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Pamela Baker (SBTS Writer)-Historian
to remember
Gardner, Arthur Joseph, WT2c.
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Casualty Info
Home Town Junedale, PA
Last Address Junedale, PA
Casualty Date Dec 07, 1941
Cause KIA-Killed in Action
Reason Burns
Location Hawaii
Conflict World War II/Asiatic-Pacific Theater/Attack on Pearl Harbor
Location of Interment Tyrolean Catholic Cemetery - Sheppton, Pennsylvania
Official Badges
Unofficial Badges
Additional Information
Last Known Activity:
WT2 Arthur Gardner was killed on December 7, 1941, during the attack on Pearl Harbor. He was stationed on board the USS Helena CL-50. He died of 3rd degree burns sustained during the attack.
Comments/Citation:
Watertender Second Class Arthur Joseph Gardner, #2436403
Born on April 10, 1920, Arthur Joseph Gardner was the third of four children born to Sylvester and Henrietta Goss Gardner of Junedale, Pennsylvania. Henrietta, Italian by birth, was born in Varena, Italy. She came to American in 1902 with her parents, Angelo and Teresa Goss both of whom died 12 years later in April 1914. Sylvester Gardner immigrated to the United States from Austria in the early 20th century. He worked in the coal mines of Pennsylvania, an occupation that drew thousands of men to its dismal, hazardous conditions. In 1940, he died of pneumonia and influenza when Arthur was at sea.
The Gardner family lived through World War I, the Spanish influenza pandemic and the harsh economic times of the 1920-1930 era. Pennsylvania’s two major industries, mining and steel, declined in the 1920s. The mining industry was fraught with reduced bituminous coal demand, union unrest and strikes and competition from other states. The Great Depression worsened these conditions significantly. With the onset of World War II, the steel industry revived.
In thousands of immigrant mining families, sons were relegated to the gloomy occupation to contribute financial support. Was Arthur Gardner among the young Americans who sought a different life through military service? Certainly, the prospects of a shipboard career were brighter than those he anticipated as a Junedale teen.
Arthur, 19, enlisted in the United States Navy on June 27, 1939. AS Gardner completed basic training and was stationed aboard the USS Helena in September that year. The USS Helena (CL-50,) was a Brooklyn-Class light cruiser, the ninth and final ship within that class. Following its commissioning, the Helena took part in various exercises and deployments before being assigned to the Pacific Fleet in Hawaii in 1940.
When the 1930s slipped into history, America and the world sensed an easing of the Depression’s grip. In Europe, far-reaching political issues eclipsed improving economies. Since 1933, Adolf Hitler’s influence and power had grown in Germany through the Nazi Party. Attacking Poland in 1939, his Blitzkrieg exploded into World War II.
Another, equally significant threat arose when Japan invaded its Far East neighbors, paralleling Germany’s push become a world power. In 1940, the island nation signed the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy, bonding with the Nazi government and its allies. During 1941, Japan and the United States maintained an uneasy relationship that devolved into resigned anticipation of certain conflict. Neither the American government nor its citizens pinpointed Hawaii as the flashpoint for the next four years’ war.
On December 6, President Roosevelt made a direct appeal to Emperor Hirohito, urging the aversion of war between their two nations. As the country awaited the outcome of the diplomatic petition, six Japanese aircraft carriers, with battleships, cruisers and destroyers were less than 300 miles north of Oahu. The attack planned to send 420 aircraft in two waves over Pearl Harbor.
The next morning, the ships’ crews prepared for Sunday’s activities. Around the harbor, ninety-six ships were moored. Over the surrounding mountains, scattered clouds were breezed and broken by a ten knot wind. Cumulus puffs concealed the approaching Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service, moving from the north against the unsuspected fleet. At 0755, planes bearing a red disc festooned with rays of the Rising Sun bore down on American ships and their crews. Suddenly, shockingly, Pearl Harbor was under attack.
General Quarters! This is not a Drill!
On the morning of December 7, 1941, the light cruiser USS Helena (CL-50) was in the berth that the USS Pennsylvania usually occupied. Because of this, she became a target of the Japanese. A torpedo hit on her starboard side. She began to flood but her crew managed to get it under control. This allowed for a generator to power her gun mounts. The men aboard the Helena fought back. When the attack was over, 34 men died aboard the Helena.
WT2C Gardner was killed in action during the explosion and fires aboard his ship. Awarded the Purple Heart posthumously, Arthur was buried in Hawaii until the end of the war. He was laid to final rest at the Tyrolean Catholic Cemetery in Sheppton, Pennsylvania in 1947. Arthur Joseph Gardner was survived by his mother and siblings.
This story is part of the Stories Behind the Stars project (see www.storiesbehindthestars.org). This is a national effort of volunteers to write the stories of all 400,000+ of the US WWII fallen saved on Together We Served and Fold3. Can you help write these stories? Related to this, there will be a smartphone app that will allow people to visit any war memorial or cemetery, scan the fallen serviceperson’s name and read his/her story.
Stories Behind the Stars Contributing Author: Pamela C. Baker
References:
Ancestryinstitutions.org. 1920 United States Federal Census.
Ancestryinstitutions.org. 1930 United States Federal Census.
Ancestryinstitutions.org. 1940 United States Federal Census. http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/special/japan_1900_power.htm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_of_Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_Germany
Public Member Photos & Scanned Documents. Arthur Joseph Gardner, photograph, Collection of ET.
U.S., Find a Grave Index, 1600s-Current. Arthur Joseph Gardner, photograph, Collection of ET.
U.S., Navy Casualties Books, 1776-1941.
U.S., World War II Navy Muster Rolls, 1938-1949.
World War II/Asiatic-Pacific Theater/Attack on Pearl Harbor
From Month/Year
December / 1941
To Month/Year
December / 1941
Description The attack on Pearl Harbor, also known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor, the Hawaii Operation or Operation AI by the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters, and Operation Z during planning, was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii Territory, on the morning of December 7, 1941. The attack led to the United States' entry into World War II.
Japan intended the attack as a preventive action to keep the U.S. Pacific Fleet from interfering with military actions the Empire of Japan planned in Southeast Asia against overseas territories of the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and the United States. Over the next seven hours there were coordinated Japanese attacks on the U.S.-held Philippines, Guam and Wake Island and on the British Empire in Malaya, Singapore, and Hong Kong.
The attack commenced at 7:48 a.m. Hawaiian Time. The base was attacked by 353 Imperial Japanese fighter planes, bombers, and torpedo planes in two waves, launched from six aircraft carriers. All eight U.S. Navy battleships were damaged, with four sunk. All but Arizona were later raised, and six were returned to service and went on to fight in the war. The Japanese also sank or damaged three cruisers, three destroyers, an anti-aircraft training ship, and one minelayer. 188 U.S. aircraft were destroyed; 2,403 Americans were killed and 1,178 others were wounded. Important base installations such as the power station, shipyard, maintenance, and fuel and torpedo storage facilities, as well as the submarine piers and headquarters building (also home of the intelligence section) were not attacked. Japanese losses were light: 29 aircraft and five midget submarines lost, and 64 servicemen killed. One Japanese sailor, Kazuo Sakamaki, was captured.
The attack came as a profound shock to the American people and led directly to the American entry into World War II in both the Pacific and European theaters. The following day, December 8, the United States declared war on Japan. Domestic support for non-interventionism, which had been fading since the Fall of France in 1940,[19] disappeared. Clandestine support of the United Kingdom (e.g., the Neutrality Patrol) was replaced by active alliance. Subsequent operations by the U.S. prompted Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy to declare war on the U.S. on December 11, which was reciprocated by the U.S. the same day.
From the 1950s, several writers alleged that parties high in the U.S. and British governments knew of the attack in advance and may have let it happen (or even encouraged it) with the aim of bringing the U.S. into war. However, this advance-knowledge conspiracy theory is rejected by mainstream historians.
There were numerous historical precedents for unannounced military action by Japan. However, the lack of any formal warning, particularly while negotiations were still apparently ongoing, led President Franklin D. Roosevelt to proclaim December 7, 1941, "a date which will live in infamy". Because the attack happened without a declaration of war and without explicit warning, the attack on Pearl Harbor was judged by the Tokyo Trials to be a war crime.