James E. Mathson graduated from Edgeley High School in 1941. He was off to college in Wahpeton, ND to study Aviation Mechanics. After he graduated from college in 1943 he landed a job working at the Jamestown Airport in the War Training Service Department, a flight-training program.

On January 24, 1944 he received notice that he had been drafted and was ordered to report to Fort Snelling, Minnesota where he was inducted into the U.S. Navy. From there Mathson was sent to NTS Farragut in Idaho for his Basic Training. "Basic Training was a lot of drilling and classes. They worked us hard," said Mathson. After Basic Training he was transferred to a receiving ship located near Oakland, California. After about two weeks he was transferred to the Naval Air Station near Alameda, California. It was here that he was attached to the U.S.S. Pennsylvania (BB 38).

After the U.S.S. Pennsylvania was ready, the battleship and its crew set out across the ocean. "We were being sent out for the occupation of Japan," said Mathson. "Every ship in the world was out there getting ready for the big push into the mainland of Japan."In route to Saipan, the Pennsylvania made a detour around Wake Island. They had heard there were still some Japs on the Island. "We lobbed a few shells into the Island," said Mathson, "then we headed on again."

The battleship and its crew headed on to Saipan to replenish the ammunition it had used at Wake Island and then continued on for Okinawa.

On the morning of August 12, 1945, they entered Buckner Bay and docked alongside other battleships. "The enemy was coming in at us like flies," said Mathson. "But they were mostly hitting the troop ships where they could do the most damage."

That evening at 8:45 p.m., as the U.S.S. Pennsylvania lay quietly at anchor in Buckner Bay, a Japanese torpedo plane slipped over without any warning and launched its torpedo at the silhouette of a large battleship, the U.S.S. Pennsylvania.

The torpedo struck the Pennsylvania on the right, or the starboard side near the back. The ship took a heavy trim by the stern and a slight list to the starboard according to the log. Lifeboats from the other ships began to hurry to the aid of the Pennsylvania to rescue the men that had been blown overboard.

Many of the compartments were flooded and the ship settled heavily by the stern. With the help of two salvage tugs and the ship’s repair parties, the flooding was brought under control.

Mathson had been in his quarters just above and ahead of where the torpedo hit. "There was a lot of noise," said Mathson, "and the ship bounced like a cork. It hit us right in the after-steering section." They immediately sealed off the section of the huge battleship that had been hit and began to work immediately on repairing the damage. Mathson commented, "It must have been scary, but when you are 20 years old, you don’t think of things like that."

Nineteen men in a living compartment, just inside where the torpedo hit, were killed and one other man was killed by the force of the blast. Ten others were injured.

Mathson said, "There was no more working on the planes. We had two Scout Observation planes aboard the ship and a crane was used to remove the planes from the ship. The catapult used to launch the planes at sea was shot. So the crane picked up the planes and set them down into the water."

The next day the Pennsylvania was towed into shallower water and salvage operations continued. The lockers below deck were flooded with water and once the water had been pumped out the crew had to haul everything out and toss it overboard. The one thing Mathson also remembered was the bean locker below deck. It was filled with bags of beans and had to be cleaned out before the beans expanded from soaking in the water and they pushed the sides out. "I remember how we had to haul all those bags of beans topside and toss them overboard," said Mathson.

On the night of August 13, 1945 the U.S.S. Pennsylvania saw her last action of the war. An enemy suicide plane made a run on the ships in the harbor and crashed into flames on the deck of a cargo ship about 1000 yards from the Pennsylvania.

On the morning of August 15, 1945, Captain Moses spoke to the ship’s crew over the loudspeaker system and informed them that the President had just announced the acceptance of the Allied’s surrender terms by Japan. There were no loud cheers but just utter silence as the men remembered their shipmates who had lost their lives so near the end.

After arriving back in Puget Sound Mathson was sent on to a Naval Air Station in San Diego for approximately a month before he was shipped to the Naval Air Station in Norfolk, Virginia. James E. Mathson was discharged in April, 1946 at the rank of Aviationist Machinist Mate 3rd Class (AMM3/c).