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A man of action

• Pearl Harbor Day lives on in the memories of Albany Navy veteran Durward Hayes.

Carlton Fletcher

On Dec. 5, 1941, Durward Hayes turned 22. Two days later, while Hayes was selling Dr Pepper at Albany's Hugh Mills Stadium, word came over the stadium loudspeaker that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor.

The next day, Hayes caught a train to Norfolk, Va., a newly sworn-in member of the Navy.

For the extent of World War II, Hayes served his country on a gun crew, first on the USS New York and later on the USS Talladega. For some 50 years, he rarely talked about his experiences at sea ... watching kamikaze pilots crash into a nearby sister ship, witnessing first-hand the famous flag-raising at Iwo Jima, barely drifting by a stray mine in the Pacific at the war's end, taking part in the grisly duty of collecting the bodies of comrades killed in combat.

"You know, even when we were first dating, Durward would never talk about the war," the love of Hayes' life, his bride of 62 years, the former Ruth Cross, said. "I'd say it's only been in the last 10 years or so that he's begun to talk about his experiences."

Hayes, who retired in 1979 after a 28-year career at Marine Corps Logistics Base-Albany's supply center, is pensive as his wife talks about his reluctance to relive old war stories. His eye momentarily lose their spark, and the now 88-year-old is along with his thoughts. When he does speak, it's slowly, resolutely.

"I saw a lot of things," he says. "There are things that I don't really remember after all these years, but there are some things I just don't talk about. And there are other things – some funny and some sad – that I wouldn't want to talk about for a newspaper story."

When a visitor puts his notebook aside, Hayes relays a few of the latter stories, the most memorable of which is a hilarious tale that involves a monkey brought aboard ship. And it's with the telling of this tale that the twinkle returns to Hayes' eyes.

Born and raised on a farm in College Park that now is part of Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, Hayes came to Albany as a teenage. He started work at the local Dr Pepper plant as a 16-year-old and was hawking the soft drink when he learned of the bombing of Premark Harbor, 66 years ago today.

Ironically, Ruth Cross was at Hugh Mills Stadium that day, too, watching the British Air Force cadets stationed at the Turner Field Air Base play rugby.

After training "maybe 13 or 14 days," Hayes and his platoon were given duty orders. Those whose names started with the letters A-G were ordered to serve on an oil taker. Names starting with H-Z were ordered to report for duty on the New York, a battleship that had serve in World War I. Hayes was one of 2,800 men on the ship.

"We didn't even have our uniforms when we got on board," Hayes remembers. "Our first cruise was to New York, and soon we became part of a convoy that went to England, scotland, Iceland, North Africa."

The New York was fired upon occasionally during the convoy cruises, but it didn't engage in battle until it was dispatched to North Africa. There, after shelling Casablanca, the ship was damaged after hitting bottom in shallow water. It returned home for repairs, and Hays went to school in Lancaster, PA., to learn his way around 40 millimeter guns.

After completing his training, he shipped to San Francisco to join the crew of the troop transport Talladega. His first duty on the ship was at Pearl Harbor, where he saw first-hand some of the damage inflicted by the Japanese bombing attack.

The Talladega then went to Eniwetok, to Saipan in the Mariana Islands and on to Iwo Jima. There, Hayes and his cremates provided support for the battleships that shelled the island for 36 days.

"We'd transport the Marines, bring the wounded aboard and tend to them," he said. "Every two or three days the bodies of Marines that hadn't been picked up would float by."

While stationed off Iwo Jima, Hayes watched through binoculars as first a victory flag was raised on the island, then an American flag that became the symbol of U.S. efforts in the war.

"You've seen that John Wayne movie 'Iwo Jima'?" Hayes asks a visitor. "They go it right; it looked just like that."

The Talladega continued its Pacific duties through the remainder of the war, and it delivered the first Marines to go ashore in Japan after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki brought an end to the conflict.

Back at home after the war, the wife of old friend Jimmy Dill – a fellow Dr Pepper employees whom Hayes actually ran into in Norfolk during the war – set him up with Ruth Cross, who was attending school at Huntingdon College in Alabama. The two went to the annual Cotton Ball at Radium Springs and hit it off immediately.

"He asked me to marry him on our first date," Ruth Hayes says, laughing.

"I'd been all over the world and seen pretty much everything there was to see," Durward explains. "I told her I knew I wasn't going to find anyone better."

A couple of month later Ruth finally said yes, and the pair celebrated their 62nd anniversary in August.

As he slips into his twilight years, the horrors and adventures of the Great War decades behind him, Durward Hayes says he's no her, just another guy who did his duty.

"I went for my country," he said. "We all did. There was just a great patriotic feeling during that time. I truly was the 'Greatest Generation,' and everyone worked together to do everything they could for the war effort. I was getting paid $28 a month, but the pay was not what this was about.

"You had women who couldn't fight who learned riveting and welding to do their part. It was a feeling that we were all in it together."

The same can't be said today of an America divided over Iraq and Afghanistan. But Hayes says he supports American involvement in those conflicts.

"People don't understand," the veteran says. "We're doing the right thing. If we didn't go over there, they'd bring the war here."

Then he looks lovingly at his Ruth.

"I don't want to see that," he says. "I don't want her to be in it."

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