Week 21: Corley Haggarton
The December 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor shocked our nation out of its belief that the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans would protect us from the rapidly growing wars in Asia and Europe. Nearly 1,000 Chandler residents, men and women, ultimately served during the war. This is the story of Corley Haggarton, one of the Chandler residents to answer the call.
Corley was a high school student pumping gas at the Litchfield Service Station on the corner of Boston Street and San Marcos Place when he heard about Pearl Harbor. Though he wanted to enlist immediately, he also wanted to finish his education and received several deferments in order to do so. Finally, in 1943, his last deferment expired. He was a junior.
In an oral history interview in 2009, Corley related what happened next:
“So that was in our junior year. We were in study hall, which is in the very front of the high school, looking down through the pillars…They had a Naval recruiting station across the street. We saw the Naval recruiter walking down that morning. We asked the teacher if we could be excused, my friend and I, Richard Harris. We ran down that and said, ‘Hey, we got our notices. Uncle Sam wants us in the US Army. How can we get in the Navy?’ He said, ‘Follow me.’ He took us in; we signed the papers, enlisted in the Navy.”
Corley did his basic training in San Diego, then spent a year there teaching sailors how to swim. He later received training piloting landing boats and in conducting salvage operations.
In 1944 he helped land the 77th Armored Division during the initial invasion of Guam. He delivered soldiers and equipment to the beaches, then salvaged stranded vessels and equipment, as well as returned wounded soldiers to the hospital ships. Ultimately, he spent 18 months on Guam, where his unit was in charge of resupplying and refueling Navy ships.
It was in this capacity that Corley had a brush with history. The USS Indianapolis, fresh from delivering the first atomic bomb to Tinian Island, stopped in Guam to resupply before heading to the Philippines to prepare for the invasion of Japan. After refueling, Corley cast off the Indianapolis for the last time before she was sunk by a Japanese submarine five days out from Guam. Of the nearly 900 crew members who survived the sinking, only 317 survived until rescue in the shark infested waters. One of the survivors happened to be another Chandler boy, Carlos LaPaglia.
Corley returned to Chandler after the war on Christmas Eve, 1945. He returned to Chandler High and graduated in 1947. Nine other Chandler High students left school early to enlist in World War II. The Superintendent, W. G. Austin, made a deal with them that if they made it back from the war, they would be allowed to re-enroll in school and get their high school diplomas. All ten of them returned from the war and graduated from Chandler High in 1947.
Corley has since led a life of service dedicated to Chandler. For 56 years he delivered fuel oil to families and businesses all over the East Valley. He has served in a number of roles in the LDS Church. He was president of the Chandler Historical Society, and he has been a member of the City of Chandler’s Museums Advisory Board since its inception. Through his service, from World War II to today, this man of history has ensured that people remember Chandler’s history and its place in world events.