PORTSMOUTH, Va. (AP) - Preston Parham was having breakfast and reading a magazine in his rack on the USS St. Louis when the alarm sounded.
It wasn’t a drill.
It was Dec. 7, 1941, and Japan was attacking Pearl Harbor.
Parham got to his duty station, below water level, in the gun room of Turret No. 4. His job: a lengthy process of getting the guns ready. Everything had to be done by hand.
Within minutes, the St Louis, along with two other ships, got underway. It spent the next three days patrolling. When it returned to Pearl Harbor, everything was still on fire.
Parham was “a sitting duck,” his daughter Karen Foster said last week, and “was blessed enough make it out of the harbor that day.”
The attack killed more than 2,400, wounded more than 1,100 and brought the United States into World War II.
Like many of that era, Parham didn’t talk to his children much about the war.
For instance, when the family went to the premiere of the movie “Pearl Harbor” in 1999 and he was asked what he thought of it, this was his response: “Not enough fire, not enough oil.”
It wasn’t until Karen was 39 that her father shared his story. She was planning a trip to mark the attack’s 50th anniversary when he finally opened up about it.
Still, despite his reticence, he would patiently endure being recognized publicly as a Pearl Harbor survivor.
“He never went looking for the attention,” said Graham Foster, his grandson, “but it almost seemed like he understood that the recognition needed to happen so the moment in time didn’t get lost.”
Parham died April 5 at the age of 96. He was one of the last local survivors.
In his children, he instilled a legacy of duty to country and the importance of family.
Parham was eager to serve, dropping out of high school to join the military in February 1940. When his mother refused to sign the waiver, he tracked down his father in the fields to get him to do it.
“He joined the Navy to save the world,” Karen said.
He served for six years, mostly in the Pacific, and was on the USS Pasadena in Tokyo Bay when the terms of the Japanese surrender were signed.
“He was just a rock,” Graham said. “Nothing moved him. He had a steady path, a steady hand, a steady temperament.”
After the war, Parham returned to Portsmouth, then went to Embry-Riddle School of Aviation in Florida to become an aircraft engine mechanic. After returning to his hometown, where his mother ran a boarding house, his younger sister introduced him to a girl named Irene, who had been dating a guy named Joe. When you meet my brother Preston, she promised Irene, you’ll forget all about Joe.
She did.
Preston and Irene dated while he went back and forth between Hampton Roads and Florida for school. They wed in 1949. Irene worked at the naval hospital as the secretary for 28 orthopedic doctors. The couple was married for 52 years until Irene’s death on Sept. 11, 2001.
Parham was not the only one in his family who served: His son-in-law was in the Air Force, and his grandson, Graham, was in the Marine Corps.
Graham thinks “the protector gene” runs in the family: “It’s just part of what I learned from him unspoken, just by observing him.”
The family had a morning routine to accommodate Dad’s schedule. They would eat breakfast together at 5:30 a.m. Parham would leave for work at the base in time to beat the traffic, then snooze for an hour in his car. The girls, Karen and her sister Dianne, would get to sleep a bit longer before having to get up for school.
“They say families that eat together, kids do better,” Foster said. “I’m hoping that helped that way.”
The Navy was a big part of Parham’s life, but faith and family were just as important. He and Irene were founding members of St. Andrews United Methodist Church and attended with their family every Sunday.
He was a family man, creating “the wonderland of wonderlands” for his grandchildren, Foster said. He built them a treehouse and set up games in the backyard for them.
Karen said the legacy her father left was that service to the nation is important - a cause worth living and dying for. And he put a premium on doing whatever it took to keep his family together.
After spending much of his life in Hampton Roads, Parham moved to Ohio six years ago to be near his daughter. That’s where he died, but he was buried in Virginia Beach.
“It’s good he’s back with his wife and his friends,” Graham said.
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Information from: The Virginian-Pilot, http://pilotonline.com
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