The shipmate I never met

Originally published in

Rock Island Argus

Moline Dispatch

November 11, 2010

Today, I'm remembering a local boy, Jerry Cox.

Jerry and I never met. We grew up in different parts of the country at different times. But the bonds between veterans of the same units, specialties and experiences extend beyond time and place. Jerry Cox and I were both Navy musicians; in a sense, we are shipmates.

Vets understand this. Readers without military experience will have to accept that it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to describe the ties felt by those who have shared service and sacrifice.

His ship's log tells us Gerald Clinton Cox was born in Wisconsin and studied at the Racine Conservatory of Music. His parents moved the family to the Quad-Cities while he was still a kid. He must have been a talented musician; after graduating from high school in East Moline, he was accepted for enlistment in the Navy as a musician. Jerry played the guitar and clarinet, important instruments in the jazz he played so well.

After boot camp at Great Lakes and Music School in Washington, DC, Jerry was sent to serve on a battleship with one of the best military bands in the Pacific, Band 22. The music was good, America was at peace and Musician Second Class Cox had found his place in the Navy.

He lived aboard ship with his fellow bandsmen. No doubt, they laughed together and fought with each other. The ship's newspaper recorded their nicknames: "Brick," "Swede,""Mad Russian," "Flatfoot Floogie."

One warm autumn Sunday morning, as their ship lay in harbor, Band 22 was formed on deck, playing Morning Colors. Jerry and his shipmates were probably still half asleep; they may have been out late on liberty the night before, checking out a concert by another Navy band against which they were competing in a spectacular, fleet-wide Battle of the Bands. Fortunately for night owls, Morning Colors is not a challenging gig, once you wipe the sleep from your eyes. You play a few marches until, at precisely eight a.m., the bugler sounds "Attention" and the band performs the National Anthem. The flag is briskly hoisted and a new Navy day begins. It's stirring for the onlooker, but no big deal for the band.

But it was a big deal that Sunday morning, Dec. 7, 1941. Shortly before eight, the flames of hell engulfed Pearl Harbor, where Band 22 stood on the deck of the USS Arizona.

As the klaxon call to General Quarters screamed throughout the ship, the members of Band 22 did what every sailor, gunner's mate, engineman, navigator or musician, was trained to do: they ran to their battle station.

Battle station for Band 22 was the Arizona's ammunition hold.

Within a few minutes, one of the enemy's armor-piercing bombs penetrated the deck. Death in the ammunition hold was immediate. The massive explosion killed all of Band 22 and sent the Arizona to the bottom of Pearl Harbor, along with most of her crew.

Veterans Day is set aside so we may remember all who have worn our country's uniform, whether fighting a war or protecting a peace. When we envision these defenders, they are giants in our minds, grizzled warriors of battleship proportions. But many were kids, fresh off the family farm or city block. The average age of the members of USS Arizona's band was 21.

They were kids, yes, but at their battle stations in Arizona's ammunition hold, the members of Band 22 were men.

Sleep peacefully, Jerry, my shipmate. You too, Swede, Brick, Flatfoot.

I remember you.