Las Vegas Weekly

August 27, 2009 · 5:54 PM

One of the last of a generation, Pearl Harbor hero Ray Turpin laid to rest

By John Katsilometes

Ray and Wanda Turpin, enjoying a Marine Corps Ball.

Sometimes heroes live in our midst and we don’t readily realize they are there. A case in point is World War II Marine veteran Ray Turpin, who died Friday at age 88.

We’ll start with one of Turpin’s granddaughters, Jennifer Vaughan.

Jennifer has been a friend for years and has helped promote many great stories out of the UNLV Department of Fine Arts as that organization’s publicist. So it is not a surprise to get a call from her about happenings at the UNLV Performing Arts Center, but this weekend the call was startling, somber and personal, as Jennifer said that her grandfather had just passed away. After a few moments of quiet conversation, she was reminded of a Sun story written several years ago -- so long ago that its author, Jace Radke, now works as a spokesman for the city of Las Vegas and Mayor Oscar Goodman. And from that story, we remember that this grandfather of a friend was a great man, who at age 19 was standing on the USS Oklahoma as it was bombed by Japanese warplanes on Dec. 7, 1941.

One of the very last surviving servicemen from the attack on Pearl Harbor, Turpin died at Desert Springs Hospital after a stroke he suffered in April. He was laid to rest today at Southern Nevada Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Boulder City. His wife of 64 years, Wanda, was presented the American flag Turpin had fought for as a young man.

Turpin was a naturally humble gentleman who kept many of the details of his military service to himself for decades. Earlier today, Jennifer said she was unaware of the specifics of his military service until she was a teenager. “If you tried to say that he was a hero, he’d tell you there were a lot of heroes that day,” she said. It was of course a terrible day, which claimed 2,395 Americans, including more than 400 sailors aboard the USS Oklahoma.

In the moments after the infamous attack, Turpin, whose duty was to man one of the ship’s 5-inch guns, helped drag other servicemen from the 1,300-member crew from the crippled vessel off the ship and to the USS Maryland. By the time Turpin and his fellow crew mates could respond to the attack, the Oklahoma had been hit by at least five torpedoes.

"I was on the ledge (of the ship), and I was seeing all the other ships getting hit when five to seven bombers flew overhead," Turpin said in Radke’s story from May 2001, which was to preview the since-forgotten film “Pearl Harbor.”

“The bombs looked like they were coming right at us, but they ended up hitting the battleships behind us. I saw some hit the (USS) West Virginia, and I could feel the concussion and the heat from the explosions on the (USS) Arizona,” he said. “There was nothing I could do. I guess it would be like being out in the middle of a freeway. Where are you going to run?"

Not a great swimmer, especially in waters rocked violently by the Japanese onslaught, Turpin waited for the waves to calm to make his break. While scrambling across the ship’s open weather deck to one of the ship’s anti-aircraft guns, the crew was “strafed” by fire, sending splinters from the wood deck flying. “But we got to the gun, and no one was hurt,” he recalled.

As the ship tilted to its port side, sailors on the starboard side who were trapped below deck attempted to escape the sinking vessel by squeezing through portholes. The ship’s chaplain pushed crew members from the inside, and Turpin and others pulled them toward safety. Four or five young men were saved by those actions. Turpin tried to get the chaplain to squeeze his way through, too, but the chaplain didn't believe he could fit. “He said he was going to look for other guys, and it was the last time I saw him alive,” Turpin said.

The young sailor made it to safety by clutching a mooring line and pulling himself, hand-over-hand, to the Maryland, which had lumbered toward the wounded Oklahoma. As the Oklahoma sank, the mooring line pulled so tight it was dragging the Maryland, so a sailor cut the line to free the saving ship –- a move that “snapped me almost all the way back to the Oklahoma,” as Turpin put it. He swam the 30 feet to the Maryland, becoming soaked in oil that had bled from the sinking ships. When he was lifted onto the Maryland, he began assisting in the operation of one of that ship’s anti-aircraft guns until a doctor ordered him back to the infirmary to clean up. Turpin was issued hospital pajamas, which he wore until the ship docked at Ford Island after the battle.

Turpin retired from the military in 1960 and moved to Las Vegas in 1966. Along with Wanda, survivors include his children Pamela Tibbits, Raye Jean Plehn and Raymond Turpin Jr.; 11 grandchildren; and 11 great-grand children.

Today and always, Ray’s time, his remarkable story and his family should be remembered. And saluted.

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