Hero of Hornet Says Jap Fliers Thumbed Noses

 

"The Japs thumbed their noses at us," said Pvt. Martin J. Melvin Hayes av., Oak Park, as he described the Jap airplane attack which sank the American aircraft carrier Hornet on Oct. 26 in the South Pacific. Melvin, who was one of the anti-aircraft gunner aboard the vessel, is now on guard duty at the Marine Corps base at San Diego, Calif.

"The Japs managed to break through the screen of fire we set up, thumbed their noses at us as they rode by," Melvin, who graduated from Oak Park High School in 1937, told the Associated Press.

"They've got plenty of nerve, those Japs! The Hornet was dead in the water during the second attack. The first of several torpedoes launched by the Japs which found their mark had done the damage, and after the second attack the captain ordered us to 'abandon ship.'

"Last to leave, of course, were the gun crews. We were still firing half-an-hour after the order. All our attention, all our lives, were concentrated on just firing those guns. After about two hours in the water, I was taken aboard a destroyer. I'll never forget my last view of the Hornet, lying like a wounded thing in the wallowing sea. I felt like my best friend was dying."