Petty Officer John R. O'Day
United States Navy (1944-1945)
Gunners Mate 3rd Class

John Regis O'Day was born on May 2, 1926. He lived with his parents Catharine and Edward P. O'Day, and brother Edward Jr., at 1404 Creedmoor Avenue. A graduate of both Resurrection Elementary and South Hills High School, John enlisted in the United States Navy on February 12, 1944.

After completing basic naval training, Petty Officer O'Day was classified as Gunners Mate 3rd Class and assigned to the new Sumner-class Destroyer USS Drexler (DD-741). A Gunners Mate's responsibilities included taking charge of guns and crew, assembling and firing all types of guns, and handling ammunition, mines and depth charges.

The USS Drexler was laid down on April 24, 1944 at the Bath Iron Works in Maine. The ship was launched on September 2, and first commissioned at the Boston Navy Yard. A fitting out period was conducted from November 14 through December 5, when the destroyer sailed on her shakedown cruise. The Drexler arrived in Bermuda on December 8.

Shakedown was completed on January 9, 1945, and Drexler got underway back to the Navy Yard in Boston for post-shakedown availability. This was completed on January 20 and the ship sailed for Hampton Roads, Virginia.

The USS Drexler off the coast of Maine near Cape Elizabeth on November 14, 1944

On January 23, the USS Drexler, in company with the USS Shubrick, escorted the aircraft carrier USS Bon Homme Richard to Port of Spain, Trinidad. After their arrival, the Drexler and Shubrick sailed to the Panama Canal Zone.

After passing through the canal, the destroyers made their way to Newport Beach, California, where they docked for eight days. Then it was on to San Diego Repair Base. On the 13th of January, the Drexler set course for Pearl Harbor.

During her stay in Hawaii, the Drexler conducted anti-aircraft gunnery practice and shore bombardment exercises in the Islands area. The ship again set sail on February 23 en route to Guadalcanal in company with Task Unit 12.5.8, which was composed of the USS Suwanee and USS Chanango.

THE USS Drexler on February 25, 1945 in the Caribbean Sea being refueled by the carrier USS Bon Homme Richard.

The Drexler then sailed to Ulithi. From there, on March 27, it set course for the War Zone near Okinawa. She arrived off shore in time for the start of the Battle of Okinawa and assumed patrol duties on a Radar Picket Station.

At 0831 on the morning of May 4, the radar scope picked up an enemy plane at a distance of approximately thirty-two miles. When the plane came within range, USS Drexler immediately commenced firing all guns.

The enemy aircraft began attacking the nearby USS Wadsworth. Numerous 40-millimeter hits were observed. USS Drexler ceased firing when Wadsworth came into her direct line of fire. The enemy plane was seen to crash close aboard the port quarter of Wadsworth.

As the plane crashed, lookouts reported another plane at a distance of approximately five miles. However, the bogie turned and fled before it could be fired upon.

The USS Drexler en route to Radar Picket Duty off the coast of Okinawa on May 28, 1945.

The next action for USS Drexler occurred on May 28. On this date the Drexler, together with USS Lowry, sailed from the transport area at Hagushi Beach, Okinawa, and proceeded to their assigned Radar Picket Station.

As this plane was observed going down, a second plane was sighted on the starboard bow of the column. This bogie, another twin-engine fighter bomber, started its approach in a long, shallow glide, circling toward the head of the column.

As there was no time to execute a column movement, Drexler came sharply to the left and opened fire at the same time the aircraft dove on the Lowry. The plane passed directly over Lowry. Almost crashing, it seemed to stumble toward the Drexler in its effort to recover.

Drexler checked her fire momentarily as the plane passed over Lowry, then opened fire again as the plane came in. The "Nick" crashed explosively into the starboard side. The outer skin of the ship was torn open from about ten feet into the forward engine room to aft of the after engine room.

One of the 40mm Bofors Anti-Aircraft gun mounts on the USS Drexler.

The auxiliary steam lines in the engine rooms and the main steam lines in the after fireroom were ruptured. The 40-mm gun from Mount #43 was blown from its foundation, and some of the personnel were knocked off the mount.

The 40-mm gun in Mount #44 was put out of action due to the detonation of 40-mm ammunition in the vicinity. The area where the plane hit the ship was sprayed with gasoline, which quickly ignited and began a blaze. The damage repair party brought the fire under control expeditiously and had it extinguished before the next plane hit.

When the second Japanese "Nick" hit, a large volume of steam was noted coming from the engineering spaces on the starboard side. Realizing it would be impossible to maintain the speed of twenty-five knots, and in order not to drain all the steam from the boilers, two-thirds standard speed was rung up immediately. This was a precautionary measure until some information could be obtained on the extent of the damage.

Within a half minute after the second hit, another bomber was sighted making a dive on USS Lowry, which was on Drexler's starboard beam. The plane was taken under fire and numerous hits were observed, which cause it to spin in astern of Lowry and splash.

Following this, all main power in the forward section of the ship was lost. None of the personnel in this part of the ship survived. At 0703 a fourth kamikaze aircraft was sighted on the starboard bow at a distance of approximately 10,000 yards.

A Japanese Ki-45 Type 2 Toryu figher plane, commonly refered to as a "Nick."

The bomber made a circling approach in a shallow glide to come in from dead ahead. The fighter planes and Drexler's gunfire caused the plane to miss on the first pass. The bomber made another suicide run down the port bow, banked and passed directly over the ship, just aft of the No. 2 stack. The 20-mm guns on the port side fired on the plane, and many hits were scored.

The Japanese bomber then managed to level off, circle around and come in again, this time from ahead. Having just missed the bridge, the plane clipped the signal halyards and crashed into the boat davits and superstructure deck just aft the midships passageway.

There was a tremendous explosion which rocked the ship violently from stem to stern. Parts of the ship were blown hundreds of feet into the air. this bomber was heavily loaded and apparently the explosion blew off the sides of the ship.

USS Drexler, which already had a small list to the starboard, was a little down by the stern, and was starting to list rapidly to the starboard. Personnel were forced to start abandoning ship upon their own initiatives.

The destoyer turned over flat on her starboard side and then sank stern first, disappearing from sight forty-nine seconds after the third suicide hit. Many men were trapped because of the quickness with which the ship sank. The rapidity with which the ship rolled over made it difficult for the trapped men to get up ladders, through a hatch, or even climb across the deck bulkhead of overhead.

Recovery efforts began immediately by three LCS(L)'s to rescue the survivors from the water. When the grim statistics were later compiled, out of a total ship's complement of 357, the casualties numbered fifty-two wounded and 158 dead. Among the dead was Gunners Mate 3rd Class John R. O'Day of Brookline.

Those sailors who either died during the kamikaze explosions or were unable to escape the rapidly sinking ship, were considered buried at sea. By the time the victorious Okinawa Campaign officially ended on July 2, 1945, a total of thirty naval ships and craft had been sunk and 368 damaged by the relentless Japanese Kamikaze attacks. Close to 5000 sailors lost their lives and an equal number were wounded.

Back home in Brookline, Petty Officer John R. O'Day was first listed as Missing in Action in the July 3, 1945 Pittsburgh Press daily casualty report. On August 6 John O'Day's status was changed to Killed in Action. As he was buried at sea, his parents had no body to bury.

A solemn requiem High Mass was sung at Resurrection Church on Thursday, August 8 for John Regis O'Day. With the war rapidly drawing to a close, another Gold Star was hung in the window of a Brookline home, this time at 1404 Creedmoor Avenue.

Brookline's John Regis O'Day is memorialized at the Honolulu Memorial in the Courts of the Missing. He is honored there along with three other Brookliners. Two are airmen who perished on May 25, 1945 during a bombing raid over Tokyo, Harry Spack and Walter L. Wentz, and the other a fellow seaman, Paul C. Kestler, who was also lost at sea on May 11, 1945 off the coast of Okinawa.

Very few of the survivors of the USS Drexler are alive today. Still, each year those that remain gather at a reunion to honor those that lost their lives in May 28, 1945. There is no standing memorial to the USS Drexler. There is, however, a polished black granite plaque that hangs on the Memorial Wall at the National Museum of the Pacific War in Fredericksburg, Texas.

USS Drexler Survivors Reunion Facebook Page

Youtube Video - USS Drexler Reunion May 17, 2014

<><><><> <><><><> <><><><> <><><><> <><><><> <><><><>

WHO SUNK THE USS DREXLER?

The 45th Shinbu Squadron was formed on February 8, 1945. 1st Lt. Hajime Fujii was selected as commander of this special attack squadron (tokkotai) of twelve men. The squadron included nine Ki-45 Type 2 Toryu Fighters, with the lead plane in each of the three groups of three planes manned by both a pilot and a radio operator/gunner. The squadron had the name of Kaishin, which means "Cheerful Spirit."

Bomb racks were installed on the squadron's fighters at Taisho Air Base in Osaka. They then trained together at the following air bases: Hokota (Ibaraki Prefecture), Kuroiso (Tochigi Prefecture), Matsudo (Chiba Prefecture), and Ozuki (Yamaguchi Prefecture). On April 28, 1945, one of the squadron's radio operator/gunners died in an accident during landing while training at Matsudo Air Base. On May 27, 1945, the squadron flew from Ozuki Air Base to Chiran for the scheduled sortie to Okinawa the next morning.

The eleven men of the 45th Shinbu Squadron woke at 0300 on May 28, 1945, after sleeping that night in one of Chiran's triangular barracks hidden in the woods next to the air base. The white box containing the remains of Corp. Tsuneo Saka, who died in a training accident a month earlier, was placed in the radio operator/gunner's seat in which he had intended to occupy on the squadron's final mission.

The squadron's nine planes took off from Chiran at 0455. On the way to Okinawa, Corporal Takichi Miyanohara's plane crashed into the sea. He was rescued by some inhabitants of a small island as he floated on the water. First Lieutenant Hajime Fujii, at age 29, commanded the squadron's remaining eight planes as the radio operator/gunner in the lead plane. Commander Fujii and the 45th Shinbu Squadron's remaining nine men, ages 18 to 21, met their death that morning.

Seated: 2nd Lt. Akira Ogawa, 1st Lt. Hajime Fujii, and 2nd Lt. Kunihiko Suzuki; Standing: Corp. Inao Kitamura,
Corp. Takichi Miyanohara, Corp. Yoshio Ichiguchi, Corp. Haruo Ogawa, Corp. Masanobu Miyai,
Corp. Shigeru Yokuni and Corp. Yoshihisa Itoh; Not shown: 2nd Lt. Shigeru Nakata
Lt. Ogawa is holding the white box with the remains of Corp. Tsuneo Saka,
who died in training accident on April 28, 1945.

HAJIME FUJII

Hajime Fujii first served in the Japanese Army as an artillery infantryman, then switched to aviation school. After graduation, he served as an instructor at the Kumagaya Army Aviation School, where he had responsibility for basic training and mental training. As the war turned against the Empire, Fujii petitioned twice to be a member of the special attack corps (Tokkotai, or Kamikaze).

On December 15, 1944, police notified Fujii that his wife Fukuko and two young daughters, Kazuko and Chieko, had been found dead in a nearby river. Prior to their death, he had expressed to his wife his fervent desire to join the special attack corps to sink an enemy ship. His wife committed suicide along with their two children to allow him to be free to carry out his desire.

The Army accepted his third petition to become a member of the special attack corps after his wife's suicide, and he was named commander of the 45th Shinbu Squadron. However, since he was not a pilot, he served as radio operator/gunner in the squadron's lead plane. Hajime Fujii joined his wife and two daughters in death in the early morning of May 28, 1945 while attacking the USS Lowry and USS Drexler.

Post-war research has confirmed that it was two "Nicks" from the 45th Shinbu Squadron, led by First Lieutenant Hajime Fujii, that sank the USS Drexler. After more than sixty years, survivors of Drexler's sinking now realize the connection between the tragic deaths of Hajime Fujii's wife and two young daughters and their destroyer's tragic end that resulted in the loss of 158 shipmates.

<><><><> <><><><> <><><><> <><><><> <><><><> <><><><>

Gunner's Mate Gene Brick

Gene Brick was a Gunner's Mate and friend of Petty Officer John O'Day on the USS Drexler, and one of the survivors of the kamikaze attacks of May 28, 1945. Gene's and John's fates were intertwined on that fateful day in a way that stuck with him for the rest of his adult life. It was this relationship that led him to remain in contact with the O'Day family long after the gun's fell silent and the World War brought to an end.

Gene was from Oregon, born into a logging and lumber family. He spent fourteen months in the navy aboard a tiny submarine chaser before requesting transfer to a destroyer. He joined the USS Drexler in the Solomons and had spent only a short time aboard ship before the devastating three-minute kamikaze attack altered the course of so many lives.

Gene was a crewmember of the five inch Gun Mount #3. This was one of the gun mounts destroyed in the kamikaze attacks, and the battle station where John O'Day and all but one crewman's lives were lost.

What tied Petty Officer Brick's fate to that of John O'Day was that on the morning of the attack, Gene had switched assignments with John, who was a member of Gun Mount #2. Gene took John's place because there was some kind of mechanical issue with the #2 mount. This decision, made so casually in the early morning, doomed John O'Day and saved Gene's life.

Gene survived the attack and the war, returning to Oregon afterwards and the family lumber business. In the 1980s Gene was the organizer of the yearly USS Drexler survivors reunion. He reached out and found as many surviving crewmen as possible, as well as the family members of the sailors whose lives were lost.

Yearly reunions began in 1985, and each year they grew in size as new crewmen and families were discovered and invited. Around 2010 contact was made with the family of John O'Day. Gene had never forgotten that morning with John, and their decision to switch assignments.

In fact, Gene never told anyone about what had happened between him and John O'Day that day, yet he was haunted his entire life by the fact that he was alive at the expense of another man. Gene opened up to the O'Days about his experience with John, adding that he had spent all of the years since living his life to the fullest because of John's sacrifice.

Making contact with Gene was one of the most important moments in the life of Kathy Amoroso, John O'Day's neice, who embraced Gene and remained in contact with him until his death on December 27, 2019. That was the day when Gunner's Mate Gene Brick was reunited with his friend John O'Day and his other long-lost crewmates from the USS Drexler.

One of Gene's more memorable quotes from a USS Drexler renunion went like this:

"I'll never forget that day. I have counted my blessings every day since that happened. Over the years, I have thought about the horrible waste of lives, and that it took less than three minutes from the time the first plane crashed into us to do it."

"It bothered me that all those lives may be forgotten if someone didn't do something about trying to get together what was left of the survivors and reach as many of the families of our KIA's, and to pay honor to the ones who didn't make it that morning.

"I feel that the part that I played in laying the foundation to get started in doing this, was the least I could do. After I got it rolling, everyone pitched in and helped make our Association what it is today. We have such a strong common bond that ties us all together, which is different than 99% of all other ships in the Navy."

It is my earnest hope and prayer that the men who died that day will never be forgotten. As long as one person remembers that event, our work has not been in vain."

* Thanks to Kathy Amoroso, niece of John O'Day, for providing John and Gene's service photos. *

* Written by Clint Burton: April 13, 2018 - Edited January 12, 2020 *

The Brookline War Memorial

Listed below are many of the sons of Brookline who gave their
lives to preserve freedom and contain aggression during
World War I, World War II, Korea and Vietnam.

“It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died.
Rather, we should thank God that such men lived.”
General George S. Patton
 

World War I (1917-1919)

The World War I Memorial - Washington D.C.

<> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <>

World War II (1941-1945)

The World War II Memorial - Washington D.C.

<> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <>

Korean War (1950-1953)

Korean War Memorial - Washington D.C.

<> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <>

Vietnam War (1965-1973)

Vietnam War Memorial - Washington D.C.

The Brookline Monument - The Cannon

<Brookline War Memorial> <> <Brookline History>