LUBBOCK, Texas (FOX 44) – J.C. Alston was born in 1923, about 35 miles northeast of Lubbock, Texas. Alston was the middle of seven children, raised during the harsh Dust Bowl years. He recalled when they finally got electricity and stopped using kerosene lanterns.
In August 1941, an 18-year-old Alston joined the Navy and, just a few short months later, he found himself on watch aboard the USS California the morning of December 7, 1941, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.
Being stationed in the Pacific for nearly four years, Alston was once again a witness to history when he was in Tokyo Bay in September 1945, when Japanese and U.S. officials met with other Allied commanders nearby on the USS Missouri to sign the Instrument of Surrender, which officially ended the war, just weeks after the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Alston was honorably discharged just a few months later. He returned to Lubbock, where he got married and raised a family, working for the VA for 34 years in various positions, including fire chief and police officer…