KTKA

"I joined the Navy, always wanted to go in the Navy I don't know why," Former POW, Harry T. Kelley said.

Harry T. Kelley joined the Navy on August 6, 1940.

He went to training for nine weeks and was paid just 21 dollars a month.

Eventually he was shipped to Pearl Harbor.

"In Pearl Harbor I was put aboard an aircraft carrier the U.S.S. Yorktown. I liked that ship, I liked airplanes," he said. However, Kelley had one slight problem with that ship. "My battle station was three decks below the waterline; I wasn't too fond of that because I thought if we went to war, that waterline's above your head."

In April of 1941 the Navy called for men to help the Asiatic fleet.

"I thought, well I'm in the Navy I may as well see what I can," Kelley said.

It took 23 days to get from Pearl Harbor to Manila.

"Eventually we were placed aboard the U.S.S. Houston and I was made Captain of a five inch gun," Kelley said.

Admiral Thomas Hart, in charge of the Asiatic Fleet, warned the captain of the U.S.S. Houston to get out of Manila.

"We did, everything we could float we got out of there," he said.

"They told Pearl Harbor to do the same thing, but they didn't do it. You know what happened there."

Kelley said they headed out to sea to transport some goods from Manila to Australia.

On February 4, 1942 the stern of the U.S.S. Houston took a hit, killing 48 men.

"I watched them take them off that ship, that's hard to take," Kelley said.

In mid-February Kelley's ship teamed up with four other ships, one British, one Australian and two Dutch.

The next day they had to get oil, so they went through the Sundra Straits. Meanwhile enemy planes and submarines were lurking above and below.

"A little after 12, the fleet was setting there waiting on us, "Kelley said.

"For eight hours we fired at one another," he said. "We made several hits; we got hit one time with a shell."

"They had transports, they had aircraft carriers, torpedo boats, everything," Kelley said. "We took three torpedos on the starboard side, then one on the port side."

"We fired everything we had, we had no ammunition left," he said.

"They called up an abandon ship order, well, I ran over the side of the ship, looked over and said hell, we ain't sinkin' let's keep on firin."

But then the call came to man the guns again.

"So back up I went to where my gun was and there was three guys already shot on the deck," Kelley said.

"I went back down below and got off the ship, I jumped off."

Just before, Kelley saw a friend hesitating on board.

"He was screaming, he was scared," Kelley said. "He said, 'I'm wounded, I said, Demo, I said, get off this thing because it's sinking."

But just in time, Kelley came to his rescue.

"Well, I put my foot in his back and off he went," he said. "Up to this day he said I saved his life, but I have done it for anybody."

"We lost 700 men that night, that's a lot of people," Kelley said.

Kelley thinks most of those men died on the first abandon ship order.

"I swear there's a lot of men that got caught in them screws, cut them up," he said. "But all night I swam, 11 hours, but I never looked back, never saw the ship go down."

His captors cut him in the ribs with his own pocket knife, but Kelley says it was nothing, compared to what he went through for three and a half years in the jungles of Burma.

"These people were crude, they had ponies to pull these carts, well we sunk the ship that had the ponies, so from there on, we became the ponies," he said.

Then his life in the jungle took a new path.

For 18 months, he and the other prisoners built the infamous death railroad for the enemy.

"This railroad, the British said it couldn't be done," Kelley said.

When they finished, it had almost been five years since Kelley had signed up for the Navy.

"Then they loaded us on trains, over the Bridge on the River Kwai, big deal today."

He says a lot of the men suffered from malaria or other illnesses and the mosquitoes were dense.

"They was dyin' so fast they just put them in a pit and fired them, burned them," Kelley said. "We buried a lot of men in that jungle too."

Then word spread around camp that the U.S. had dropped an atomic bomb and the war was over.

But Kelley remained MIA.

Kelley received the message from a British prisoner.

"He said the war's over, but don't be telling anybody. I tell you I just liked to sink, I couldn't believe it after all that time, three and a half years," Kelley said.

Finally on September the 6th, 1945 U.S. army trucks rolled into camp and to the rescue.

Kelley's birthday was the following day.

"When I come out of that jungle I weighed 93 pounds."

When he came back he says there were no parades, no parties just a lot of explaining to family and friends.

But like many veterans Kelley tucked his war experiences away.

"You just don't talk about that stuff much that's all," he said.

Now at age 87, he wants others to share their stories, so future generations will be educated about war and what it means to be free.

"Today there's less than 40 of us left out of 1,068 men, why me? I don't know," Kelley said.