After facing the attacks at Pearl Harbor and serving along the Pacific until a few months shy of World War II’s end, one Plano man still didn’t want to come home.

“I wanted to stay until the end,” said Anthony Gannarelli, 96. “They sent me back before I could see General MacArthur accept Japan’s surrender.”

In 1941, with seven years of service in the U.S. Navy, Gannarelli was a petty officer first class aboard the USS Tennessee at Pearl Harbor. And on the early Sunday morning of Dec. 7, he was waiting for a doctor to come remove a leg cast when the Japanese raid began.  

“I was in my bed and saw one of the red balls fly by, and then I immediately went down to my station,” he said.

Gannarelli spent his time in the projectile room battle station inspecting 400 cans of powder to see whether the powder was dry. His division also waited for orders from the captain to fire the 14-inch guns, but those orders never came. Since the battle was so close to Honolulu, they opted to hold their fire of these so they wouldn’t destroy any homes.

Gannarelli emerged from below deck at 3 a.m., witnessing his first sight of the destruction around him.

“I just couldn’t believe it,” he said. “You look around you and see all those beautiful ships burned, and fires all around you. I don’t think I was scared. Maybe I was mad. And I just wanted to get back out there.”

The USS Tennessee was one of the more fortunate ships, where only two bombs hit and eight men died. One of Gannarelli’s best friends, however, died with more than 90 percent of his body burned.

The Plano veteran spent the rest of the war on the USS Indiana before returning to the states in April 1945. Shortly thereafter, he went to Chicago and saw his future wife, Kathryn Fata, who was a longtime family friend.

“She was the best looking person I ever saw in my life,” Gannarelli said.

After a brief courtship, where Gannarelli was calling her everyday, the couple was married on Sept. 8, 1945, just days after Japan signed the peace treaty on Sept. 2.  

From 1945 to 1959, he served on various ships, such as the USS New Jersey and Des Moines, before retiring as a commander from a naval station in San Diego after 25 years of service.

I am the Plano/Murphy and West Plano neighborsgo editor and can be reached at neighborsgo.com/angela or achambers@neighborsgo.com. Got a story, photo or video you'd like to share? Post them directly on neighborsgo.com. Got a story idea? Send it to me directly. For more about how neighborsgo.com works with our neighborsgo print editions, please visit neighborsgo.com/help.