Resident reminded of late cousin during Pearl Harbor attack anniversary

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Wednesday, Dec. 7, marked the 81st anniversary of the surprise attack by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service on the United States Naval Base at Pearl Harbor in Honololu, Hawaii.

It also brought to the forefront memories for Gonzales resident and retired pastor Jo Ann Leifeste of her late cousin, Seaman Jack La Fayette McBride, who was stationed on the USS Oklahoma, which sunk along with three other battleships that day.

“Jack was my second cousin,” Leifeste said. “He was 18 years old and on the Oklahoma, which was hit, but he survived until the next year. He was aboard the USS San Francisco when it was hit in the Solomon Islands.”

McBride was a 1939 graduate of Kearney High School and had been in the Navy for nearly two years, stationed at Pearl Harbor.

On Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941, the Oklahoma was moored on Battleship Row alongside the Maryland when she came under attack by torpedo-bombers from two Japanese aircraft carriers, getting hit almost immediately by three torpedoes between 7:50 a.m. and 8 a.m. PDT. It is believed that as many as eight torpedoes eventually struck the ship, causing it to capsize to port side. The attack killed 429 of the crew of 1,398 officers and enlisted personnel.

McBride and others survived by either jumping off the ship 50 feet below into water that was burning hot with ignited fuel or by scurrying across the mooring lines that still connected the Oklahoma to the Maryland. Others were rescued when holes were drilled into the hull or into hatches to save them before they drowned.

McBride would later join the crew of the USS San Francisco, which found itself in the midst of the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal (also known as the Battle of the Solomons) on Nov. 13, 1942. Engaging against the Japanese battleship Hiei, the San Francisco came under heavy fire from other warships. The ship took a total of 45 hits but never sank.

Sadly, direct hits to the navigation bridge and other stations on the New Orleans-class cruiser killed 77 men, including Rear Admiral Daniel J. Callaghan, Capt. Cassin Young, and Jack McBride.

His family would receive a telegram from the Navy, advising of his death. Until then, he had been writing to his parents weekly.

“I have a letter he wrote to my mom, Rubie, the last one before he died,” Leifeste recalled. “He had a loving relationship with his grandmother and aunts due to his parents divorcing and his father being out west, seeking his fortune and becoming a millionaire, but he never had a real relationship with any of his family.”

Leifeste’s mother, Rubie O. Robinson Snapp Frazier, wrote a poem to commemorate the Pearl Harbor attack. The poem makes reference to Jack McBride being upon the Oklahoma at the time.

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