment cleaner. When the fleet got ordered back he got extremely sick. • In late 1939 he was sent back to the west coast. • When he got there a buddy was going on a date with a girl, and he set him up on a blind date. • When he saw the girl it happened to be the same brunette that he danced with at the Slab Hall.

  6. MaryJo • When he met up with MaryJo he fell in love with her. • He soon found himself asking her father for permission to ask her hand in marriage. • He father allowed him to ask her. • He was 19yrs old and she was at the young age of 16yrs. • He was a protestant and she was catholic so he had to take 6 classes on Catholicism before he could marry her. • On Febuary 24,1940 Jack Hammett married MaryJo. • It was one of the happiest days of his and her life.

  7. In October of 1941 there was a vacancy on the ships and Jack Hammett got orders to be stationed at the USS Arizona. Well he had his wife with him in Oahu. • He asked his chief if he could skip him on this draft. He need the time to be able to get his wife back to the states before he had to be drafted out. • The chief agreed but he was going to send him out on the next one no matter what. But no draft came. • On the night of December 6, 1941 Hammett was ashore and had taken his wife out dancing. They had a splendid time. They arrived home and went to bed.

  8. Transferring into the hospital was a lot a lot of work • He had to study and take a lot of exams; including written ones. • When Jack transferred into the Navy hospital he made $60 instead of $54. He enjoyed it because he was able to buy many things.

  9. Mary Jo worked at a restaurant in Honolulu • She made money working and she got to keep her tips. • Together they were able to rent a room in Honolulu.

  10. December 7, 1941 • Hammett awoke to loud noises. • he just thought that bases were doing trial runs. Something that was normally done on the weekends. • Suddenly there was a knock at the door, it was his landlord, a small Chinese man, asked for the rent of $35. So Jack gave him the rent and when the man got the money he turned and said “the Japs are bombing Pearl Harbor” and turned around and walked away.

  11. Hammett went outside the house and saw big clouds of black smoke across the way. He started to see explosions. • He quickly told MaryJo to turn on the radio. When she did the first thing he heard was “THIS IS NOT A DRILL WE ARE UNDER ATTACK OF THE JAPANESE FORCES, ALL MILITARY PERSONAL RETURN TO YOUR BASE!” • He quickly dressed in his white uniform and went out his front door. • As soon as he got outside he was immediately united with his buddy. Together they commandeered a truck and made the driver take them to the army Navy Base, the YMCA. • As they got there all the soldiers were jumping in the black cabs so that the drivers could take them to Pearl Harbor. • As they were on there way a Japanese plane was strafing them. • It was a surprise when none of those cabs were hit by the Japanese pilots.

  12. As soon as they got to Pearl Harbor, about 45-50 guys were there. • Hammett was relieved to see that the hospital was still standing. There were people coming in from everywhere so they had to empty the nurses quarters to make more room. • Hammett was a 2nd Pharmacists mate. That day he would see many things that one wouldn’t even dream of seeing.

  13. Jack Hammett went into the hospital to help tend to the wounded Sailors and Marines. • That was the introduction to Pearl Harbor. There were bodies all around him, there was so much commotion. There was a burned body laying there, he went to take his pulse to see if he was alive. He felt no pulse but he heard his buddy say “ Hammett leave him alone, he’s dead. Get back to work” from then on he realized that they were under attack. • They had to worked for 72hrs. They would each do 4 hrs of first aid, then a 4hr break, then 4hr identification of the dead. Days like this had them burnt out. Hammett cant even recall if he ate in those 72 hrs.

  14. Jack’s job was to identify the bodies. It was often very difficult because of the fact that some men had nothing to be identified with. • Many men were missing body parts and articles of clothing. • The morgue was about a size of three classrooms. He had to stack the bodies of the dead. • When the basement was full they had to carry each dead body onto the tennis court. • Not only did he have to deal with the bodies of the American soldiers but he also had to deal with the bodies from of the Japanese armed airmen. • The Japanese armed airmen were just thrown in a pile because they earned no respect from the Americans.

  15. The goal of the Navy then was to get as many men as they could back into combat. They would just patch them up and send them back out. • Many men only received first aid treatment. • When someone was badly injured they would either be sent to the surgeon or orthopedics. If a man received morphine then they would mark his forehead with the letter M. but since they had no markers they had to mark the letter with their blood. • This was there routine for the whole 72 hrs. • Hammett recalls walking down to the water front by the hospital and he could see the battleships on fire. Many ships got blown up that day including the Arizona.

  16. At the same time as all this was going on his wife MaryJo was at her house with about 4 other women. • They armed themselves with butcher knives and stayed together so that if any Japs tried to attack them, they would be ready to put up a fight.

  17. 72 hrs after the bombing his commander told them that the married men could have 4 hrs off so that they could be with there wives. • Hammett went home and took a shower, got dressed and fell asleep. • MaryJo went and woke him up. He had to get back to the base to work. • This went on for the next 2 weeks

  18. Jack Hammett was one of the many brave heroes that fought for America. • He served our country for 23 years. • He is a brave man and we owe him and many other veterans our gratitude for fighting for us. • Thank You Mr. Jack Hammett

  19. The End • Arielle S. • Katie P. • Bart P. • Per. 5

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