When torpedoes struck his battleship, Neil Frye was just 20 years old — a country boy halfway around the world from his tiny hometown of Vass, North Carolina, caught off-guard on an infamous day.
He had joined up at 19, signing on as a mess attendant in a segregated branch of the Navy, serving aboard the USS West Virginia , which carried him all the way to Pearl Harbor.
When the Japanese attacked that morning in 1941, he was likely below deck in the mess hall, serving breakfast until the first torpedo rocked the ship. Six more torpedo blasts would follow, along with a pair of bombs…