A Pearl Harbor Story On This 82nd Pearl Harbor Day

I have written many times about the massive bombardment of Pearl Harbor and this time I wanted to take it down to the life of one US Navy sailor who survived. The poignant personal life of one young man brings it into focus in a way all the statistics of dead and injured, lists of ships sunk and planes destroyed cannot do.

This family history was originally published on December 7th, 2021.

My dad’s story starts two years before Pearl Harbor, on a summer day in Sioux City, Iowa.

There, 18-year-old Art “Bud” Montagne left a note behind in an empty house. To his parents and six younger brothers and sisters, he wrote: “I’ve joined the Navy. I’ll write when I get to California.”

His family was still struggling out of the Depression. Even with a small scholarship, this high school track star couldn’t afford to go to college. The Navy offered a shot at radio school.

Soon, his mother received a gleeful letter.

“I’ve been accepted into the radio gang,” Art wrote.

What’s more, having graduated at the top of his class, the young sailor was assigned to the USS California, the flagship of the Battle Force, handling the Admiral’s communications.
Ellene circa 1941

Come March of 1941, the young sailor was still swept up in the moment.

He wrote home of his best friend and fellow radioman, a teenaged Texan named Joe Ross. Charismatic and a bit wild, all the girls swooned over Joe. Even the guys allowed he looked just like the Hollywood heartthrob Tyrone Power.

and then,

It meant Art had a few days to indulge his passion for big band music and dancing back in Long Beach.

One night he walked into the Crystal Ballroom and spotted a girl so pretty he did something unusual: He hesitated before asking her to dance. But she was happy to.

“I took her out on the dance floor and realized right away she didn’t know California-style dancing,” Art recalled.

“And I said, ‘You must have come from Iowa.’ And she said, ‘No, as a matter of fact, I grew up in Nebraska.’ So she didn’t know the Palladium Shuffle or the Balboa Hop and some of our California dances.”

Her name was Ellene, and Art was overwhelmed with a desire to see her once more before shipping out the very next night. Though she had other plans, Ellene accepted a date with a young sailor, who was, after all, heading to the Pacific for months to come.

meanwhile on the USS California,

“So the next morning, on December 7th, I woke up, had a cup of coffee, and about 7:50 I hear this tremendously loud clang, clang, clang followed by the bugle call, which was our signal to go to battle stations,” Art recalled.

Radioman Second Class Art Montagne raced to his battle station, high above the main deck, on the flag deck to join the Admiral’s staff.

Seemingly out of nowhere, the first wave of 353 Japanese bombers, fighting planes and torpedo planes darkened the clean blue sky.

“I could look out and see the Japanese planes, which were just airplanes to me. I thought it was just a drill that nobody told us about,” Art said.

“I saw two of them approaching us just about the level of my eyes across the harbor, and they obviously were two torpedo planes. And about half the distance across the harbor they dropped their torpedoes.

“Then I started watching the rivulets of the torpedoes coming and approaching the ship. And then they disappeared from my view, and a fraction of a second later they hit the side of our ship. The ship shook. Water blew 50 feet in the air above the sides. And immediately the ship started easing to the port.

His best friend, the Texan Joe Ross, did not survive and his body was retrieved from the holds of the ship.

Several days after Pearl Harbor, Art had come to the realization that any plans he may have had were changed for years to come. The only thing that was in focus now was fighting the war.

As it turned out, the girl in Long Beach didn’t wait. Ellene learned to fly, and got her pilot’s license. She had a series of wartime jobs, as did so many women newly entering the workforce.

She skied down a hill in a bathing suit, just because she could. And she got engaged to two more suitors as they headed off to war.