The World War II Collection

by Lord, Walter;

  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 quarterdeck,” 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 time. 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 waterline — 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 loudspeaker 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 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 ladders 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 logjam 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 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 8:05. Yeoman Durrell Conner watched it come from his station in the flag communications office. He slammed the porthole s
hut 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 in 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 8:10. 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 down 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 Ordnanceman 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 antiaircraft 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 Allen 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 quarterdeck 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 antiaircraft 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 from 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 decks 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 m
an 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 radiomen 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 gave 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 quarterdeck 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 awnings 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!”