ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, May 28, 1996 TAG: 9605290043
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-8 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: GRIDLEY, CALIF.
SOURCE: Associated Press
THE FIRST TO DIE at Pearl Harbor is memorialized 55 years later in his hometown.
Just seconds after Japanese bombers roared in, 17-year-old Warren McCutcheon was shot through the heart by an enemy gunner - the first American serviceman to die at Pearl Harbor, researchers say.
On Monday, nearly 55 years after the attack that brought America into World War II, more than 300 people gathered at the cemetery in McCutcheon's hometown to honor the fallen sailor with a 9-foot-tall granite monument. ``He had no warning - he had no chance,'' the inscription reads.
``He was hit right away and died instantly,'' said Leon Smith, 72, McCutcheon's boyhood friend who was on the nearby USS Honolulu. ``They picked him up off the deck and put him on a magazine so nobody would step on him.''
Residents of Gridley and the surrounding farm towns raised more than $15,000 to pay for the memorial, which includes a pair of 50-foot flag poles, six 25-foot poles and landscaping. The monument is about 200 feet from McCutcheon's simple grave site.
LENGTH: Short : 33 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: McCutcheonby CNB