Up in the Maryland's foretop, Seaman Leslie Vernon Short had abandoned his hopes of a quiet morning addressing Christmas cards. After a quick double-take on the planes diving at Ford Island, he loaded the ready machine gun and hammered away at the first torpedo planes gliding in from Southeast Loch.
In the destroyer anchorage to the north, Gunner's Mate Walter Bowe grabbed a .50-caliber machine gun on the afterdeck of the Tucker and fired back too. So did Seaman Frank Johnson, who was sweeping near the bridge of the destroyer Bagley in the Navy Yard. Seaman George Sallet watched the slugs from Johnson's gun tear into a torpedo plane passing alongside, saw a rear gunner slump in the cockpit, and thought it was just like in the movies.
Others were firing too--the Helena at 1010 dock . . . the Tautog at the sub base . . . the Raleigh on the northwest side of Ford Island. Up in the Nevada's "bird bath," a seaman generally regarded as one of the less useful members of the crew seized a .30 caliber machine gun and winged a torpedo plane headed directly for the ship. It was to be an important reprieve . . .
Another plane glided toward the Nevada. Again the machine guns in her foretop blazed away. Again the plane wobbled and never pulled out of its turn. The men were wild with excitement as it plowed into the water alongside the dredge pipe just astern. The pilot frantically struggled clear and floated face up past the ship. But this time they got him too late. Marine Private Payton McDaniel watched the torpedo's silver streak as it headed for the port bow. He remembered pictures of torpedoed ships and half expected the Nevada to break in two and sink enveloped in flames. It didn't happen that way at all. Just a slight shudder, a brief list to port.
Then she caught a bomb by the starboard anti-aircraft director. Ensign Joe Taussig was at his station there, standing in the doorway, when it hit. Suddenly he found his left leg tucked under his arm. Almost absently he said to himself, "That's a hell of a place for a foot to be," and was amazed to hear Boatswain's Mate Allen Owens, standing beside him, say exactly the same words aloud.
In the plotting foom five decks below, Ensign Charles Merdinger at first felt that it was all like the drills he had been through dozens of times. But it began to seem different when he learned through the phone circuit that his roommate Joe Taussig had been hit.
The men on the Arizona, forward of the Nevada, hardly had time to think. She was inboard of the Vestal, but the little repair ship didn't offer much protection--a torpedo struck home almost right away--and nothing could stop the steel that rained down from Fuchida's horizontal bombers now overhead. A big one shattered the boat deck between No. 4 and 6 guns--it came in like a fly ball, and Seaman Russell Lott, standing in the antiaircraft director, had the feeling he could reach out and catch it. Another hit No. 4 turret, scorched and hurled Coxswain James Forbis off a ladder two decks below. The PA system barked, "Fire on the quarter-deck," and then went off the air for good. Radioman Glenn Lane and three of his shipmates rigged a hose and tried to fight the fire. No water pressure. They rigged phones and tried to call for water. No power. All the time explosions somewhere forward were throwing them off their feet.
Alongside, the Vestal seemed to be catching everything that missed the Arizona. One bomb went through an open hatch, tore right through the ship, exploding as it passed out the bottom. It flooded the No. 3 hold, and the ship began settling at the stern. A prisoner in the brig howled to be let out, and finally someone shot off the lock with a .45.
Forward of the Arizona and Vestal, the Tennessee so far was holding her own; but the West Virginia on the outside was taking a terrible beating. A Japanese torpedo plane headed straight for the casemate where Seaman Robert Benton waited for the rest of his gun crew. He stood there transfixed--wanted to move but couldn't. The torpedo hit directly underneath and sent Benton and his headphones flying in opposite directions. He got up . . . ran across the deck . . . slipped down the starboard side of the ship to the armor shelf, a ledge formed by the ship's 15-inch steel plates. As he walked aft along the ledge, he glanced up, saw the bombers this side. Caught in the bright morning sun, the falling bombs looked for a fleeting second like snowflakes.
The men below were spared such sights, but the compensation was questionable. Storekeeper Donald Brown tried to get the phones working in the ammunition supply room, third deck forward. The lines were dead. More torpedoes--sickening fumes--steeper list--no lights. Men began screaming in the dark. Someone shouted, "Abandon ship!" and the crowd stampeded to the compartment ladder. Brown figured he would have no chance in this clawing mob, felt his way to the next compartment forward, and found another ladder with no one near it at all. Now he was on the second deck, but not allowed any higher. Nothing left to do, no place else to go--he and a friend brushed a bunch of dirty breakfast dishes off a mess table and sat down to wait the end.
Down in the plotting room--the gunnery nerve center and well below the water line--conditions looked just as hopeless. Torpedoes were slamming into the ship somewhere above. Through an overhead hatch Ensign Victor Delano could see that the third deck was starting to flood. Heavy yellowish smoke began pouring down through the opening. The list grew steeper; tracking board, plotting board, tables, chairs, cots, everything slid across the room and jumbled against the port bulkhead. In the internal communications room next door, circuit breakers were sparking and electrical units ran wild. The men were pale but calm.
Soon oily water began pouring through the exhaust trunks of the ventilation system. Then more yellow smoke. Nothing further could be done, so Delano led his men forward to central station, the ship's damage control center. Before closing the watertight door behind him, he called back to make sure no one was left. From nowhere six oil-drenched electrician's mates showed up--they had somehow been hurled through the hatch from the deck above. Then Warrant Electrician Charles T. Duvall called to please wait for him. He sounded in trouble and Delano stepped back into the plotting room to lend a hand. BUt he slipped on some oil and slid across the linoleum floor, bowling over Duvall in the process. The two men ended in a tangled heap among the tables and chairs now packed against the "down" side of the room.
They couldn't get back on their feet; the oil was everywhere. Even crawling didn't work--they still got no traction. Finally they grabbed a row of knobs on the main battery switchboard, which ran all the way across the room. Painfully they pulled themselves uphill, hand over hand along the switchboard. By now it was almost like scaling a cliff.
In central station at last, they found conditions almost as bad. The lights dimmed, went out, came on again for a while as some auxiliary circuit took hold. Outside the watertight door on the lower side, the water began to rise . . . spouting through the cracks around the edges and shooting like a hose through an air-test opening. Delano could hear the pleas and cries of the men trapped on the other side, and he thought with awe of the decision Lieutenant Commander J. S. Harper, the damage control officer, had to make: let the men drown, or open the door and risk the ship as well as the people now in central station. The door stayed closed.
Delano suggested to Harper that he and his men might be more useful topside. For the moment Harper didn't even have time to answer. He was desperately trying to keep in touch with the rest of the ship and direct the counterflooding that might save it, but all the circuits were dead.
The counterflooding was done anyhow. Lieutenant Claude V. Ricketts had once been damage control officer and liked to discuss with other young officers what should be done in just this kind of situation. More or less as skull practice, they had worked out a plan among themselves. Now Ricketts began counterflooding on his own hook, helped along by Boatswain's Mate Billingsley , who knew how to work the knobs and valves. The West Virginia slowly swung back to starboard and settled into the harbor mud on an even keel.
There was no time for counterflooding on the Oklahoma, lying ahead of the West Virginia and outboard of the Maryland. Lying directly across from Southeast Loch, she got three torpedoes right away, then another two as she heeled to port.
Curiously, many of the men weren't even aware of the torpedoes. Seaman George Murphy only heard the loud-speaker say something about "air attack" and assumed the explosions were bombs. Along with hundreds of other men who had no air defense stations, he now trooped down to the third deck, where he would be protected by the armor plate that covered the deck above. Seaman Stephen Young never thought of torpedoes either, and he was even relieved when the water surged into the port side of No. 4 turret powder handling room. He assumed that someone was finally counterflooding on that side to offset the bomb damage to starboard.
The water rose . . . the emergency lights went out . . . the list increased. Now everything was breaking loose. Big 1000-pound shells rumbled across the handling rooms, sweeping men before them. Eight foot reels of steel towing cable rolled across the second deck, blocking the ladder topside. The door of the drug room swung open, and Seaman Murphy watched hundreds of bottles cascade over a couple of seamen hurrying down a passageway. The boys slipped and rolled through the broken glass, jumped up, and ran on.
On the few remaining ladders, men battled grimly to get to the main deck. It was a regular log jam on the ladder to S Division compartment, just a few steps from open air. Every time something exploded outside, men would surge down the ladder, meeting head-on another crowd that surged up. Soon it was impossible to move in either direction. Seaman Murphy gave up even trying. He stood off to the one side--one foot on deck, the other on the corridor wall, the only way he could now keep his footing.
Yeoman L. L. Curry had a better way out. He and some mates were still in the machine shop on third deck amidships when the list reached 60 degrees. Someone spied an exhaust ventilator leading all the way to the deck, and one by one the men crawled up. As they reached fresh air, an officer ran over and tried to shoo them back inside, where they would be safe from bomb splinters. That was the big danger, he explained: a battleship couldn't turn over.
Several hundred yards ahead of the Oklahoma--and moored alone at the southern end of Battleship Row--the California caught her first torpedo at 08:05. Yeoman Durrell Conner watched it come from his station in the flag communications office. He slammed the porthole shut as it struck the ship directly beneath him.
Another crashed home farther aft. There might as well have been more--the California was wide open. She was due for inspection Monday, and the covers had been taken off six of the manholes leading to her double bottom. A dozen more of these covers had been loosened. The water poured in and surged freely through the ship.
It swept into the ruptured fuel tanks, contaminating the oil, knocking out the power plant right away. It swirled into the forward air compressor station, where Machinist's Mate Robert Scott was trying to feed air to the five-inch guns. The other men cleared out, calling Scott to come with them. He yelled back, "This is my station--I'll stay here and give them air as long as the guns are going." They closed the watertight door and let him have his way.
With the power gone, men desperately tried to do by hand the tasks that were meant for machines. Yeoman Conner joined a long chain of men passing powder and shells up from an ammunition room far below. Stifling fumes from the ruptured fuel tanks made their work harder, and word spread that the ship was under gas attack. At the wounded collecting station in the crew's reception room Pharmacist's Mate William Lynch smashed open lockers in a vain search for morphine. Near the communications office a man knelt in prayer under a ladder. Numb to the chaos around him, another absently sat at a desk typing, "Now is the time for all good men . . . "
Around the harbor nobody noticed the California's troubles--all eyes were glued on the Oklahoma. From his bungalow on Ford Island, Chief Albert Molter watched her gradually roll over on her side slowly and stately . . . as if she were tired and wanted to rest." She kept rolling until her mast and superstructure jammed into the mud, leaving her bottom up--a huge dead whale lying in the water. Only eight minutes had passed since the first torpedo hit.
On the Maryland Electrician's Mate Harold North recalled how everyone had cursed on Friday when the Oklahoma tied up alongside, shutting off what air there was at night.
Inside the Oklahoma men were giving it one more try. Storekeeper Terry Armstrong found himself alone in a small compartment on the second deck. As it slowly filled with water, he dived down, groped for the porthole, squirmed through to safety. Seaman Malcolm McCleary escaped through a washroom porthole the same way. Nearby, Lieutenant (j.g.) Aloysius Schmitt, the Catholic chaplain, started out too. But a breviary in his hip pocket caught on the coaming. As he backed into the compartment again to take it out, several men started forward. Chaplain Schmitt had no more time to spend on himself. He pushed three, possibly four, of the others through before the water closed over the compartment.
Some men weren't even close to life as they knew it, but were still alive nevertheless. They found themselves gasping, swimming, trying to orient themselves to an upside-down world in the air pockets that formed as the ship rolled over. Seventeen-year-old Seaman Willard Beal fought back the water that poured into the steering engine room. Seaman George Murphy splashed about the operating room of the ship's dispensary . . . wondering what part of the ship had a tile ceiling . . . never dreaming he was looking up at the floor.
Topside, the men had it easier. As the ship slowly turned turtle, most of the men simply climbed over the starboard side and walked with the roll, finally ending up on the bottom. When and how they got off was pretty much a matter of personal choice. Some started swinging hand over hand along the lines that tied the ship to the Maryland, but as she rolled, these snapped, and the men were pitched into the water between the two ships. Seaman Tom Armstrong dived off on this side--his watch stopped at 08:10. Tom's brother Pat jumped off from the outboard side. Their third brother Terry was already in the water after squeezing through the porthole on the second deck. Marine Gunnery Sergeant Leo wears slid down a line and almost drowned when someone used him as a stepladder to climb into a launch. His friend Sergeant Norman Currier coolly walked along the side of the ship to the bow, hailed a passing boat, and stepped into it without getting a foot wet. Ensign Bill Ingram climbed onto the high side just as the yardarm touched the water. He stripped to his shorts and slid sown the bottom of the ship.
As Ingram hit the water, the Arizona blew up. Afterward men said a bomb went right down her stack, but later examination showed even the wire screen across the funnel top still intact. It seems more likely the bomb landed alongside the second turret, crashed through the forecastle, and set off the forward magazines.
In any case, a huge ball of fire and smoke mushroomed 500 feet into the air. There wasn't so much noise--most of the men say it was more a "whoom" than a "bang"--but the concussion was terrific. It stalled the motor of Aviation Ordinanceman Harand Quisdorf's pickup truck as he drove along Ford Island. It hurled Chief Albert Molter against the pipe banister of his basement stairs. It knocked everyone flat on Fireman Stanley H. Rabe's water barge. It blew Gunner Carey Garnett and dozens of other men off the Nevada . . . Commander Cassin Young off the Vestal . . . Ensign Vance Fowler off the West Virginia. Far above, Commander Fuchida's bomber trembled like a leaf. On the fleet landing at Merry's Point a Navy captain wrung his hands and sobbed that it just couldn't be true.
On the Arizona, hundreds of men were cut down in a single, searing flash. Inside the port anti-aircraft director one fire control man simply vanished--the only place he could have gone was through the narrow range-finder slot. On the bridge Rear Admiral Isaac C. Kidd and Captain Franklin Van Valkenburgh were instantly killed. On the second deck the entire ship's band was wiped out.
Over 1000 men were gone.
Incredibly, some still lived. Major Alan Shapley of the Marine detachment was blown out of the foremast and well clear of the ship. Though partly paralyzed, he swam to Ford Island, detouring to help two shipmates along the way. Radioman Glenn Lane was blown off the quarter-deck and found himself swimming in water thick with oil. He looked back at the Arizona and couldn't see a sign of life.
But men were there. On the third deck aft Coxswain James Forbis felt skinned alive, and the No. 4 turret handling room was filling with thick smoke. He and his mates finally moved over to No. 3 turret, where conditions were a little better, but soon smoke began coming in around the guns there too. The men stripped to their skivvie drawers and crammed their clothes around the guns to keep the smoke out. When somebody finally ordered them out, Forbis took off his newly shined shoes and carefully carried them in his hands as he left the turret. The deck was blazing hot and covered with oil. But there was a dry spot farther aft near No. 4 turret, and before rejoining the fight, Forbis carefully placed his shoes there. He lined them neatly with the heels against the turret--just as though he planned to wear them up Hotel Street again that night.
In the portside anti-aircraft director, Russell Lott wrapped himself in a blanket and stumbled out the twisted door. The blanket kept him from getting scorched, but the deck was so hot he had to keep hopping form one foot to the other. Five shipmates staggered up through the smoke, so he stretched the blanket as a sort of shield for them all. Then he saw the Vestal still alongside. The explosion had left her deck a shambles, but he found someone who tossed over a line, and, one by one, all six men inched over to the little repair ship.
At that particular moment they were lucky to find anyone on the Vestal. The blast had blown some of the crew overboard, including skipper Cassin Young, and the executive officer told the rest to abandon ship. Seaman Thomas Garzione climbed down a line over the forecastle, came to the end of it, and found himself standing on the anchor. He just froze there--he was a nonswimmer and too scared to jump the rest of the way. Finally he worked up enough nerve, made the sign of the cross, and plunged down holding his nose. For a nonswimmer, he made remarkable time to a whale boat drifting in the debris.
Signalman Adolph Zlabis dived off the bridge and reached a launch hovering nearby. He and a few others yelled encouragement to a young sailor who had climbed out on the Vestal's boat boom and now dangled from a rope ladder five feet above the water. Finally the man let go, landed flat in the water with a resounding whack. The men in the launch couldn't help laughing.
Still on board the Vestal, Radioman John Murphy watched a long line of men pass his radio room, on their way to abandon ship. One of the other radio men saw his brother go by. He cried, "I'm going with him," and ran out the door. For no particular reason Murphy decided to stay, but he began feeling that he would like to get back home just once more before he passed on.
At this point Commander Young climbed back on the Vestal from his swim in the harbor. He was by no means ready to call it a day. He stood sopping wet at the top of the gangway, shouting down to the swimmers and the men in the boats, "Come back! We're not giving up this ship yet!"
Most of the crew returned and Young cave orders to cast off. Men hacked at the hawsers tying the Vestal to the blazing Arizona. Inevitably, there was confusion. One officer on the Arizona's quarter-deck yelled, "Don't cut those lines." Others on the battleship pitched in and helped. Aviation Mechanic "Turkey" Graham slashed the last line with an ax, shouting, "Get away from here while you can!"
Other help came from an unexpected source. A Navy tug happened by, whose skipper and chief engineer had both put in many years on the Vestal. They loyally eased alongside, took a line from the bow, and towed their old ship off toward Aiea landing, where she could safely sit out the rest of the attack.
When the Arizona blew up, Chief Electrician's Mate Harold North on the Maryland thought the end of the world had come. Actually he was lucky. Moored inboard of the Oklahoma, the Maryland was safe from torpedoes and caught only two bombs. One was a 15-inch armor-piercing shell fitted with fins--it slanted down just off the port bow, smashing into her hull 17 feet below the water line. The other hit the forecastle, setting the awning on fire. When a strafer swept by, Chief George Haitle watched the firefighters scoot for shelter. One man threw his extinguisher down a hatch, where it exploded at the feet of an old petty officer, who grabbed for a mask, shouting "Gas!"
The Tennessee, the other inboard battleship, had more trouble. Seaman J. P. Burkholder looked out a porthole on the bridge just as one of the converted 16-inch shells crashed down on No. 2 turret a few feet forward. The porthole cover tore loose, clobbered him on the head, and sent him scurrying through the door. Outside he helped a wounded ensign, but couldn't help one of his closest friends, who was so far gone he only wanted Burkholder to shoot him.
Another armor-piercing bomb burst through No. 3 turret farther aft. Seaman S. F. Bowen, stationed there as a powder carman, was just dogging the hatch when the bomb hit. It wasn't a shattering crash at all. Just a ball of fire, about the size of a basketball, appeared overhead and seemed to melt down on everyone. It seemed to run down on his skin and there was no way to stop it. As he crawled down to the deck below, he noticed that his shoe strings were still on fire.
Spinters flew in all directions from the bombs that hit the Tennessee. One hunk ripped the bridge of the West Virginia alongside, cut down Captain Mervyn Bennion as he tried to direct his ship's defense. He slumped across the sill of the signal bridge door on the starboard side of the machine-gun platform. Soon after he fell, Ensign Delano arrived on the bridge, having finally been sent up from central station. As Delano stepped out onto the platform, Lieutenant (j.g.) F. H. White rushed by, told him about the captain, and asked him to do what he could.
Delano saw right away it was hopeless. Captain Bennion had been hit in the stomach, and it took no medical training to know the wound was fatal. Yet he was perfectly conscious, and at least he might be made more comfortable. Delano opened a first-aid kit and looked for some morphine. No luck. Then he found a can of ether and tried to make the captain pass out. He sat down beside the dying man, holding his head in one hand in one hand and the ether in the other. It made the captain drowsy but never unconscious. Occasionally Delano moved the captain's legs to more comfortable positions, but there was so little he could do.
As they sat there together, Captain Bennion prodded him with questions. He asked how the battle was going, what the West Virginia was doing, whether the ship and the men were badly hit. Delano did his best to answer, resorting every now and then to a gentle white lie. Yes, he assured the captain, the ship's guns were still firing.
Lieutenant Rickets now turned up and proved a pillar of strength. Other men arrived too--Chief Pharmacist's Mate Leah . . . Ensign Jacoby from the flag room . . . Lieutenant Commander Doir Johnson from the forecastle. On his way up, Johnson ran across big Doris Miller, thought the powerful mess steward might come in handy, brought him along to the bridge. Together they tenderly lifted Captain Bennion and carried him to a sheltered spot behind the conning tower. He was still quite conscious and well aware of the flames creeping closer. He kept telling the men to leave him and save themselves.
In her house at Makalapa, Mrs. Mayfield still couldn't grasp what had happened. She walked numbly to a window and looked at Admiral Kimmel's house across the street. The venetian blinds were closed, and there was no sign of activity. Somehow this was reassuring . . . surely there would be some sign of life if it was really true. It didn't occur to her that this might be one morning when the admiral had no time for Venetian blinds.
By now Captain Mayfield was in his uniform. He took a few swallows of cofffee, slopping most of it in the saucer, and dashed for the carport. He roared off as the CINCPAC officer car screeched up to the admiral's house across the street. Admiral Kimmel ran down the steps and jumped in, knotting his tie on the way. Captain Freeland Daubin, commanding a squadron of submarines, leaped on the running board as the car moved off, and Captain Earle's station wagon shot down the hill after them.
In five minutes Admiral Kimmel was at CINCPA Headquarters in the sub base. The admiral thought he was there by 08:05; Commander Murphy thought it as more like 08:10. In either case, within a very few minutes of his arrival, the backbone of his fleet was gone or immobile--Arizona, Oklahoma, and West Virginia sunk . . . California sinking . . . Maryland and Tennessee bottled up by the wrecked battleships alongside . . . Pennsylvania squatting in drydock. Only the Nevada was left, and she seemed a forlorn hope with one torpedo and two bombs already in her.
Nor was the picture much brighter elsewhere. On the other side of Ford Island the target ship (former battleship) Utah took a heavy list to port as her engineering officer, Lieutenant Commander S. S. Isquith, pulled his khakis over his pajamas. The alarm bell clanged a few strokes and stopped; the men trooped below to take shelter from bombing. Isquith sensed the ship couldn't last, and he had the officer of the deck order all hands topside instead. The men were amazingly cool--perhaps because they were used to being "bombed" by the Army and Navy everyday. When Machinist's Mate David Gilmartin reached the main deck, he found the port rail already underwater. Twice he crawled up toward the starboard side and slid back. As he did it a third time, he slid by another seaman who suggested he throw away the cigarettes. To Gilmartin's amazement he had been trying to climb up the slanting deck while holding a carton of cigarettes in one hand. Relieved of his handicap, he made the starboard rail easily.
As the list increased, the big six-by-twelve-inch timbers that covered the Utah's decks began breaking loose. Those timbers were used to cushion the decks against practice bombing and undoubtedly helped fool the Japanese into thinking the ship was a carrier unexpectedly in port. Now they played another lethal role, sliding down on the men trying to climb up.
As she rolled still further, Commander Isquith made a last check below to find anyone who might still be trapped--and almost got trapped himself. He managed to reach the captain's cabin where a door led to the forecastle deck. The timbers had jammed the door' so he stumbled into the captain's bedroom where he knew there was a porthole. It was now almost directly overhead, but he managed to reach it by climbing on the captain's bed. As he popped his head through the porthole, the bed broke loose and slid out from under him. He fell back, but the radio officer, Lieutenant Commander L. Winser, grabbed his hand just in time and pulled him through. As Isquith got to his feet, he slipped and bumped down the side of the ship into the water. Half dead with exhaustion, harassed by strafers, he was helped by his crew to Ford Island.
Others never left the ship--Fireman John Vaessen in the dynamo room, who kept the power up to the end; Chief Watertender Peter Tomich in the boiler room, who stayed behind to make sure his men got out; Lieutenant (j.g.) John Black, the assistant engineer, who jammed his foot in his cabin door; Mess Attendant Smith, who was always so afraid of the water.
Of the other ships on this side of Ford Island, the Tangier and Detroit were still untouched, but the Raleigh sagged heavily to port. Water swirled into No. 1 and 2 firerooms, flooded the forward engine room, contaminated the fuel oil, knocked out her power. In the struggle to keep her afloat, no one even had time to dress. As though they went around that way every day, Captain Simons sported his blue pajamas . . . Ensign John Beardall worked the port antiaircraft guns in red pajamas . . . others toiled in a weird assortment of skivvies, aloha shirts, and bathing trunks. Somehow they didn't seem even odd: as Signalman Jack Foeppel watched Captain Simons in the Admiral's wing on the bridge, he only marveled that any man could be so calm.
Ford Island, where all these ships were moored, was itself in chaos. Japanese strafers were now working the place over, and most o the men were trying to make themselves as small as possible. Storekeeper Jack Rogovsky crouched under a mess hall table nibbling raisins. The men in the air photo laboratory dived under the steel developing tables. Some of the flight crews plunged into an eight foot ditch that was being dug for gas lines along the edge of the runway. This is where Ordinanceman Quaisdorf's unit was hiding when when he and another airman arrived in the squadron truck. But they didn't know that--they thought they had been left behind in a general retreat. They decided that their only hope was to find a pair of rifles, swim the north channel, and hole up in the hills until liberation.
Nor was their much room for optimism in the Navy Yard. On the ships at the finger piers, the stern gunners had a perfect shot at the torpedo planes gliding down Southwest Loch, but most of them had little to shoot with. The San Francisco was being overhauled; all her guns were in the shops; most of her large ammunition was on shore. The repair ship Rigel was in the same fix. The St. Louis was on "limited availability" while radar was being installed; her topside was littered with scaffolding and cable reels; three of her four five-inch anti-aircraft guns were dismantled.
The little Sacramento had just come out of drydock, and in line with drydock regulations most of her ammunition lockers had been emptied. The Swan plugged away with her two three-inch guns, but a new gun earmarked for her top deck was still missing. A pharmacist's mate stood on the empty emplacement, cursing helplessly. The other ships were having less trouble . . .
On all these ships the men had more time for reflection than their mates along Battleship Row. On the New Orleans the ship's gambler and "big operator" sat at his station, reading the New Testament. (Later he canceled his debts and loans; threw away his dice.) A young engineer on the San Francisco--with nothing to do because her boilers were dismantled--appeared topside, wistfully told Ensign John E. Parrott, "Thought I'd come up and die with you." Machinist's Mate Henry Johnson on the Rigel remarked that now he knew how a rabbit felt and he'd never hunt one again. A few minutes later he lay mortally wounded on the deck.
Their very helplessness turned many of the men from fear to fury. Commander Duncan Curry, strictly an old Navy type, stood on the bridge of the Ramapo firing a .45 pistol as the tears streamed down his face. On the New Orleans a veteran master at arms fired away with another .45, daring them to come back and fight. A man stood near the sub base, banging away with a double-barreled shotgun.
A young Marine on 1010 dock used his rifle on the planes, while a Japanese-American boy about seven years old lit a cigarette for him. The butt of his old cigarette was burning his lips, but he never even noticed it. As he fired away, he remarked aloud "If my mother could see me now."
Ten-ten dock itself was a mess, littered with debris from the Helena and Oglala alongside. In the after engine room of the torpedoed Helena, Chief Machinist's Mate Paul Weisenberger fought to check the water that poured aft through the ship's drain system. The hit had also set off the ship's gas alarm; its steady blast added to the uproar. Marine Second Lieutenant Bernard Kelley struggled to get ammunition to the guns. In keeping a steady supply flowing, it was a tossup whether he had more trouble with the damage or with conscientious damage control men, who kept shutting the doors.
Topside was a shambles. The Helena's forecastle, which had been rigged for church, looked as if a cyclone had passed. The Oglala, to starboard, listed heavily; her signal flags dropped over the Helena's bridge. Across the channel, Battleship Row was a mass of flames and smoke. Above the whole scene, a beautiful rainbow arched over Ford Island.
Just below 1010 dock, the Pennsylvania and destroyers Cassin and Downes sat ominously unmolested in Drydock No. 1. Likewise the destroyer Shaw in the floating drydock, which was a few hundred yards to the west. Aboard the Pennsylvania the men waited tensely. Lieutenant Commander James Craig, the ship's first lieutenant, checked here and there, making sure they would be ready when the blow came--or at least as ready as a ship out of water could be. He told Boatswain's mate Robert Jones and his damage control party to lie face down on the deck. He warned them that their work was cut out, and to prepare for the worst . . .
It was much the same on the ships anchored in the harbor. Radioman Leonard Stagich sat by his set on the destroyer Montgomery writing prayers on a little pad. In the transmitter room of the aircraft tender Curtiss, Radioman James Raines sat with three other men listening to the steady booming outside. No orders, so they just waited. With the doors and portholes dogged down and the ventilators off, it grew hotter and hotter. They removed their shirts and took turns wearing the heavy headphones. Still no orders. They kept moving about the room, squatting in different places, always wondering what was going on outside. From time to time the PA system squawked meaningless commands to others on the ship, which only made them wonder more. Still no orders.
But the most exasperating thing to those at anchor was just sitting there. It took time to build up enough steam to move--an hour for a destroyer, two hours for a larger ship. Meanwhile, they could only fire their guns manually, dodge the strafers, and watch (to use their favorite phrase) "all hell break loose."
The destroyer Monaghan had a slight edge on the others. As the ready-duty destroyer, her fires were already lit; and then of course she had been getting up steam since 07:50 to go out and contact the Ward. Commander Bill Burford would be able to take her out in a few minutes now, but at a time like this, that seemed forever.
At the moment the destroyer Helm was still the only ship underway. Twenty minutes had passed since Quartermaster Frank Handler genially waved at that aviator flying low up the channel. After the first explosion Commander Carroll quickly sounded general quarters . . . swung her around from West Loch . . . caught Admiral Furlong's sortie signal . . . and was now ready to get up and go. Turning to Handler, he said, "Take her out. I'll direct the battery."
Handler had never taken the ship out alone. The channel was tricky--speed limit 14 knots--and the job was always left to the most experienced hands. He took the wheel and rang the engine room to step her up to 400 rpm. the engine room queried that order and he repeated it. The ship leaped forward and raced down the channel at 27 knots. To complicate matters, there wasn't a single compass on board; everything had to be done by seaman's eye. But Handler had one break in his favor--the torpedo net was still wide open. So the Helm rushed on, proudly guided by a novice without a compass breaking every speed law in the book.
By this time Handler was game for anything; so he took it in his stride when at 08:17 he came face to face with a Japanese midget sub. He saw it as the Helm burst out of the harbor entrance--first the periscope, then the conning tower. It lay about 1000 yards off the starboard bow, bouncing up and down on the coral near the buoys. The Helm guns roared, but somehow they never could hit the sub. Finally it slid off the coral and disappeared. The Helm flashed the news to headquarters: Small Jap sub trying to penetrate channel."
Signal flags fluttered up all over Pearl Harbor, telling the ships of the fleet. From the bridge of the burning West Virginia, Ensign Delano read the warning and sighed to himself, "Oh my God--that too!"
Another plane glided toward the Nevada. Again the machine guns in her foretop blazed away. Again the plane wobbled and never pulled out of its turn. The men were wild with excitement as it plowed into the water alongside the dredge pipe just astern. The pilot frantically struggled clear and floated face up past the ship. But this time they got him too late. Marine Private Payton McDaniel watched the torpedo's silver streak as it headed for the port bow. He remembered pictures of torpedoed ships and half expected the Nevada to break in two and sink enveloped in flames. It didn't happen that way at all. Just a slight shudder, a brief list to port.
Then she caught a bomb by the starboard anti-aircraft director. Ensign Joe Taussig was at his station there, standing in the doorway, when it hit. Suddenly he found his left leg tucked under his arm. Almost absently he said to himself, "That's a hell of a place for a foot to be," and was amazed to hear Boatswain's Mate Allen Owens, standing beside him, say exactly the same words aloud.
In the plotting foom five decks below, Ensign Charles Merdinger at first felt that it was all like the drills he had been through dozens of times. But it began to seem different when he learned through the phone circuit that his roommate Joe Taussig had been hit.
The men on the Arizona, forward of the Nevada, hardly had time to think. She was inboard of the Vestal, but the little repair ship didn't offer much protection--a torpedo struck home almost right away--and nothing could stop the steel that rained down from Fuchida's horizontal bombers now overhead. A big one shattered the boat deck between No. 4 and 6 guns--it came in like a fly ball, and Seaman Russell Lott, standing in the antiaircraft director, had the feeling he could reach out and catch it. Another hit No. 4 turret, scorched and hurled Coxswain James Forbis off a ladder two decks below. The PA system barked, "Fire on the quarter-deck," and then went off the air for good. Radioman Glenn Lane and three of his shipmates rigged a hose and tried to fight the fire. No water pressure. They rigged phones and tried to call for water. No power. All the time explosions somewhere forward were throwing them off their feet.
Alongside, the Vestal seemed to be catching everything that missed the Arizona. One bomb went through an open hatch, tore right through the ship, exploding as it passed out the bottom. It flooded the No. 3 hold, and the ship began settling at the stern. A prisoner in the brig howled to be let out, and finally someone shot off the lock with a .45.
Forward of the Arizona and Vestal, the Tennessee so far was holding her own; but the West Virginia on the outside was taking a terrible beating. A Japanese torpedo plane headed straight for the casemate where Seaman Robert Benton waited for the rest of his gun crew. He stood there transfixed--wanted to move but couldn't. The torpedo hit directly underneath and sent Benton and his headphones flying in opposite directions. He got up . . . ran across the deck . . . slipped down the starboard side of the ship to the armor shelf, a ledge formed by the ship's 15-inch steel plates. As he walked aft along the ledge, he glanced up, saw the bombers this side. Caught in the bright morning sun, the falling bombs looked for a fleeting second like snowflakes.
The men below were spared such sights, but the compensation was questionable. Storekeeper Donald Brown tried to get the phones working in the ammunition supply room, third deck forward. The lines were dead. More torpedoes--sickening fumes--steeper list--no lights. Men began screaming in the dark. Someone shouted, "Abandon ship!" and the crowd stampeded to the compartment ladder. Brown figured he would have no chance in this clawing mob, felt his way to the next compartment forward, and found another ladder with no one near it at all. Now he was on the second deck, but not allowed any higher. Nothing left to do, no place else to go--he and a friend brushed a bunch of dirty breakfast dishes off a mess table and sat down to wait the end.
Down in the plotting room--the gunnery nerve center and well below the water line--conditions looked just as hopeless. Torpedoes were slamming into the ship somewhere above. Through an overhead hatch Ensign Victor Delano could see that the third deck was starting to flood. Heavy yellowish smoke began pouring down through the opening. The list grew steeper; tracking board, plotting board, tables, chairs, cots, everything slid across the room and jumbled against the port bulkhead. In the internal communications room next door, circuit breakers were sparking and electrical units ran wild. The men were pale but calm.
Soon oily water began pouring through the exhaust trunks of the ventilation system. Then more yellow smoke. Nothing further could be done, so Delano led his men forward to central station, the ship's damage control center. Before closing the watertight door behind him, he called back to make sure no one was left. From nowhere six oil-drenched electrician's mates showed up--they had somehow been hurled through the hatch from the deck above. Then Warrant Electrician Charles T. Duvall called to please wait for him. He sounded in trouble and Delano stepped back into the plotting room to lend a hand. BUt he slipped on some oil and slid across the linoleum floor, bowling over Duvall in the process. The two men ended in a tangled heap among the tables and chairs now packed against the "down" side of the room.
They couldn't get back on their feet; the oil was everywhere. Even crawling didn't work--they still got no traction. Finally they grabbed a row of knobs on the main battery switchboard, which ran all the way across the room. Painfully they pulled themselves uphill, hand over hand along the switchboard. By now it was almost like scaling a cliff.
In central station at last, they found conditions almost as bad. The lights dimmed, went out, came on again for a while as some auxiliary circuit took hold. Outside the watertight door on the lower side, the water began to rise . . . spouting through the cracks around the edges and shooting like a hose through an air-test opening. Delano could hear the pleas and cries of the men trapped on the other side, and he thought with awe of the decision Lieutenant Commander J. S. Harper, the damage control officer, had to make: let the men drown, or open the door and risk the ship as well as the people now in central station. The door stayed closed.
Delano suggested to Harper that he and his men might be more useful topside. For the moment Harper didn't even have time to answer. He was desperately trying to keep in touch with the rest of the ship and direct the counterflooding that might save it, but all the circuits were dead.
The counterflooding was done anyhow. Lieutenant Claude V. Ricketts had once been damage control officer and liked to discuss with other young officers what should be done in just this kind of situation. More or less as skull practice, they had worked out a plan among themselves. Now Ricketts began counterflooding on his own hook, helped along by Boatswain's Mate Billingsley , who knew how to work the knobs and valves. The West Virginia slowly swung back to starboard and settled into the harbor mud on an even keel.
There was no time for counterflooding on the Oklahoma, lying ahead of the West Virginia and outboard of the Maryland. Lying directly across from Southeast Loch, she got three torpedoes right away, then another two as she heeled to port.
Curiously, many of the men weren't even aware of the torpedoes. Seaman George Murphy only heard the loud-speaker say something about "air attack" and assumed the explosions were bombs. Along with hundreds of other men who had no air defense stations, he now trooped down to the third deck, where he would be protected by the armor plate that covered the deck above. Seaman Stephen Young never thought of torpedoes either, and he was even relieved when the water surged into the port side of No. 4 turret powder handling room. He assumed that someone was finally counterflooding on that side to offset the bomb damage to starboard.
The water rose . . . the emergency lights went out . . . the list increased. Now everything was breaking loose. Big 1000-pound shells rumbled across the handling rooms, sweeping men before them. Eight foot reels of steel towing cable rolled across the second deck, blocking the ladder topside. The door of the drug room swung open, and Seaman Murphy watched hundreds of bottles cascade over a couple of seamen hurrying down a passageway. The boys slipped and rolled through the broken glass, jumped up, and ran on.
On the few remaining ladders, men battled grimly to get to the main deck. It was a regular log jam on the ladder to S Division compartment, just a few steps from open air. Every time something exploded outside, men would surge down the ladder, meeting head-on another crowd that surged up. Soon it was impossible to move in either direction. Seaman Murphy gave up even trying. He stood off to the one side--one foot on deck, the other on the corridor wall, the only way he could now keep his footing.
Yeoman L. L. Curry had a better way out. He and some mates were still in the machine shop on third deck amidships when the list reached 60 degrees. Someone spied an exhaust ventilator leading all the way to the deck, and one by one the men crawled up. As they reached fresh air, an officer ran over and tried to shoo them back inside, where they would be safe from bomb splinters. That was the big danger, he explained: a battleship couldn't turn over.
Several hundred yards ahead of the Oklahoma--and moored alone at the southern end of Battleship Row--the California caught her first torpedo at 08:05. Yeoman Durrell Conner watched it come from his station in the flag communications office. He slammed the porthole shut as it struck the ship directly beneath him.
Another crashed home farther aft. There might as well have been more--the California was wide open. She was due for inspection Monday, and the covers had been taken off six of the manholes leading to her double bottom. A dozen more of these covers had been loosened. The water poured in and surged freely through the ship.
It swept into the ruptured fuel tanks, contaminating the oil, knocking out the power plant right away. It swirled into the forward air compressor station, where Machinist's Mate Robert Scott was trying to feed air to the five-inch guns. The other men cleared out, calling Scott to come with them. He yelled back, "This is my station--I'll stay here and give them air as long as the guns are going." They closed the watertight door and let him have his way.
With the power gone, men desperately tried to do by hand the tasks that were meant for machines. Yeoman Conner joined a long chain of men passing powder and shells up from an ammunition room far below. Stifling fumes from the ruptured fuel tanks made their work harder, and word spread that the ship was under gas attack. At the wounded collecting station in the crew's reception room Pharmacist's Mate William Lynch smashed open lockers in a vain search for morphine. Near the communications office a man knelt in prayer under a ladder. Numb to the chaos around him, another absently sat at a desk typing, "Now is the time for all good men . . . "
Around the harbor nobody noticed the California's troubles--all eyes were glued on the Oklahoma. From his bungalow on Ford Island, Chief Albert Molter watched her gradually roll over on her side slowly and stately . . . as if she were tired and wanted to rest." She kept rolling until her mast and superstructure jammed into the mud, leaving her bottom up--a huge dead whale lying in the water. Only eight minutes had passed since the first torpedo hit.
On the Maryland Electrician's Mate Harold North recalled how everyone had cursed on Friday when the Oklahoma tied up alongside, shutting off what air there was at night.
Inside the Oklahoma men were giving it one more try. Storekeeper Terry Armstrong found himself alone in a small compartment on the second deck. As it slowly filled with water, he dived down, groped for the porthole, squirmed through to safety. Seaman Malcolm McCleary escaped through a washroom porthole the same way. Nearby, Lieutenant (j.g.) Aloysius Schmitt, the Catholic chaplain, started out too. But a breviary in his hip pocket caught on the coaming. As he backed into the compartment again to take it out, several men started forward. Chaplain Schmitt had no more time to spend on himself. He pushed three, possibly four, of the others through before the water closed over the compartment.
Some men weren't even close to life as they knew it, but were still alive nevertheless. They found themselves gasping, swimming, trying to orient themselves to an upside-down world in the air pockets that formed as the ship rolled over. Seventeen-year-old Seaman Willard Beal fought back the water that poured into the steering engine room. Seaman George Murphy splashed about the operating room of the ship's dispensary . . . wondering what part of the ship had a tile ceiling . . . never dreaming he was looking up at the floor.
Topside, the men had it easier. As the ship slowly turned turtle, most of the men simply climbed over the starboard side and walked with the roll, finally ending up on the bottom. When and how they got off was pretty much a matter of personal choice. Some started swinging hand over hand along the lines that tied the ship to the Maryland, but as she rolled, these snapped, and the men were pitched into the water between the two ships. Seaman Tom Armstrong dived off on this side--his watch stopped at 08:10. Tom's brother Pat jumped off from the outboard side. Their third brother Terry was already in the water after squeezing through the porthole on the second deck. Marine Gunnery Sergeant Leo wears slid down a line and almost drowned when someone used him as a stepladder to climb into a launch. His friend Sergeant Norman Currier coolly walked along the side of the ship to the bow, hailed a passing boat, and stepped into it without getting a foot wet. Ensign Bill Ingram climbed onto the high side just as the yardarm touched the water. He stripped to his shorts and slid sown the bottom of the ship.
As Ingram hit the water, the Arizona blew up. Afterward men said a bomb went right down her stack, but later examination showed even the wire screen across the funnel top still intact. It seems more likely the bomb landed alongside the second turret, crashed through the forecastle, and set off the forward magazines.
In any case, a huge ball of fire and smoke mushroomed 500 feet into the air. There wasn't so much noise--most of the men say it was more a "whoom" than a "bang"--but the concussion was terrific. It stalled the motor of Aviation Ordinanceman Harand Quisdorf's pickup truck as he drove along Ford Island. It hurled Chief Albert Molter against the pipe banister of his basement stairs. It knocked everyone flat on Fireman Stanley H. Rabe's water barge. It blew Gunner Carey Garnett and dozens of other men off the Nevada . . . Commander Cassin Young off the Vestal . . . Ensign Vance Fowler off the West Virginia. Far above, Commander Fuchida's bomber trembled like a leaf. On the fleet landing at Merry's Point a Navy captain wrung his hands and sobbed that it just couldn't be true.
On the Arizona, hundreds of men were cut down in a single, searing flash. Inside the port anti-aircraft director one fire control man simply vanished--the only place he could have gone was through the narrow range-finder slot. On the bridge Rear Admiral Isaac C. Kidd and Captain Franklin Van Valkenburgh were instantly killed. On the second deck the entire ship's band was wiped out.
Over 1000 men were gone.
Incredibly, some still lived. Major Alan Shapley of the Marine detachment was blown out of the foremast and well clear of the ship. Though partly paralyzed, he swam to Ford Island, detouring to help two shipmates along the way. Radioman Glenn Lane was blown off the quarter-deck and found himself swimming in water thick with oil. He looked back at the Arizona and couldn't see a sign of life.
But men were there. On the third deck aft Coxswain James Forbis felt skinned alive, and the No. 4 turret handling room was filling with thick smoke. He and his mates finally moved over to No. 3 turret, where conditions were a little better, but soon smoke began coming in around the guns there too. The men stripped to their skivvie drawers and crammed their clothes around the guns to keep the smoke out. When somebody finally ordered them out, Forbis took off his newly shined shoes and carefully carried them in his hands as he left the turret. The deck was blazing hot and covered with oil. But there was a dry spot farther aft near No. 4 turret, and before rejoining the fight, Forbis carefully placed his shoes there. He lined them neatly with the heels against the turret--just as though he planned to wear them up Hotel Street again that night.
In the portside anti-aircraft director, Russell Lott wrapped himself in a blanket and stumbled out the twisted door. The blanket kept him from getting scorched, but the deck was so hot he had to keep hopping form one foot to the other. Five shipmates staggered up through the smoke, so he stretched the blanket as a sort of shield for them all. Then he saw the Vestal still alongside. The explosion had left her deck a shambles, but he found someone who tossed over a line, and, one by one, all six men inched over to the little repair ship.
At that particular moment they were lucky to find anyone on the Vestal. The blast had blown some of the crew overboard, including skipper Cassin Young, and the executive officer told the rest to abandon ship. Seaman Thomas Garzione climbed down a line over the forecastle, came to the end of it, and found himself standing on the anchor. He just froze there--he was a nonswimmer and too scared to jump the rest of the way. Finally he worked up enough nerve, made the sign of the cross, and plunged down holding his nose. For a nonswimmer, he made remarkable time to a whale boat drifting in the debris.
Signalman Adolph Zlabis dived off the bridge and reached a launch hovering nearby. He and a few others yelled encouragement to a young sailor who had climbed out on the Vestal's boat boom and now dangled from a rope ladder five feet above the water. Finally the man let go, landed flat in the water with a resounding whack. The men in the launch couldn't help laughing.
Still on board the Vestal, Radioman John Murphy watched a long line of men pass his radio room, on their way to abandon ship. One of the other radio men saw his brother go by. He cried, "I'm going with him," and ran out the door. For no particular reason Murphy decided to stay, but he began feeling that he would like to get back home just once more before he passed on.
At this point Commander Young climbed back on the Vestal from his swim in the harbor. He was by no means ready to call it a day. He stood sopping wet at the top of the gangway, shouting down to the swimmers and the men in the boats, "Come back! We're not giving up this ship yet!"
Most of the crew returned and Young cave orders to cast off. Men hacked at the hawsers tying the Vestal to the blazing Arizona. Inevitably, there was confusion. One officer on the Arizona's quarter-deck yelled, "Don't cut those lines." Others on the battleship pitched in and helped. Aviation Mechanic "Turkey" Graham slashed the last line with an ax, shouting, "Get away from here while you can!"
Other help came from an unexpected source. A Navy tug happened by, whose skipper and chief engineer had both put in many years on the Vestal. They loyally eased alongside, took a line from the bow, and towed their old ship off toward Aiea landing, where she could safely sit out the rest of the attack.
When the Arizona blew up, Chief Electrician's Mate Harold North on the Maryland thought the end of the world had come. Actually he was lucky. Moored inboard of the Oklahoma, the Maryland was safe from torpedoes and caught only two bombs. One was a 15-inch armor-piercing shell fitted with fins--it slanted down just off the port bow, smashing into her hull 17 feet below the water line. The other hit the forecastle, setting the awning on fire. When a strafer swept by, Chief George Haitle watched the firefighters scoot for shelter. One man threw his extinguisher down a hatch, where it exploded at the feet of an old petty officer, who grabbed for a mask, shouting "Gas!"
The Tennessee, the other inboard battleship, had more trouble. Seaman J. P. Burkholder looked out a porthole on the bridge just as one of the converted 16-inch shells crashed down on No. 2 turret a few feet forward. The porthole cover tore loose, clobbered him on the head, and sent him scurrying through the door. Outside he helped a wounded ensign, but couldn't help one of his closest friends, who was so far gone he only wanted Burkholder to shoot him.
Another armor-piercing bomb burst through No. 3 turret farther aft. Seaman S. F. Bowen, stationed there as a powder carman, was just dogging the hatch when the bomb hit. It wasn't a shattering crash at all. Just a ball of fire, about the size of a basketball, appeared overhead and seemed to melt down on everyone. It seemed to run down on his skin and there was no way to stop it. As he crawled down to the deck below, he noticed that his shoe strings were still on fire.
Spinters flew in all directions from the bombs that hit the Tennessee. One hunk ripped the bridge of the West Virginia alongside, cut down Captain Mervyn Bennion as he tried to direct his ship's defense. He slumped across the sill of the signal bridge door on the starboard side of the machine-gun platform. Soon after he fell, Ensign Delano arrived on the bridge, having finally been sent up from central station. As Delano stepped out onto the platform, Lieutenant (j.g.) F. H. White rushed by, told him about the captain, and asked him to do what he could.
Delano saw right away it was hopeless. Captain Bennion had been hit in the stomach, and it took no medical training to know the wound was fatal. Yet he was perfectly conscious, and at least he might be made more comfortable. Delano opened a first-aid kit and looked for some morphine. No luck. Then he found a can of ether and tried to make the captain pass out. He sat down beside the dying man, holding his head in one hand in one hand and the ether in the other. It made the captain drowsy but never unconscious. Occasionally Delano moved the captain's legs to more comfortable positions, but there was so little he could do.
As they sat there together, Captain Bennion prodded him with questions. He asked how the battle was going, what the West Virginia was doing, whether the ship and the men were badly hit. Delano did his best to answer, resorting every now and then to a gentle white lie. Yes, he assured the captain, the ship's guns were still firing.
Lieutenant Rickets now turned up and proved a pillar of strength. Other men arrived too--Chief Pharmacist's Mate Leah . . . Ensign Jacoby from the flag room . . . Lieutenant Commander Doir Johnson from the forecastle. On his way up, Johnson ran across big Doris Miller, thought the powerful mess steward might come in handy, brought him along to the bridge. Together they tenderly lifted Captain Bennion and carried him to a sheltered spot behind the conning tower. He was still quite conscious and well aware of the flames creeping closer. He kept telling the men to leave him and save themselves.
In her house at Makalapa, Mrs. Mayfield still couldn't grasp what had happened. She walked numbly to a window and looked at Admiral Kimmel's house across the street. The venetian blinds were closed, and there was no sign of activity. Somehow this was reassuring . . . surely there would be some sign of life if it was really true. It didn't occur to her that this might be one morning when the admiral had no time for Venetian blinds.
By now Captain Mayfield was in his uniform. He took a few swallows of cofffee, slopping most of it in the saucer, and dashed for the carport. He roared off as the CINCPAC officer car screeched up to the admiral's house across the street. Admiral Kimmel ran down the steps and jumped in, knotting his tie on the way. Captain Freeland Daubin, commanding a squadron of submarines, leaped on the running board as the car moved off, and Captain Earle's station wagon shot down the hill after them.
In five minutes Admiral Kimmel was at CINCPA Headquarters in the sub base. The admiral thought he was there by 08:05; Commander Murphy thought it as more like 08:10. In either case, within a very few minutes of his arrival, the backbone of his fleet was gone or immobile--Arizona, Oklahoma, and West Virginia sunk . . . California sinking . . . Maryland and Tennessee bottled up by the wrecked battleships alongside . . . Pennsylvania squatting in drydock. Only the Nevada was left, and she seemed a forlorn hope with one torpedo and two bombs already in her.
Nor was the picture much brighter elsewhere. On the other side of Ford Island the target ship (former battleship) Utah took a heavy list to port as her engineering officer, Lieutenant Commander S. S. Isquith, pulled his khakis over his pajamas. The alarm bell clanged a few strokes and stopped; the men trooped below to take shelter from bombing. Isquith sensed the ship couldn't last, and he had the officer of the deck order all hands topside instead. The men were amazingly cool--perhaps because they were used to being "bombed" by the Army and Navy everyday. When Machinist's Mate David Gilmartin reached the main deck, he found the port rail already underwater. Twice he crawled up toward the starboard side and slid back. As he did it a third time, he slid by another seaman who suggested he throw away the cigarettes. To Gilmartin's amazement he had been trying to climb up the slanting deck while holding a carton of cigarettes in one hand. Relieved of his handicap, he made the starboard rail easily.
As the list increased, the big six-by-twelve-inch timbers that covered the Utah's decks began breaking loose. Those timbers were used to cushion the decks against practice bombing and undoubtedly helped fool the Japanese into thinking the ship was a carrier unexpectedly in port. Now they played another lethal role, sliding down on the men trying to climb up.
As she rolled still further, Commander Isquith made a last check below to find anyone who might still be trapped--and almost got trapped himself. He managed to reach the captain's cabin where a door led to the forecastle deck. The timbers had jammed the door' so he stumbled into the captain's bedroom where he knew there was a porthole. It was now almost directly overhead, but he managed to reach it by climbing on the captain's bed. As he popped his head through the porthole, the bed broke loose and slid out from under him. He fell back, but the radio officer, Lieutenant Commander L. Winser, grabbed his hand just in time and pulled him through. As Isquith got to his feet, he slipped and bumped down the side of the ship into the water. Half dead with exhaustion, harassed by strafers, he was helped by his crew to Ford Island.
Others never left the ship--Fireman John Vaessen in the dynamo room, who kept the power up to the end; Chief Watertender Peter Tomich in the boiler room, who stayed behind to make sure his men got out; Lieutenant (j.g.) John Black, the assistant engineer, who jammed his foot in his cabin door; Mess Attendant Smith, who was always so afraid of the water.
Of the other ships on this side of Ford Island, the Tangier and Detroit were still untouched, but the Raleigh sagged heavily to port. Water swirled into No. 1 and 2 firerooms, flooded the forward engine room, contaminated the fuel oil, knocked out her power. In the struggle to keep her afloat, no one even had time to dress. As though they went around that way every day, Captain Simons sported his blue pajamas . . . Ensign John Beardall worked the port antiaircraft guns in red pajamas . . . others toiled in a weird assortment of skivvies, aloha shirts, and bathing trunks. Somehow they didn't seem even odd: as Signalman Jack Foeppel watched Captain Simons in the Admiral's wing on the bridge, he only marveled that any man could be so calm.
Ford Island, where all these ships were moored, was itself in chaos. Japanese strafers were now working the place over, and most o the men were trying to make themselves as small as possible. Storekeeper Jack Rogovsky crouched under a mess hall table nibbling raisins. The men in the air photo laboratory dived under the steel developing tables. Some of the flight crews plunged into an eight foot ditch that was being dug for gas lines along the edge of the runway. This is where Ordinanceman Quaisdorf's unit was hiding when when he and another airman arrived in the squadron truck. But they didn't know that--they thought they had been left behind in a general retreat. They decided that their only hope was to find a pair of rifles, swim the north channel, and hole up in the hills until liberation.
Nor was their much room for optimism in the Navy Yard. On the ships at the finger piers, the stern gunners had a perfect shot at the torpedo planes gliding down Southwest Loch, but most of them had little to shoot with. The San Francisco was being overhauled; all her guns were in the shops; most of her large ammunition was on shore. The repair ship Rigel was in the same fix. The St. Louis was on "limited availability" while radar was being installed; her topside was littered with scaffolding and cable reels; three of her four five-inch anti-aircraft guns were dismantled.
The little Sacramento had just come out of drydock, and in line with drydock regulations most of her ammunition lockers had been emptied. The Swan plugged away with her two three-inch guns, but a new gun earmarked for her top deck was still missing. A pharmacist's mate stood on the empty emplacement, cursing helplessly. The other ships were having less trouble . . .
On all these ships the men had more time for reflection than their mates along Battleship Row. On the New Orleans the ship's gambler and "big operator" sat at his station, reading the New Testament. (Later he canceled his debts and loans; threw away his dice.) A young engineer on the San Francisco--with nothing to do because her boilers were dismantled--appeared topside, wistfully told Ensign John E. Parrott, "Thought I'd come up and die with you." Machinist's Mate Henry Johnson on the Rigel remarked that now he knew how a rabbit felt and he'd never hunt one again. A few minutes later he lay mortally wounded on the deck.
Their very helplessness turned many of the men from fear to fury. Commander Duncan Curry, strictly an old Navy type, stood on the bridge of the Ramapo firing a .45 pistol as the tears streamed down his face. On the New Orleans a veteran master at arms fired away with another .45, daring them to come back and fight. A man stood near the sub base, banging away with a double-barreled shotgun.
A young Marine on 1010 dock used his rifle on the planes, while a Japanese-American boy about seven years old lit a cigarette for him. The butt of his old cigarette was burning his lips, but he never even noticed it. As he fired away, he remarked aloud "If my mother could see me now."
Ten-ten dock itself was a mess, littered with debris from the Helena and Oglala alongside. In the after engine room of the torpedoed Helena, Chief Machinist's Mate Paul Weisenberger fought to check the water that poured aft through the ship's drain system. The hit had also set off the ship's gas alarm; its steady blast added to the uproar. Marine Second Lieutenant Bernard Kelley struggled to get ammunition to the guns. In keeping a steady supply flowing, it was a tossup whether he had more trouble with the damage or with conscientious damage control men, who kept shutting the doors.
Topside was a shambles. The Helena's forecastle, which had been rigged for church, looked as if a cyclone had passed. The Oglala, to starboard, listed heavily; her signal flags dropped over the Helena's bridge. Across the channel, Battleship Row was a mass of flames and smoke. Above the whole scene, a beautiful rainbow arched over Ford Island.
Just below 1010 dock, the Pennsylvania and destroyers Cassin and Downes sat ominously unmolested in Drydock No. 1. Likewise the destroyer Shaw in the floating drydock, which was a few hundred yards to the west. Aboard the Pennsylvania the men waited tensely. Lieutenant Commander James Craig, the ship's first lieutenant, checked here and there, making sure they would be ready when the blow came--or at least as ready as a ship out of water could be. He told Boatswain's mate Robert Jones and his damage control party to lie face down on the deck. He warned them that their work was cut out, and to prepare for the worst . . .
It was much the same on the ships anchored in the harbor. Radioman Leonard Stagich sat by his set on the destroyer Montgomery writing prayers on a little pad. In the transmitter room of the aircraft tender Curtiss, Radioman James Raines sat with three other men listening to the steady booming outside. No orders, so they just waited. With the doors and portholes dogged down and the ventilators off, it grew hotter and hotter. They removed their shirts and took turns wearing the heavy headphones. Still no orders. They kept moving about the room, squatting in different places, always wondering what was going on outside. From time to time the PA system squawked meaningless commands to others on the ship, which only made them wonder more. Still no orders.
But the most exasperating thing to those at anchor was just sitting there. It took time to build up enough steam to move--an hour for a destroyer, two hours for a larger ship. Meanwhile, they could only fire their guns manually, dodge the strafers, and watch (to use their favorite phrase) "all hell break loose."
The destroyer Monaghan had a slight edge on the others. As the ready-duty destroyer, her fires were already lit; and then of course she had been getting up steam since 07:50 to go out and contact the Ward. Commander Bill Burford would be able to take her out in a few minutes now, but at a time like this, that seemed forever.
At the moment the destroyer Helm was still the only ship underway. Twenty minutes had passed since Quartermaster Frank Handler genially waved at that aviator flying low up the channel. After the first explosion Commander Carroll quickly sounded general quarters . . . swung her around from West Loch . . . caught Admiral Furlong's sortie signal . . . and was now ready to get up and go. Turning to Handler, he said, "Take her out. I'll direct the battery."
Handler had never taken the ship out alone. The channel was tricky--speed limit 14 knots--and the job was always left to the most experienced hands. He took the wheel and rang the engine room to step her up to 400 rpm. the engine room queried that order and he repeated it. The ship leaped forward and raced down the channel at 27 knots. To complicate matters, there wasn't a single compass on board; everything had to be done by seaman's eye. But Handler had one break in his favor--the torpedo net was still wide open. So the Helm rushed on, proudly guided by a novice without a compass breaking every speed law in the book.
By this time Handler was game for anything; so he took it in his stride when at 08:17 he came face to face with a Japanese midget sub. He saw it as the Helm burst out of the harbor entrance--first the periscope, then the conning tower. It lay about 1000 yards off the starboard bow, bouncing up and down on the coral near the buoys. The Helm guns roared, but somehow they never could hit the sub. Finally it slid off the coral and disappeared. The Helm flashed the news to headquarters: Small Jap sub trying to penetrate channel."
Signal flags fluttered up all over Pearl Harbor, telling the ships of the fleet. From the bridge of the burning West Virginia, Ensign Delano read the warning and sighed to himself, "Oh my God--that too!"
From: The History of The United States Navy in World War II
Compiled and Edited by" S. E. Smith
Part I: Chapter 3 I Can't Keep Throwing Things At Them
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