Mr. Jimmy Bass, the driving force behind Laurel’s Veterans Museum, was a 40mm gunner on the U.S.S. Harding, a Destroyer Mine-Sweeper (D.M.S.) that was attacked twice by Japanese suicide planes off the coast of Okinawa, Japan. Jimmy joined the Navy at only 16 years old, inspired by the service of his brothers, one a B-17 pilot and the other a sailor. By age 18, he’d already lost a ship. Here’s his story:
The Harding was anchored just off Okinawa on March 26, 1945, as part of a fleet of Navy vessels serving as radar pickets to track Kamikaze planes and shoot them down. They were also to bombard the shore before the coming invasion, scheduled for April 1st. Eventually, the Japanese caught on to what was happening and wanted to put…
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Firearms News (Digital) - 1 Issue, Volume 75, Issue 9