Pearl Harbor veteran helps ship survive ravages of time

Francis Soares remembers the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Taney

BALTIMORE, Maryland (CNN) -- Almost 60 years after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, an old sailor is trying to keep his old ship in good condition.

Of the 101 U.S. ships stationed in Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Taney is the only one still afloat.

Former Taney gun captain Francis Soares remembers the 327-foot ship fondly.

"It was my first home away from home. I had never been away from home before in my life," remembers the 80-year-old Soares, who now lives in Maine.

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Soares returned to the cutter on the eve of Memorial Day to dedicate an onboard exhibit showcasing the ship's role in the attack. Soares, one of 22 of the 145 Taney crewman still alive, was the only one dedicating the exhibit.

"The Navy's always told their story, the Coast Guard's never gotten theirs out," Soares told The Associated Press. "A lot of people don't realize the Coast Guard was there (in World War II)."

The Taney was one of seven Secretary-class Coast Guard cutters built just prior to World War II. They were originally designed as patrol boats and were attached to the U.S. Navy, which used them as convoy escorts and anti-submarine patrols. They sank several German U-boats during the war.

Veteran recalls bombing

Soares was aboard the Taney in Honolulu, near Pearl Harbor, when the bombing began on that calm Sunday morning in 1941.

He remembered airplanes flying around Hickam Field in Hawaii so densely that it seemed to him like a beehive. But all he saw in the direction of Pearl Harbor was smoke and fire.

Soares, then 20, said at first he thought there had been an accident.

"But as the explosions got worse and worse and bigger and bigger, then you realized that somebody was dropping bombs on you," he said.

Then Soares saw Japanese planes headed his way and the Taney opened fire, with two guns blazing away, one on each side.

The ship, which was credited with saving the island's only power plant, wasn't hit.

"The biggest thing that ever happened in my life," Soares recalled. "It taught me lessons I carried forward the rest of my life. I learned right here, aboard this ship, how to put in a day's work."

'I just don't want to lose it'

Soares retired from the Coast Guard in 1970.

After World War II the Taney served in the Korean and Vietnam wars and made drug busts until it was decommissioned in 1986. The ship is now a floating museum in Baltimore's harbor.

Soares traveled to Baltimore to dedicate a new exhibit and help save his old ship, which is badly in need of repair. It suffers from rotting floorboards and a rusting hull.

"I just don't want to lose it. It's like losing a friend," said the veteran sailor. "You don't want to see a gravestone in its place."

John Kellett, director of the Baltimore Maritime Museum, said the Taney needs about $750,000 in work. He hopes the new exhibit and the new movie "Pearl Harbor" will help drum up the funds to preserve the ship.

CNN Correspondent Patty Davis contributed to this report.