“The wind had increased to a force I had never before experienced. It drove spray and spume with the force of a sand blaster. Capillary bleeding was etched on any face exposed directly to it. When the lookouts and signalmen turned away from it their cheeks and foreheads were pocked with a bloody tattoo. It sanded the paint from patches of the hull and superstructure.”
Captain C. Raymond Calhoun
USS Dewey
Third Fleet-Pacific Typhoon Dec. 1944
By Alex Paul
Publisher
As a child, Tom Hufford had often rambled out of the one-room school house on the ridge outside of Sweet Home named for his family to gawk into the sky whenever an airplane flew over.
For the children of the two families being educated there, it was a learning experience…but just a few years later, one that couldn’t compare to the what the now young man would witness and live to tell about.
Now serving in the U.S. Navy aboard the destroyer the USS Dewey, Hufford clung to life as the ship rolled to more than 82 degrees, the most on record, without capsizing. The harrowing event was captured in a book called “Typhoon: The Other Enemy” by Captain C. Raymond Calhoun.
“It was December 18, 1944, ” said Hufford, who will be this year’s Sportsman’s Holiday parade grand marshal. “It was a bad one. We lost our stack and our life rafts. It took the paint off the starboard side. The wind was blowing at 150 miles per hour. We had 265 on board and never lost a man.”
Hufford said the 50-pound shells for the five inch gun to which he was assigned, were blowing around “like paper bags.”
After the storm, the Dewey and the other ships that were damaged were moved into drydock for repairs.
“They rebuilt us and we headed for Japan,” Hufford said.
Although some persons today question the use of the atomic bomb on Japan, Hufford said he never questions the fact that many American lives were saved by that action.
At age 82, Tom Hufford still goes to work every day. He drives a bright red log truck for his son, Ted and says he tried retirement but just didn’t like it.
He is quick to laugh or tell a story.
Born in 1922 at Crawfordsville, Hufford’s early years were spent traversing the Pacific Northwest. “I guess today you’d call us poor migrants,” Hufford said. “My dad worked farms and logging.”
His family was living in Yakima, Wash., where his father was managing a fruit orchard when the Great Depression hit. They moved to Salem and then to what is now called Hufford Ridge east of Sweet Home to weather the economic storm. His ancestors had come to the area after the Civil War from New Mexico and Tennessee.
It was a truly a boy’s life on the ridge.
“We built a road from our place down to Dundon Flats and cross the river in a 1914 Studebaker. We added a second transmission so it had enough torque to pull up the hill,” Hufford said. “We actually plowed with that Studebaker.”
Book learning never appealed to Hufford, who said one year of high school was enough for him. Then, it was off to work.
“We did everything,” Hufford said. “My brother Les and I started a logging outfit. We planted strawberries and hauled them to Salem. We did whatever it took to put food on the table.”
When WWII broke out, Tom and his brother Frank joined the Navy.
“I think there were seven of us from Sweet Home who joined at the same time,” Hufford said. “Frank was working at Lockheed in California when I told him I was joining and he said for me to wait up, he was coming, too.”
It was 1942 when Hufford and the others traveled to Corvallis to join America’s fight.
After boot camp in Idaho, Frank Hufford went to aviation school and Tom was headed for the USS Dewey as a gunner’s mate.
“We went all over,” Hufford recalled. “We went from the Aleutians to the South Pacific. We were attacked many times but she was the best ship in the Navy, she brought me home without a scratch.”
After the war, Hufford returned to Sweet Home where he married Marti Nothiger on April 6, 1945. They reared four children, Diane Lucky, Tommy Dalton, Ted Hufford and Jan Hufford-Wilson. A fifth child, Cheryl, died at age 8 of leukemia.
Hufford spent his life in the woods in one form another until 1972 when he tried retirement. He quickly learned it wasn’t for him and started driving for local companies included the Horners and the Stocks. In 1980 he started driving for his son.
“I enjoy driving truck,” he said. “It’s relaxing. You can’t relax when you’re driving a car.”
Hufford said his first truck driving experience came at the age of 16 when he helped a trucker from Eugene who was hauling for his father.
“It was a 1934 Ford with a single axle trailer,” Hufford said. He would let me drive it when it was empty.”
Today’s modern trucks are light years away from those early models, Hufford said..
“They can stop faster than any car and they’re so comfortable,” he said.
Tom Hufford isn’t a rich man in terms of cold, hard cash, but it’s easy to see the riches he cherishes are the family that congregates around the home place. The walls of the family home are plastered with photos of kids and grandkids.
The outdoors, so important in Hufford’s work life, is also how the family enjoyed spending time.
“We did a lot of camping with the kids,” Hufford said. “We had an old station wagon and we traveled all over the west. We hit 10 western states and Canada.”
Hunting as a family is also important to Hufford.
“We’ve hunted in the same spot for 21 years,” he said. He also can tell a fish tale as good as the next guy.
But, it may be Grampa Tom’s Get-Together that really puts the sparkle in Tom Hufford’s eyes. The annual car show as started 11 years ago and attracts hundreds of car lovers from Oregon and Washington.
“I love it,” he says without hesitation. “We started it to have some fun and to give the community an economic boost. It’s just a lot of fun and seeing the people every year is great.”
A granddaughter, Annamarie Wilson sums up Tom Hufford’s lifestyle.
“He’s ornery and that’s what keeps him young,” Wilson said. “He likes to have fun.”