In 1944, at 18 years of age, Harold Batten enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard and soon found himself in the thick of World War II.
He was assigned as a machinist mate on the U.S.S. Callaway, a troop ship transporting Marines to invade Japanese held islands in the Pacific. On January 8, 1945 while the Callaway was the lead ship in the convoy, a Japanese suicide plane broke through heavy antiaircraft fire and crashed into the Callaway.
Harold Batten, known as “Bat” to his shipmates, was working down in the engine room, and amongst the flames and smoke he thought he was not going to make it out alive. But he did, although 29 of his shipmates were killed and another 29 were wounded. The vessel limped to Ulithi, an atoll in the Caroline Islands of the western Pacific Ocean, where temporary repairs were made. Then it carried Marine enforcements from Guam to Iowa Jima, where the vessel suffered more battle damage. Harold Batten said, “What I saw I will never forget, and I was only 19 years old.”
At the conclusion of the war, Harold Batten was transferred to the tranquility of California’s Pigeon Point Lighthouse, where he served as an assistant lighthouse keeper from 1945 into 1946. By this time his nickname had changed from “Bat” to “Pat.” It was a great place and time to change pace and be thankful for being alive. He served as the station’s radioman, but spent lots of time every single day cleaning the glass on the Fresnel lens, which was much different than being shot at and having bombs dropping around him.
While reading the newspaper in 2008 about conflicts around the world, for Veterans Day he wrote a letter to Maine’s York County Coast Star newspaper that said, “I think of all the 19 year-olds seeing things they shouldn’t have to live through and I hope everyone realizes how ugly war is.”
This story appeared in the
May/Jun 2015 edition of Lighthouse Digest Magazine. The print edition contains more stories than our internet edition, and each story generally contains more photographs - often many more - in the print edition. For subscription information about the print edition, click here.
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