Alaska News

Pearl Harbor veteran, Alaska communications pioneer Joe Booi dead at 92

Former Anchorage resident Walter Joseph Booi died at his daughter's home in Yakima, Washington, on Oct. 24 at the age of 92. The longtime resident of Spenard survived the attack on Pearl Harbor and the sinking of his aircraft carrier and found new ways to make long-distance communication work in Alaska. More importantly, he found ways to move beyond personal trauma to stay cheerful, help others in need and forgive the most detested enemy.

Booi, the son of Charles and Mary (Hardebeck) Booi, was born in Yakima on June 3, 1922. The family lived in harsh poverty through the 1930s, depending on welfare and living in a government-issued tent with a dirt floor. Booi read science fiction and technology magazines to help escape the dreariness of the Depression.

On his 18th birthday, he enlisted in the Navy, in part so his mother would have one less mouth to feed.

He was assigned to the cruiser New Orleans. The ship was docked under a giant crane in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on Dec. 7, 1941, which provided some cover. At his station below decks in the gyro room, where he worked with communication and navigation equipment, Booi could feel the shock of explosions in the water near the ship. He recalled coming up on deck and looking at the destruction with shock, horror "and a burning hatred for the Japanese."

The New Orleans was ordered to Australia and was the first U.S. warship to arrive there after America entered World War II. "Man, were they happy to see us," Booi recalled many years later. "No sailor ever got a better welcome."

The New Orleans took part in the critical Battle of the Coral Sea in early May 1942, the first "over the horizon" battle in history, a duel between fighter planes sent from aircraft carriers. The American carrier Lexington was among the ships that went down. Booi took part in the rescue of survivors and for many years displayed the watch of a member of the Lexington crew he'd help save in "Joe's Bar," the party room in the basement of the Spenard home he shared with his wife, Patricia.

Booi was transferred to the Block Island, a carrier on duty in the Atlantic. On May 29, 1944, that ship was sunk by a German submarine. Booi recalled his thoughts as he tread water and depth charges went off on all sides of him. "Hallelujah! I'm gonna get 30 days survivors leave!"

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His permanently oiled shorts were also tacked to the wall of the party room. "Mom never could get 'em clean," he said.

He and the rest of the crew were assigned to a new carrier, also named Block Island, which did duty in the Pacific. Booi took part in 10 battles during the war, including Midway, Guadalcanal and Okinawa.

After his discharge he went into the communications field and in 1957 moved to Anchorage, where he worked for the Alaska Communications System as a maintenance technician. ACS, operated by the Army Signal Corps, provided the only long-distance telephone service for most of the territory at the time. It was a long way from home, but the wages were good. "I lied like hell when they interviewed me in Seattle," he said. "Told 'em I knew all about equipment I'd never heard of."

In fact, a guy who could figure out how to fix things he'd never seen, far from outside support and supplies, was exactly what ACS needed. When he arrived he found "I was responsible for all communications owned by the ACS in Alaska, including training all the military troops and civilian employees."

The ACS system relied on a series of transmitters and receivers positioned along the Alaska and Glenn highways, many in places with unreliable electricity. Booi was in his element, troubleshooting, jury-rigging, finding solutions to problems of cold weather communication -- like interference from "high frost" stations -- that had somehow escaped the engineers and planners in the Lower 48. "It was the best job I ever had," he said.

In 1964 he transferred to the Defense Communications Agency, where he was responsible for military communications with the White Alice sites. Here he came up with solutions to new problems regarding broadband signals in Alaska, an electrical success story written up in technical journals. A performance award noted that he was chosen for the job "because of his superior knowledge of the problems which would be encountered." He retired in 1979.

"Joe's Bar" became a hangout for his former co-workers and any shipmate who happened to pass through town. Sentiments were scrawled on the walls, mementos of ebullient celebrations.

"I'm a social alcoholic," he said in 1997. "I only drink when there's friends around. Luckily, I have a lot of old friends."

Patricia died in 2005. Fewer companions were able to make the festivities at Joe's Bar or travel to veterans reunions. His own health became tenuous. In 2007 he left Alaska to live with his daughters in the Lower 48. Friends saw him off with a pizza party and a chorus of "Anchors Aweigh."

This reporter interviewed "Unsinkable" Joe Booi several times. He was a man who never seemed to have a bad day. When asked how he could be so happy after the difficulties of his younger years, he replied, "I got a warm bed, companions. There's nothing not to be happy about."

He loved his Spenard home with its big south-facing backyard and his neighbors, who regularly availed themselves of his talents as a "fixer." Perhaps due to his own circumstances as a youth, he had a deep empathy for those who could use his help.

For instance, he told of how black sailors, used as officers' servants, were thrown in the brig for minor, and even imagined, infractions. Booi figured out a way to rig up a cable that would slip extra food from his duty station in the gyro room to the confined men.

"The officers treated them horribly," he recalled, shaking his head.

His decision to retire was not made idly, said his daughter Rosie Withrow. "They were going to lay off a young man with a family," she said. "Dad checked his papers and decided that he could live on his pension if it meant the other man would keep his job."

He also loved his succession of Boston terriers. Despite living on a limited income during retirement, he managed to pay for expensive cataract surgery for one of them when the dog went blind. "I had to," he explained. "She's my partner."

Though discharged after World War II, a part of his heart never really left the Navy. He regularly traveled to annual reunions to reconnect with his brothers-in-arms from the New Orleans and Block Island. His sizable library contained hundreds of books about the naval battles of World War II, many with observations and corrections penned into the margins by Booi and fellow veterans. He treated Veterans Day, which was also his wedding anniversary, as a major holiday. For many years, he made it a point to donate blood on Dec. 7, the anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

But he did manage to put the war behind him. "I was mad at the Japanese and Germans once," he said. "But you can't hold onto that forever. You gotta get over it."

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Booi was preceded in death by his wife, parents, brother Alfred and great-grandchild Jonathan Fasano. He is survived by his sister and brother-in-law Mary and Jerry Ring of Seattle; daughters and sons-in-law Joetta and Russell Smith and Marybelle and Jerry Weston, of North Carolina, and Judy and Mick Duncan and Rosie and Chuck Withrow of Yakima; nine grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren.

There are no plans for a memorial, but family members indicated that his ashes will likely be put on his mother's grave.

Reach Mike Dunham at mdunham@alaskadispatch.com or 257-4332.

Mike Dunham

Mike Dunham has been a reporter and editor at the ADN since 1994, mainly writing about culture, arts and Alaska history. He worked in radio for 20 years before switching to print.

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