At left, Tom Watson of Pell City proudly displays his U.S.S. South Dakota hat, as well as a photo of himself and a friend during their days together in the U.S. Navy.

At 17, he tried to enlist.

“I wanted off the farm in Riverside, but I was not legally an adult, so I had to have my parents permission to join the military,” said Tom Watson, World War II veteran and Pell City resident.  “When I asked mother and daddy to sign the papers, my daddy just looked at me and tore them up.”

When he turned 18, Watson was drafted to the U.S. Navy.  Watson traveled to the naval base in Bainbridge, Maryland for boot camp, then on to Norfolk, Virginia for 5-inch gun training.

After his training Watson was assigned to the U.S.S. South Dakota.

“It was what we called a battle wagon ship,” Watson said.

Commissioned on March 20, 1942 with Captain Thomas Leigh Gatch in command, the U.S.S. South Dakota sailed for the Panama Canal from the Philadelphia Navy Yard on Aug. 16.

“We had fun on the ship,” Watson said.  “We would entertain ourselves by climbing to the top of the structure and watch the waves roll and move the ship from side to side.

Watson suffered injury aboard the ship when a powder can exploded behind him.

“Some of the crew were trying lower ammunition down into the magazine locker. It blew me about 30 feet.” Watson said.  “I still hear ringing in my ears.”

Hospitalized for a broken leg, Watson was placed on a stretcher and transferred from the U.S.S. South Dakota to a hospital ship.

“The ship was moving 12 knots.  I saw the Lord’s face for the first time when they put me on that stretcher.  When I saw that red cross on that hospital ship, I knew I had seen the face of Jesus,” Watson said.  “I was at services the next Sunday.

“They put four pins in the bone, two on the top, two on the bottom.”

Every Friday, Watson visited the doctor who used a wrench to tighten the bolts placed in his leg that needed to be adjusted on a regular basis.

Watson returned to the U.S.S South Dakota in Nov. 1944 to continue his service in the Navy until the end of the war.