Remembering Walter Borchert, Pearl Harbor survivor

To The Daily Sun,

I was sad to learn of the passing of Walter Borchert. The World War II veteran was a Pearl Harbor survivor, the last one in the Lakes Region area.

I had the opportunity to meet him in 1991 when I was a news reporter for the then Laconia Evening Citizen. The newspaper published a special supplement on the 50th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Mr. Borchert was one of 10 area residents there at the time of the attack. He agreed to be interviewed.

U.S. Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Borchert was aboard the destroyer USS Worden which was anchored near Battleship Row. He saw the Japanese airplanes dropping the bombs and saw the Arizona when it was struck and exploded. After the last wave of airplanes attacked the ships, the USS Worden went out to sea to look for the Japanese aircraft carriers.

When his ship returned to Pearl Harbor, he helped to pull bodies of dead sailors out of the water. “It wasn’t a pretty sight,” he told me.

His ship fought in the battles of Midway, Coral Sea, Mindanao, and Tulargi Island. His ship sank after hitting a reef in the Aleutian Islands in early 1944. He and his shipmates were rescued. He was shipped to San Francisco where he was assigned to a new destroyer, the USS Tratham, for the duration of the war.

He never returned to Pearl Harbor because of his memories of the attack. “It’s too painful,” he said as the interviewed ended.

It was an honor to interview him and the other nine Pearl Harbor survivors in the Lakes Region.

May he and his fellow survivors who in my mind are all heroes rest in peace.

Gordon D. King

Laconia