On the Sea!

On May 4, 1945, the USS Morrison, DD560, a U.S. Navy destroyer was on duty at Radar Picket Station No. 1 just off Okinawa. Early that morning, she was hit by four Japanese kamikaze aircraft. The ship sank so quickly only one crew member from below decks is documented as having escaped and survived. One hundred fifty-five other Navy men lost their lives. One of those men who was listed as MIA (Missing In Action) was Frederick Arthur Raycraft, WT3, USNR. Petty Officer Third Class Raycraft was born in 1917 to the George William Raycraft family of Bend, Oregon. He was the eighth of nine children born to George and Florence Raycraft. His younger brother Charles died and was interred in Bend in 2003.  Petty Officer Raycraft's name is on a Memorial in Honolulu, Hawaii. 

We've had a couple of tupperware buckets full of old pictures around the house for more years than I want to say.  Actually, it's since my dad passed away in 1994.  One bucket was pictures my mom had saved from her mother and father's collection when they passed away.  The other one was from mom and dad's closet and friends and family they had. I've been working on scanning in these photos, cleaning them up, trying to see who is who and putting captions on them.  I got all of my grandparent's albums scanned and loaded onto the family website in September 2010. 

This past week, Deb sat me down and handed me the bucket from my folk's closet.  So, first I sorted them by family groups, with the hope that after they have been scanned in I can take them to the family picnic this July and return them to the appropriate families to be distributed.  Keep in mind some of these photos go back nearly one hundred years. One of the photos was a U.S. Navy Petty Officer Third Class.  On the back of the photo, written in pencil was the following, "Fred Raycraft, missing in action Christmas 1945."  Not a lot to go on.  I won't bore you with the details of the search, but after some digging, I was able to determine Water Tender Third Class (WT3) Frederick Arthur Raycraft, from Bend, Oregon was aboard the USS Morrison DD-560 and was one of the one-hundred fifty-five sailors lost that day. 

Fred was born to George William and Florence O. Raycraft in 1917, the eighth of nine children.  They lived on Kingston Street in Bend, and a couple of the family members worked for Shevlin-Hixson Company there.  I was able to find out the parents and the youngest brother's funerals were conducted by Niswonger Reynolds Funeral Home in Bend.  It's still there.  I've mailed a copy of the story along with Fred's photo to Pastor Jim Carmichael with the funeral home and asked him to try to get the photo back to family members.  It's the least one can do for someone who made the ultimate sacrifice for his country.  Fred, it's sixty-six years after the fact, but I salute you. Thank you for your sacrifice to this country, and those of us who live here.  VR.