WARREN TURNER ANSWERED THE CALL OF THE GREATEST GENERATION 

During World War II, many Americans of what some call our Greatest Generation put their lives on the line because it was the right thing, however costly.

Twenty-year-old Warren Turner took his place among them.

The bombing of Pearl Harbor angered the nation. The following September, the young man walked determinedly into a military recruiting office and enlisted. The draft hadn’t yet reached him, but he was eager to volunteer and fight for his country.

His years as a Navy radioman third class found him in the thick of major battles in the Pacific, including the Battle of Vella Lavella in the Solomon Islands. He survived torpedo attacks and a Japanese kamikaze strike.

But as difficult as it is to recount his experiences some 70-plus years later, Turner, 92, says he would do it all again if given the chance – and he knows others from his time would gladly do the same.

“I am so glad that I volunteered and didn’t wait to be drafted,” said Turner, who lives in La Verne with his wife, Doris.

There were plenty of close calls.

On Oct. 6, 1943, Turner was on board the USS Selfridge DD-357, one of several Navy destroyers that came face-to-face with a Japanese force in the Battle of Vella Lavella in the Solomon Islands.

Torpedoes, kamikaze On duty one night, he could see the rooster tail of torpedoes in the moonlight. One struck the bow of the ship. As he braced himself, he had just enough time to turn his head to see another torpedo seconds before it crashed into the stern.

“We were going 35 knots when the torpedoes hit,” Turner said. “It felt like we hit a brick wall.”

It took about a month to cut away steel from the damaged ship and recover lost shipmates. Turner was put to work on the sad task and helped escort the fallen to a nearby island being used as a cemetery.

Another time, Turner and his fellow sailors had been working for 30 days or so clearing beaches when a kamikaze suicide plane crashed into the side of the ship near him and stopped where he had just earlier been sleeping in his bunk.

Turner kept a piece of aluminum from the plane and cut it into a heart shape. He brought that home along with other souvenirs, such as a hand-carved, wooden club that he bartered from a native during convoy duty near the Solomon Islands. He traded the club for a loaf of bread.

Family of veterans When he recalls his time in the war, especially during this time of year as Veterans Day approaches, Turner his great-grandfathers. At least four generations of his relatives fought in the American military, including in the French and Indian War, the Revolutionary War and the Civil War – and like him, none was wounded. One relative served under George Washington.

“They all fought for liberty, and they fought for freedom for this land,” Turner said. “There has to be a core of patriotic people in the nation who want freedom, who want to help themselves and their neighbors to have the freedom to do what they want with their lives.”

He believes there are plenty of people today who hold those same values and would jump to action if need be – including everyone he knows in the local American Legion and VFW posts.

Turner was discharged from the Navy in December 1945. His homecoming is something his wife tearfully says she would have given anything to see.

Turner and about 1,000 other sailors stood in a they pulled in under the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. Fireworks shot from tug boat while crowds cheered and cried.

“It was quite a thrill,” Turner recalled. “That was really something.”