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96-year-old Al Blumer of Fresno, CA appears on episode #621 of Hometown Heroes, airing March 26-30, 2020. This episode was recorded in Clovis, CA at the weekly “Stories of Service” class for veterans, facilitated by Janice Stevens at the Clovis Veterans Memorial District. Born in Pennsylvania, Blumer was raised in California’s San Joaquin Valley, after a planned family move to Alaska ran short on funds and landed the Blumers in Dinuba, CA.

The second of six children, and the oldest boy, Al remembers feeding the pair of pigs his family would raise each year. As a fourth-grader, he would ride his bicycle four miles each way from their ranch in the country to school in downtown Dinuba. He recalls getting paid to pick grapes and collect boxes of figs, using the proceeds to buy his school clothes. He developed an interest in aviation and mechanic work, and as a high schooler, he paid a whopping five dollars for a Ford Model T pickup that he worked on with his friends. After two years at Dinuba High School, he was convinced by a friend to try to enlist in the Navy. After the physical, Al was accepted, while the friend who talked him into enlisting was rejected for colorblindness. Al’s father had served as a coxswain on a hospital ship in the World War I Navy, and now, a month shy of his 18th birthday, Al was a Navy man as well. His time in the ROTC program at Dinuba High School prepared him well for what he would encounter in boot camp.

“I knew the manual of arms and how to march and everything,” you’ll hear Al explain. “And then in scouting, we had semaphore. We didn’t have all these fancy radios that they have nowadays.”

Hoping for a chance to attend aviation mechanic’s school, test results found Al instead assigned to the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise (CV-6). Listen to Hometown Heroes to find out how he ended up on a tanker, a battleship, and another carrier before finally joining the crew of what would become the most decorated ship in World War II. You’ll hear Blumer explain some of the growing pains he had to endure after being assigned to ship’s company in the deck division. Just before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the Enterprise, with Admiral William “Bull” Halsey aboard, headed toward Wake Island to deliver Marine fighter planes. The ship was on its way back to Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941.

“Before we got there, we hit part of a storm,” you’ll hear Blumer explain. “Otherwise we’d have been, oh I don’t know, might not have been here.”

The fact that none of the U.S. carriers were in port has long been cited as a silver lining to one of the most devastating days in American history. When the Enterprise did make it into Pearl Harbor the next day, that devastation was evident to Al and the rest of the crew.

“Some of ’em were still burning, the Oklahoma upside down,” he recalls of the ships on Battleship Row. “It was a mess.”

After refueling, the carrier set out the next morning to patrol neighboring waters for enemy ships. Raids on Wake Island and the Marshall Islands would follow, and in April, 1942 the Enterprise escorted the USS Hornet on the most famous raid of all. They weren’t told where they were going, but a buzz started to build aboard the Big E as sailors looked across and saw 16 B-25 bombers on the Hornet’s flight deck. Al says he “never dreamed” those bombers would attempt to take off from the carrier, but soon he’d be watching from his trainer seat on a 5-inch/.38 gun as the Doolittle Raiders made history. Some members of his gun crew were taking bets on whether those 16 flight crews would all make it off safely. As soon as the B-25s were on their way to Tokyo, the aircraft carriers turned around and headed back for Hawaii, and the crews were cautioned about the importance of the mission’s secrecy.

“They said if any of you guys say anything about where those B-25s come from,” Blumer remembers. “You’re going to be put in prison, and you’re going to be making big rocks into little ones the rest of your life.”

Among the many close calls you’ll hear Blumer remember was a scene depicted powerfully in the movie MIDWAY. It took place in the Marshall Islands on February 1st, 1942, when a Japanese bomber attempted to crash into the Enterprise. Watch the clip below with Nick Jonas portraying real-life SBD Dauntless gunner Bruno Gaido, who would later become one of the more than 406,000 Americans killed in World War II.

The movie, of course, focused on the Battle of Midway in June, 1942, and you’ll hear Blumer’s perspective on that pivotal moment in the Pacific war, and what it took for the Enterprise to emerge undamaged. More close calls would follow in late August, 1942 when the Enterprise engaged in the Battle of the Eastern Solomons.

“The first two bombs came and went down to the third or fourth deck and exploded,” you’ll hear Al detail. “Another one hit the powder case there on that 5-inch battery back there and blew the whole battery up.”

Those three bomb hits on the aft end of the ship killed 74 members of the Big E’s crew, and wounded nearly 100 more. Two months later, in the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands, the bombs would come a little closer to Al Blumer’s general quarters station.

“The first two released their bombs and they were headed straight for me,” Blumer remembers, adding that the bombs just barely missed his position, exploding below. “That raised that old bow up, and shook it, and the water knocked me out.”

Coming to after another wave of water washed over him, the teenager held on as the mighty carrier was rocked by two more Japanese bomb. 44 of his shipmates were killed, 75 more wounded in a battle that also saw the enemy sink the USS Hornet. May 27, 1943 was a memorable day aboard the Enterprise, as Admiral Chester Nimitz presented the ship with the Presidential Unit Citation, the first carrier to ever earn that honor. In November of that year, Al Blumer came home to California, the only leave he received in more than four years of naval service. When he returned to duty, he had a different role, assigned to a crash boat deployed to rescue survivors of downed aircraft.

On Eniwetok when the Japanese surrendered, Al was excited to return home to California. After graduating from Reedley College, he met his wife, Jeane, in Willits, CA where he was managing a movie theater. Later he transitioned to the banking business, spending 32 years with Crocker Bank. He didn’t talk much about his World War II experiences until he started attending the Stories of Service class in Clovis. Now he’s looking forward to the day that the Coronavirus pandemic subsides and the class can start meeting once again.