Joe Driskell at Pearl Harbor

Just came across this neat article about Joe Driskell, from an unknown newspaper in the collection of Vigo County (Indiana) Public Library.

Image direct link

Corporal Driskell enlisted in the Marines on May 28, 1940 at the age of twenty three; he rose quickly through the ranks while stationed aboard the USS Nashville. He transferred to the USS Nevada in 1941, and was aboard when the battleship was attacked at Pearl Harbor. Driskell was the gun captain of #9 Gun, a five-inch/51-caliber dual purpose weapon in Nevada’s secondary battery, and quickly rose to the occasion.

Nevada’s attempt to clear the harbor, meanwhile, inspired those who witnessed it. Her magnificent effort prompted a stepped-up effort by Japanese dive bomber pilots to sink here. One 250-kilogram bomb hit her boat deck just aft of a ventilator trunk and 12 feet to the starboard side of the centerline, about halfway between the stack and the end of the boat deck, setting off laid-out 5-inch ready-use ammunition. Spraying fragments decimated the gun crews. The explosion wrecked the galley and blew open the starboard door of the compartment, venting into casemate no. 9 and starting a fire that swept through the casemate, wrecking the gun. Although he had been seriously wounded by the blast that had hurt both of his legs and stripped much of his uniform from his body, Corporal Joe R. Driskell disregarded his own condition and insisted that he man another gun. He refused medical treatment, assisting other wounded men instead, and then helped battle the flames. He did not quit until those fires were out.[1]

A contemporary work described the event in lurid detail.

Corporal Driskell was another Marine gunner. A large-caliber bomb fell a few yards away from his gun that was pouring anti-aircraft shells at the enemy planes. The blast of the shell blew the corporal off his feet and against the mounting of another gun. He picked himself up and ran through the smoke to his own gun. When he arrived, the men of his crew who were still alive looked at him with horror. His clothes had all but been burned off, and he had a terrible gaping wound showing through the leg of his smouldering pants. His hair was also burned and his face scorched. The corpsmen came with stretchers to take away the wounded. Driskell brushed them aside with a “I have just begun to fight” gesture. “I’m all right; take the other guys,” he said. “Let me be. I’m full of fight.”

He was sighting another gun, when a second bomb put it out of action. When he emerged from the blast still active and capable, Corporal Driskell’s mates must have thought that he was immortal. He went to another gun and took the place of a gunner who lay dead. When the next wave of planes came, the battery was still firm. All around the battery, buildings were in flames, and the smoke was drifting in clouds across the gun position. The corpsmen came again to collect the casualties, but Driskell did not count himself as such, even when the attack had died down. He found a job giving first aid to the wounded and helping them to the ambulances. When the last wounded man had been taken away, he joined a fire-fighting squad, which was battling the flames. [2]

After recovering from his wounds, Driskell was returned to the Nevada and promoted to sergeant. On July 7, 1942, he was awarded the Navy Cross “for exceptional courage, presence of mind, and devotion to duty and disregard for his personal condition” during the attack. Another promotion soon followed, and by October both the Nevada and Platoon Sergeant Driskell were ready to take the fight back to the Japanese.

In January 1943, Driskell left his coveted sea-duty station and applied to Headquarters, Fleet Marine Force “for assignment to combat.” And combat he got. Assigned to Company O, 4th Marine Raider Battalion, Platoon Sergeant Driskell was sent to New Georgia, where he participated in the occupation of Segi Point and the campaign to take Viru Harbor, where he was wounded in action on July 1.

Driskell was promoted to Gunnery Sergeant of the 4th Raiders following the New Georgia campaign, and remained with them until early 1944. When the Raiders were re-formed into the (new) 4th Marines, Driskell signed his reenlistment papers and was shipped off back to California, where he fund a berth as an instructor at Camp Pendleton’s Maritime Unit. Either the post was not exciting enough for Driskell or the powers that be decided his experience was needed elsewhere, for by December he was overseas once again as a senior gunnery sergeant in Company A, First Battalion, 24th Marines.

Gunny Driskell fought through the entire battle of Iwo Jima without a scratch, and for his efforts in the battle was rewarded with a Bronze Star medal and a field commission to the rank of second lieutenant. He served as a platoon leader First Battalion through the end of the war.

Following the Japanese surrender, Driskell took command of a platoon of MPs and headed across the Pacific for the occupation of Okinawa. He stayed in the Corps until 1953, retiring with the rank of Master Sergeant.

_____
NOTES:
[1] Robert J. Cressman and J. Michael Wenger, INFAMOUS DAY: Marines at Pearl Harbor, (Washington: Marine Corps Historical Centery, 1992), 10.
[2] Keith Ayling, Semper Fidelis: The U. S. Marines in Action, (Cambridge: Houghton Mifflin, 1943), 75.