Atlanta Daily World

Wears Four
Stars

Otis Jim Jackson
Petty officer, second class, United States Navy who wears four stars on his service ribbon, indicating that he has seen action in as many sea battles against the Japanese.
He also wears the purple heart award, given all men who sustain wounds in action.

Wounded Naval
Hero Tells Of
Four Sea Battles

Otis Jim Jackson
Of Atlanta Gets
Purple Heart

Wearing four golden stars on his service ribbon, indicating that he had participated in four sea battles against the Japanese and the Purple Heart decoration showing that he had been wounded, Petty Officer, second class Otis Jim Jackson of the United States Navy returned to Atlanta this week to spend his thirty-day furlough with his mother, Mrs. Mary Montgomery of 106 A Rawson Street, southeast.

Petty Officer Jackson, who has been with the fleet for 22 months, disclosed that his ship was helping guard troop ships carrying reinforcements to Guadalcanal on April 7, this year, when a Japanese plane dropped a bomb on the deck, a fragment of which wounded him in the leg.

The youthful hero explained that at the time he was wounded, he was helping another Atlantan, Otis Moore of Greensferry Avenue, man an antiaircraft gun. The bomb, he said, failed to sink the ship, but it placed him in the hospital until July.

Transferred to another vessel, he became a second victim of Japanese (Continued on Page 4, Col. 3)
Wounded Naval
(Continued from Page 1)

fire on August 16 when a torpedo struck the ship, knocking himself and about fifteen other seamen into the Pacific. He disclosed that he was in the water for four hours before being picked up by a naval patrol bomber. The torpedoed ship didn't sink, but the harrowing experience sent him back to the hospital at Oakland, California where he remained until released on October 1.

The thing that impressed him most about his experiences in the southwest Pacific, Petty Officer Jackson said, was the work being done by the Navy's Negro Seabees, the outfit, he believes, that offers Negroes their greatest opportunity in the armed forces.

He revealed that for two months he was stationed on a Pacific island with a Seabees unit and told how sole defense of the island where construction was underway, was handled by the fighting construction crewmen.

Though most of the Negroes serving with fleet are still classed as cooks or stewards, all of them now, he said, have been taught to man anti-aircraft and other combat weapons. When the ship is attacked, they leave their galleys and take their places with the rest of the crew on deck, he said.

A few of the Negro technicians trained at Great Lakes have been assigned to the fleet, he disclosed, revealing that a Negro electrician and three Negro firemen were serving aboard the ship to which he was attached.

Enthusiastic about the navy, Petty Officer Jackson, itching to go back into action, in conclusion urged all seventeen year olds and other fellows about to be drafted to see Chief Specialist Graham W. Jackson at the New Postoffice with whom they can sign up for service with the forces that forms America's first line of defense.