Francis P. Hammerberg

He entered a buried wreck to rescue two trapped navy divers.

Owen Francis Patrick Hammerberg was born at Daggett, Michigan, on 31 May 1920 and grew up in the Flint area. He entered the Navy in 1941 and served in USS Idaho and USS Advent. By October 1943 he was a boatswain's mate second class. Deep-sea diving training at the Washington Navy Yard in 1944 led to work with the Pacific Fleet Salvage Force.

On 17 February 1945, two divers became trapped beneath a sunken landing ship at West Loch, Pearl Harbor. Hammerberg volunteered to enter the unstable wreckage, submerged in deep water and mud. He freed one diver and returned farther beneath the ship for the second.

Another collapse pinned Hammerberg beneath steel and mud. His intervention helped his fellow divers escape, but he died before rescuers could reach him. His Medal of Honor was awarded posthumously for this deliberate acceptance of danger in a rescue operation.

Hammerberg was twenty-four. He was buried in Holy Sepulchre Cemetery, Southfield, Michigan, and the destroyer escort USS Hammerberg later carried his name. His service illustrates the dangers faced by salvage crews even away from direct enemy fire.

Official Medal of Honor citation:

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty as a Diver engaged in rescue operations at West Loch, Pearl Harbor, 17 February 1945. Aware of the danger when two fellow divers were hopelessly trapped in a cave-in of steel wreckage while tunneling with jet nozzles under an LST sunk in 40 feet of water and 20 feet of mud, HAMMERBERG unhesitatingly went overboard in a valiant attempt to effect their rescue despite the certain hazard of additional cave-ins and the risk of fouling his life line on jagged pieces of steel imbedded in the shifting mud. Washing a passage through the original excavation, he reached the first of the trapped men, freed him from the wreckage and, working desperately in pitch-black darkness, finally effected his release from fouled lines, thereby enabling him to reach the surface. Wearied but undaunted after several hours of arduous labor, HAMMERBERG resolved to continue his struggle to wash through the oozing, submarine, subterranean mud in a determined effort to save the second diver. Venturing still further under the buried hulk, he held tenaciously to his purpose, reaching a place immediately above the other man just as another cave-in occurred and a heavy piece of steel pinned him crosswise over his shipmate in a position which protected the man beneath from further injury while placing the full brunt of terrific pressure on himself. Although he succumed in agony 18 hours after he had gone to the aid of his fellow-divers, HAMMERBERG, by his cool judgement, unfaltering professional skill and consistent disregard of all personal danger in the face of tremendous odds, had contributed effectively to the saving of his two comrades. His heroic spirit of self-sacrifice throughout enhanced and sustained the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life in the service of his country.