MONROE — In 1941, Wayne Shelnutt was on board the USS California, sitting in dock at the naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. He was just sitting down to breakfast when the alarms went off.
Rushing up to the deck, Shelnutt looked up to the sky just in time to see the first shadows overhead.
“I saw a plane fly over with a red ball on it,” Shelnutt said on seeing his first Zero. “And then I saw it drop the first bomb.”
Shelnutt, now 95, and a resident of Covington, was sharing his experiences in World War II, including the opening salvo at Pearl Harbor, at a recent meeting of Freemasons at the Generous Warren Lodge in Monroe. A Master Mason himself, Shelnutt came to speak with young members of the Order of DeMolay — the Masons’ organization for boys between 12 and 21 — and talked about what he saw during the war.
Shelnutt actually joined the Navy well before the war, in 1934.
“I had a couple of uncles who said, ‘Join the Navy,’” Shelnutt said. “You’re out of the mud and ditches and always have a place to stay.”
Deciding to join, he said much of the adventure came before he ever signed up, as he tried to make his way to Dallas from Oklahoma to enlist.
“I tried to hitchhike, but there wasn’t much traffic,” Shelnutt said. “So I decided to hop a freight train. I got up in a car of pipes, but another guy got me off and showed me a better place to stay. When we arrived in Forth Worth, we got off and he said I owed him a cup of coffee, so I bought him one.”
After he enlisted in Dallas — how he got there from Fort Worth, he said, he still can’t remember — he was sent to training and then to California. Finally ending up on the ship the California, Shelnutt said they almost were transferred to New York at one point, sailing as far as Norfolk, Va., before they were sent to Hawaii, where they stayed until the bombs dropped.
“Next thing I knew, a bomb had hit us,” Shelnutt said about the attack. “Everything was a mess. The ship was on fire and flooding with water. Another bomb hit us and then another one hit in the water next to us. It was just a big mess.”
Nearly 200 people on the California died, but Shelnutt survived, evacuating from the ship as the Japanese Zeros flew back into the west. Then he helped with the preparation for the war, assigned to one of the massive anti-aircraft guns lifted from the ruined hulks in the harbor and set at the head of the base in case of future encroachments.
“We all expected another attack, but it never happened,” Shelnutt said.
Eventually, Shelnutt said, he was assigned to a new ship and patrolled the North Atlantic for much of the war, until the declaration of peace in Europe in 1945. Then his ship, converted to a minesweeper, sailed through the Panama Canal into the Pacific to join the fleet for a possible invasion of Japan.
Before that happened, however, Shelnutt was sent back to the States and was in the country when the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, effectively ending the war.
The Masons, both young and old, at Tuesday’s meeting were proud to meet the war hero and hear his story.
“It’s a great honor for him to be here,” said David Rolader, a junior warden at the Generous Warren Lodge.
James Longmate, a visitor interested in joining the DeMolay group, was also pleased with the entire experience.
Shelnutt, who has been a Mason for more than 50 years, said he was glad to speak to the young people from DeMolay.
“I feel it’s a great organization,” Shelnutt said. “It’s good start for life for these young men.”
The young men in question, however, were far more impressed with hearing from Shelnutt and his war stories.
“It’s important in DeMolay to understand patriotism,” said Zack Ford, one of the young men from the group. “And he represents that here.”
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