Telegrams tell tale of Pearl Harbor sailor killed on ship
'Where is Andy?'
Art Nagy's uniform and the clock from the USS Oklahoma will join items from another small display at Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall and Museum that connects Pittsburgh to Pearl Harbor.
The hall has a photo of Andrew Marze, a Pittsburgh sailor, and two yellowed Western Union telegrams from Dec. 19, 1941, one from his family asking "Where is Andy?" and another from his wife in Honolulu replying that he'd been killed in the Dec. 7 attack.
Mr. Marze, the brother of two Pittsburgh police officers whose father lived on Hunt Street in Sheraden, was a gunner's mate on the USS Dobbin, a destroyer tender, but died aboard the USS Pennsylvania when it was struck by a bomb.
James F. Lee, student media adviser at Bucknell University whose mother, Doris, was married to Mr. Marze, has pieced some of his history together.
Born in 1912, Mr. Marze enlisted in the Navy at 17 and became a career Navy man, rarely returning home to Pittsburgh. He and Doris, a native of Salem, Mass., met at a roller-skating rink and married in 1937 while he was stationed in Charlestown, Mass. She later followed him to San Diego and then Pearl Harbor, where they lived at the Navy base with their daughter, Andrea.
Mr. Lee, who has written an unpublished book about the civilian evacuation of Pearl Harbor, said they were home when the attack began. "He looked up to see the planes," said Mr. Lee. "He said to her, 'This is no picnic.' "
He tried to get to his ship, but it was too far away to reach amid the chaos. Most likely, Mr. Lee said, he boarded the nearest ship, the Pennsylvania, and tried to fight back.
"People were doing whatever they could," said Mr. Lee.
A bomb hit the ship and wiped out a gun crew. Mr. Marze was among those killed.
Doris didn't learn he was dead until Dec. 12.
"I can never remember my mother talking about it," said Mr. Lee.
She and her daughter were evacuated to San Francisco on Dec. 26. She returned home to New England and married an old boyfriend, who is Mr. Lee's father.
Mr. Marze is buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu.
-- Torsten Ove