Kamikaze survivor
By Elaine Thompson TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF

NORTHBORO- When the USS Bunker Hill was hit by three Japanese kamikazes off Okinawa during World War II, John L. Moffitt, one of the 33 Navy men operating the two big guns on deck, was one of the lucky ones.

Nearly 500 sailors were killed in the attacks. Mr. Moffitt, then 22, was badly injured, but he survived. He was taken off the ship and placed on another vessel and then transported to a hospital ship, which was sunk by the Japanese after he recuperated. During all the confusion, the Navy listed Mr. Moffitt among the 43 men who were missing in action from the USS Bunker Hill.

"They had me missing in action for two to three months. They told my family I was missing in action. It was even in The Boston Globe that I was missing. I don't know how that happened," Mr. Moffitt said in a recent telephone interview from his home at 21 Goodnow Circle.

He received several medals, including two Silver Stars, four Bronze Stars, the Philippine Liberation ribbon with two Bronze Stars and the Presidential Unit Citation ribbon. But, he never received the Purple Heart, the badge of military merit awarded to all military personnel who have been wounded or killed in action since 1917.

Last week, the 86-year-old father of three and grandfather of five received his Purple Heart.

"I was always under the assumption that I was going to get a Purple Heart," he said.

When his wife, Betty, also a Navy veteran, died in May, Mr. Moffitt said he noticed that tombstones of veterans buried in the cemetery in Winchendon listed the medals received. He said he told a Navy commander at the burial that he had never received a Purple Heart. The commander said he would look into it. Mr. Moffitt received the medal in the mail last Tuesday.

He said his daughter, Helen Ranger of Bolton, was told that a lot of old military records had been destroyed in a fire years ago. Mr. Moffitt said he wished his wife of 60 years had lived to see the medal.

"We talked about it," he said.

Mr. Moffitt and his wife met after they each had been discharged from the Navy. "She and another girl were standing in front of an ice cream store in Brighton Center and they asked me why don't I buy them a cup of coffee. I bought them a cup and that was the start," Mr. Moffitt happily recalled.

Asked why he selected his future wife over her friend, Mr. Moffitt said with a laugh, "She was very pretty."

The two got married in 1948. Mr. Moffitt was a firefighter with the Boston Fire Department for 37 years. His wife worked for the Veterans Administration before the couple started their family.

"We have three beautiful girls, like their mother, and three great son-in-laws. We've always been a very close-knit family," he said.