4A Friday, December 7, 2018
The Times, Gainesville, Georgia | gainesvilletimes.com
NATION
Attack on Pearl Harbor remembered 77 years later
BY RENE RAY DE LA CRUZ
Tribune News Service
On the 77th anniversary of the Japanese
attacking Pearl Harbor, Barbara Belden
recalled how she volunteered to watch for
enemy aircraft invading the skies of Califor
nia soon after the attack.
“I was only 10 years old, but I could iden
tify any aircraft flying over the Coachella
Valley,” Belden said from her home in
Apple Valley. “I would watch for planes with
my binoculars and my mother would write
down the information that I’d give her.”
During Japan’s surprise attack on Dec. 7,
1941, more than 2,400 Americans died and
another 1,000 people were wounded. Twenty
American naval vessels and 300 aircraft
were destroyed or damaged.
The attack on Pearl Harbor brought fear
to the mainland. Neighborhood blackouts
forced many families to huddle together
in the dark and use a flashlight “low to the
ground” to avoid attracting the attention
of Japanese aircraft that may be invading,
Belden said.
“My family and I spent a lot of time in the
dark, chewing the fat and talking about life,”
Belden said. “Those were sweet moments,
but I wasn’t scared. It was something our
young people today don’t have a clue about. ”
Belden’s husband, Ted, who was 14 years
old during the attack on Pearl Harbor, said
he was hiking with family and friends in
the mountains of Idyllwild when Japanese
fighter planes began their attack in Hawaii.
“After church, we hiked down Old Road
to the bottom of the hill and Mrs. Walburn
picked us up at the end of the road,” Ted
Belden said. “When we arrived back to
the Walburn’s home, Mrs. Walburn turned
on the radio and heard the news of the
attack.”
Ted Belden recalled Mrs. Walburn saying,
“Children, quiet. There’s war,” just before
she burst into tears, knowing that her hus
band in China was in danger.
The Walburn family moved to Idyllwild in
late August 1941 after living in China. On the
advice of the State Department, Americans
were asked to leave the country, but Hugh
Walburn stayed behind to finish work.
Mr. Walburn was placed in a Japanese
internment camp in Shanghai until being
released in 1944, Ted Belden said.
Realizing that going to war would pre
empt enrolling in college, Belden finished
his senior year at Hemet High School in six
weeks. He did manage to sneak in two years
of study at the University of Redlands before
enlisting in the Navy.
“I enlisted before I was 18 and before the
draft got to us,” said Belden, who was on his
way to boot camp on VJ Day. “I was on the
parade field during the surrender so I wasn’t
an active participant in the war. “
Army veteran Robert “Bob” Gregor,
94, of Apple Valley said he registered for
the draft soon after the Japanese attacked
Pearl Harbor.
“There was a spirit of patriotism across
the country and it seemed like everybody
wanted to join the military,” said Gregor,
who participated in World War II, as well
as the Korean and Vietnam wars. “I was
drafted in 1943, the year after I graduated
from Colton Union High School.”
Gregor said his brother, James, was
onboard the U.S.S. Enterprise, known as the
“The Grey Ghost,” hundreds of miles from
Pearl Harbor when the attack began.
“We scoured the newspaper every day
looking for anything written about the
Enterprise or Pearl Harbor,” Gregor said.
Years before Gregor joined the 103rd
Evacuation Hospital Medical Detachment
in Europe to join the allied invasion of Nor
mandy, he discovered his neighbor, Navy
shipman Byron Trank, had made the cover
of Life Magazine in the first publication
released after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
“Byron was at his battle station on the
USS California when the Japanese attacked
the battleship in Pearl Harbor,” Gregor
said. “He abandoned ship and swam to the
dock area.”
Gregor said Trank’s mother saw the mag
azine photo of sailors putting out a fire and
said, “That’s my boy, I can recognize him
anywhere.”
Trank was also onboard the USS Astoria
in August 1942, off Savo Island near Guadal
canal, when the ship was sunk, forcing the
injured sailor to abandon ship, Gregor said.
Deadly shootings chill black gun owners
JAY REEVES I Associated Press
April Pipkins holds a photograph of her deceased son, Emantic “EJ” Bradford Jr.,
during an interview, Nov. 27, in Birmingham, Ala.
BY JESSE J. HOLLAND
Associated Press
ODENTON, Md. — Gun-rights advo
cates like to say, “The only way to stop
a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy
with a gun.” Some black gun owners,
though, are not so sure it’s a wise idea
for them to try to be the good guy and
pull out a weapon in public.
Twice in the span of 11 days last
month, a black man who drew a gun in
response to a crime in the U.S. was shot
to death by a white officer after appar
ently being mistaken for the bad guy.
Some African-Americans who are
licensed to carry weapons say cases
like those make them hesitant to step
in to protect others.
“I’m not an advocate of open-carry
if you’re black,” said the Rev. Kenn
Blanchard, a Second Amendment
activist and host of the YouTube pro
gram “Black Man With a Gun TV,” a
gun advocacy show. “We still have
racism ... We still scare people. The
psychology of fear, it’s bigger than the
Second Amendment.”
The recent shootings of Jemel Rob
erson and Emantic Bradford Jr. ampli
fied fears that bad things can happen
when a black man is seen with a gun.
Roberson was working security at
a Robbins, Illinois, bar when he was
killed Nov. 11 while holding at gun
point a man involved in a shooting.
Witnesses said the officer ordered the
Roberson to drop his gun before open
ing fire.
But witnesses also shouted that
Roberson, who had a firearms per
mit, was a guard. And a fellow guard
said Roberson was wearing a knit hat
and sweatshirt that were emblazoned
“Security.”
Bradford, 21, was killed Thanksgiv
ing night by an officer responding to
gunfire at a shopping mall in Hoover,
Alabama. Police initially identified
Bradford as the gunman but later back
tracked and arrested another suspect.
Ben Crump, a lawyer for the dead
man’s family, said witnesses claimed
Bradford was trying to wave people
away from the shooting. Crump said
Bradford was licensed to carry a
weapon but was presumably seen as a
threat because he was a black man.
‘You want your kids
to help someone, but
you don’t want them to
be shot trying to help
someone. It’s a sad thing.’
Andre Blount
Black gun owner
The shootings have brought up some
of the same questions about racist
assumptions and subconscious fears
that were asked after the killings of
Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mis
souri, and Trayvon Martin in Sanford,
Florida.
Trevor Noah, host of “The Daily
Show,” lamented Bradford’s death.
“That’s what they always say, right?
‘The good guy with a gun stops the
crime,”’ Noah said. “But then if the
good guy with a gun turns out to be a
black good guy with a gun, they don’t
get any of the benefits.”
According to the advocacy group
Mapping Police Violence, 1,147 people
were killed by police in 2017, 92 per
cent of them in shootings. While blacks
made up 13 percent of the U.S. popu
lation, they accounted for 27 percent
of those killed by police, 35 percent of
those killed by police while unarmed,
and 34 percent of those killed while
unarmed and not attacking, the orga
nization said.
Andre Blount of Tomball, Texas,
once pulled out his shotgun to help
a neighbor who was being attacked
by an armed white man. The police
arrived and defused the situation, he
said.
“For me, being a legally registered
owner and having a concealed weapon
permit, I feel like I have to be more
careful than the next person,” Blount
said. “Because if not, the only thing
anyone sees is a black man with a gun. ”
Blount tells black gun owners to con
sider if it’s worth risking their lives to
come to someone’s aid with a weapon.
“You want your kids to help some
one, but you don’t want them to be shot
trying to help someone,” he said. “It’s
a sad thing.”
Chicago stabbing
suspect says he kills
‘when I feel like it’
BY HANNAH LEONE
AND ROSEMARY SOBOL
Tribune News Service
A suspect in three fatal
stabbings on Chicago’s West
Side admitted after his
arrest that “I just get up and
go kill when I feel like it,”
according to prosecutors.
Darius Mayze, 24, has
so far been charged with
killing 58-year-old Randall
Rockett last month in the
Lawndale neigh
borhood, where
both men lived.
Police say he’s
a suspect in two
other killings in
the span of a week
in November: Jose
Refugio Ceja, 64,
and Ruby Hum
phrey, 57.
Mayze was
arrested Sunday Sunday
after witnesses identified
Mayze from surveillance
video taken after Rockett
was stabbed on Nov. 20,
prosecutors said during a
court hearing Wednesday.
While being held in
custody, Mayze made sev
eral statements that were
recorded on video, includ
ing “Kill as many people
as you want to,” and “I told
you I’m tired, I just get up
and go kill when I feel like
it.”
He was charged with
first-degree murder and
denied bail.
The surveillance video,
released last week by
police, shows Mayze walk
ing in the area where Rock
ett was found stabbed to
death in the vestibule of an
apartment building in the
1200 block of South Chris
tiana Avenue around 3:15
p.m. on Nov. 20, police said.
Prosecutors said a wit
ness saw Rockett lying on
the floor, but thought he’d
fallen out of his chair and
ran to get help. When he
came back, he saw Rockett
in a pool of blood, prosecu
tors said.
Refugio Ceja was found
dead from stab wounds dur
ing the early morning hours
of Nov. 15 when
police responding
to a call of a per
son down found
him on the ground
in the 1100 block
of South Keeler
Avenue. The caller
said he looked out
the window and
saw the man face
up on the sidewalk. He had
been stabbed in the neck
and shoulder and was dead
on the scene, police said.
Police found a blood trail
ending half a block south on
Keeler, a source said.
Less than 2 miles east,
Humphrey, 57, was found
dead Nov. 13 in the 3100
block of West Taylor Street,
police said. A mother and
daughter called police after
finding her around 11:10
p.m. She was also found
on her back, stabbed in the
head and neck, police said.
Detectives set up sur
veillance after the two
additional slayings and, on
Sunday, police saw Mayze
walking in the area of the
killings wearing the same
“distinctive” clothes as on
the video, prosecutors said.
Mayze
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