The World War II Collection

by Lord, Walter;

  Actually the Japanese weren’t interested in the Neosho. When one strafer flew down Battleship Row, he even held fire while passing the tanker — just a waste of good bullets. He might have cared more had he known she was still half loaded with high-octane aviation gas.

  Next up the line, the Oklahoma lay bottom-up, but her men were by no means out of the fight. Marine Sergeant Thomas Hailey reached Ford Island, volunteered for a mission in a small unarmed plane. They gave him a rifle and sent him up. The mission: locate the Japanese fleet. The plane had no luck and returned five hours later. For Hailey it was an especially uncomfortable trip because he still had on only the oil-soaked underwear he wore from the Oklahoma.

  Most of her survivors settled for the Maryland. A seaman covered with oil tagged after Chief Gunner’s Mate McCaine, calling, “What can we do, Chief?” Marine Sergeant Leo Wears found a shorthanded gun on the main deck, appointed himself a member of its crew. Ensign Bill Ingram took over another gun that seemed to need help. As he worked away, someone on the bridge hollered down, telling him that on the Maryland an officer was expected to wear his cap when he fought. There were plenty of them lying around, so Ingram put one on, paused long enough to wave cheerfully in the general direction of the bridge.

  The Maryland’s own crew were just as busy. Mess Attendant Arvelton Baines, who had been in the brig for fighting with civilians, worked to get ammunition topside until he passed out from exhaustion. A hulking Marine sergeant — nicknamed “Tiny,” as usual — rammed a five-inch antiaircraft gun with his hand when the hydraulic hammer got stuck. The men sweated away, oblivious of the flames blown toward them, above them, in fact all around them from the burning West Virginia and Arizona. Under the circumstances, Chief George Haitle was mildly astonished when an officer drew a gun and threatened to shoot the first man caught lighting a cigarette.

  Men on the West Virginia were even more surprised when they too were chewed out for smoking. The ship was now a sea of flames — ammunition exploding everywhere, bullets and shells flying all over the place. Everything aft of the foremast was lost in choking smoke. Abandon ship had been ordered, and her port bow was level with the water, when Ensign Thomas A. Lombardi arrived from shore leave around 8:50. He stepped aboard and stood rooted in his tracks — could this litter of clothing, bedding, bodies, and debris be the same neat deck he had left the night before?

  It was no weirder a picture than the one he made himself. As he pitched in to help the wounded, he was still wearing his white dinner jacket, black tie, and tuxedo pants. They didn’t matter, but he needed something far more effective than the black evening pumps he still wore. Then a miracle — he stumbled over a pair of rubber boots lying on deck. And an even greater miracle (for Lombardi was an old Syracuse football player with frame and feet to match) — they were size 13, a perfect fit.

  On the signal bridge, Ensign Delano also had an unexpected windfall in the way of apparel — he picked up the only helmet he ever found that fitted. He clapped it on and checked two idle machine guns mounted forward of the conning tower. They seemed in good shape, so he recruited a young officer, a seaman, and Mess Attendant Doris Miller to get them going. The first two would do the firing; Miller would pass the ammunition. Next time Delano looked, Miller had taken over one of the guns and was happily blazing away. The big steward had no training whatsoever in machine guns, and at least one witness felt he was a bigger menace than the Japanese. But there was nothing wrong with his heart, and it was the only time Delano had ever seen him smile, except the day he won that big fight as the West Virginia’s heavyweight boxer.

  As fast as men could be spared, Delano packed them off to help the Tennessee alongside. Others thought of it themselves and crawled across on the ten-inch hawsers. When a Tennessee gun captain asked one West Virginia ensign what fuse setting to use, he got an impatient reply: “To hell with fuse settings — shoot!” More shells sailed off for downtown Honolulu.

  Everyone at least agreed there was no time for technicalities. Captain Charles E. Reordan fought the Tennessee in his Panama hat. Crew members gladly recruited Private Harry Polto, a soldier who happened to be visiting aboard, and assigned him to a five-inch gun. Men tossed scores of empty shell cases overboard with carefree abandon, forgetting completely the swimmers struggling alongside. But through all the scorn for details, the seaman’s prerogative to gripe was carefully preserved. Few seemed to mind Yeoman Duncan grumbling that his new whites had been ruined by a broken steam pipe.

  Even the twisted, burning Arizona still showed signs of fight. Boatswain’s Mate Barthis and most of those still living stood on the fantail, dropping life rafts to the men in the water. Coxswain Forbis gave a hand until Barthis said nothing more could be done. Then he dived in — his watch stopped at 8:50. Radioman Glenn Lane was already in the water, had been swimming ever since the big explosion blew him overboard. He could have reached the shore easily but wanted some more interesting way to stay in the fight.

  Suddenly he saw it right before his eyes. The Nevada was swinging out … getting under way … moving down the harbor. He paddled over to meet her. Someone tossed him a line, yanked him aboard. Two other Arizona seamen were hauled up the same way, and all three were assigned to a five-inch gun on the starboard side. The Nevada steamed on down the channel, gliding past the burning wrecks, proudly heading for the sea.

  It seemed utterly incredible. A battleship needed two and a half hours to light up her boilers, four tugs to turn and pull her into the stream, a captain to handle the whole intricate business. Everybody knew that. Yet here was the Nevada — steam up in 45 minutes, pulling away without tugs, and no skipper at all. How could she do it?

  She had certain advantages. It might normally take two and a half hours to get up steam, but two of her boilers were already hot. One was the boiler that normally provides power for a ship at her mooring. Ensign Taussig had lit the second during that last peacetime watch, planning to switch the steam load later. Now his efficiency paid off. Both boilers had plenty of steam — giving the Nevada some 90 minutes’ jump in getting away. Hard work in the fire room made up the difference.

  And four rugs might normally be needed to ease the ship out, but in a pinch their role could be filled by a good quartermaster. The Nevada had a superb one — Chief Quartermaster Robert Sedberry.

  It was the same with leadership. Captain Scanland and his executive officer might be ashore, but the spark was supplied by Lieutenant Commander Francis Thomas, the middle-aged reservist who was senior officer present. As damage control officer, Thomas was down in central station when he heard that the engine room was ready. He put a yeoman in charge of central station, vaulted up the tube to the conning tower, and took over as commanding officer.

  Chief Boatswain Edwin Joseph Hill climbed down to the mooring quay, cut loose an ammunition lighter alongside, and cast off. The Nevada began drifting away with the tide, and Hill had to swim to get back on board. But after 29 years in the Navy, he wasn’t going to miss this trip.

  In the wheelhouse Sedberry backed her until she nudged a dredging pipeline strung out from Ford Island. Then ahead on the starboard engines, astern on the port, until the bow swung clear of the burning Arizona. Now ahead on both engines, with just enough right rudder to swing the stern clear too. She passed so close, Commander Thomas felt he could almost light a cigarette from the blazing wreck.

  So she was on her way — and the effect was electric. Photographer J. W. Burton watched from the Ford Island shore … Lieutenant Commander Henry Wrayfrom 1010 dock … Quartermaster William Miller from the Castor in the sub base — but wherever men stood, their hearts beat faster. To most she was the finest thing they saw that day. Against the backdrop of thick black smoke, Seaman Thomas Malmin caught a glimpse of the flag on her fantail. It was for only a few seconds, but long enough to give him an old-fashioned thrill. He recalled that “The Star-Spangled Banner” was written under similar conditions, and he felt the glow of living the same experience. He unde
rstood better the words of Francis Scott Key.

  It was less of a pageant close up. All kinds of men compose even a great ship’s crew, and they were all there on the Nevada. As the Japanese planes converged on the moving ship, Seaman K. V. Hendon spied a pot of fresh coffee near the after battle dressing station; he paused and had a cup. A young seaman stood by one of the five-inch casemate guns, holding a bag of powder close to his chest — he explained that if he went, it was going to be a complete job. One officer beat on the conning tower bulkhead, pleading, “Make them go away!” Ensign Taussig, his left leg hopelessly shattered, lay in a stretcher near the starboard antiaircraft director. Turning to Boatswain’s Mate Allen Owens, he remarked, “Isn’t this a hell of a thing — the man in charge lying flat on his back while everyone else is doing something.”

  As the Nevada steamed on, all the Japanese planes at Pearl Harbor seemed to dive on her. At 1010 dock, Ensign David King watched one flight of dive-bombers head for the Helena, then swerve in mid-attack to hit the battleship instead. Another group shifted over from Drydock No. 1. Soon she was wreathed in smoke from her own guns … from bomb hits … from the fires that raged amidships and forward. Sometimes she disappeared from view, when near-misses threw huge columns of water high in the air. As Ensign Delano watched from the bridge of the West Virginia, a tremendous explosion erupted somewhere within her, blowing flames and debris far above the masts. The whole ship seemed to rise up and shake violently in the water.

  Another hit on the starboard side slaughtered the crew of one gun, mowed down most of the next group forward. The survivors doubled up as best they could —three men doing the work of seven. It was all the more difficult because Chief Gunner’s Mate Robert E. Linnartz — now acting as sight-setter, pointer, and rammerman — had himself been wounded.

  In the plotting room far below, Ensign Merdinger got a call to send up some men to fill in for the killed and wounded. Many of the men obviously wanted to go — it looked like a safer bet than suffocating in the plotting room. Others wanted to stay — they preferred to keep a few decks between themselves and the bombs. Merdinger picked them at random, and he could see in some faces an almost pleading look to be included in the other group, whichever it happened to be. But no one murmured a word, and his orders were instantly obeyed. Now he understood more clearly the reasons for the system of discipline, the drills, the little, rituals, the exacting course at Annapolis, the gold braid — all the things that made the Navy essentially autocratic but at the same time made it work.

  The Nevada was well beyond Battleship Row and pretty far down 1010 dock when she encountered still another obstacle. Half the channel was blocked by a long pipeline that ran out from Ford Island to the dredge Turbine, lying squarely in midstream. Somehow Quartermaster Sedberry snaked between the dredge and the shore. It was a fine piece of navigation and a wonderful arguing point for Captain August Persson of the dredge. The Navy had always made him unhook the pipeline every time the battleships came in or out, claiming there wasn’t enough room to pass. Captain Persson had always claimed they could do it if they wanted. Now he had his proof.

  The Japanese obviously hoped to sink the Nevada in the entrance channel and bottle up the whole fleet. By the time she was opposite the floating drydock, it began to look as though they might succeed. More signal flags fluttered on top the Naval District water tower — stay clear of the channel. Still lying in his stretcher near the starboard director, Ensign Taussig was indignant. He was sure they could get to sea. In fact, he felt the ship was all right — she looked in bad shape only because someone down below was counterflooding her starboard bow instead of stern. Sitting by his five-inch casemate gun, Marine Sergeant Inks had different ideas. He had been in the Corps forever and knew trouble when he saw it. He was gloomily muttering that the ship would never get out.

  In any case, orders were orders. Thomas cut his engines and nosed her into Hospital Point on the south shore. The wind and current caught her stern and swung her completely around. Chief Boatswain Hill, who had cast off a long 30 minutes before, now went forward to drop anchor. Then another wave of planes dived on the Nevada in one final, all-out fling. Three bombs landed near the bow. Hill vanished in the blast — the last time Thomas saw him, he was still working on the anchor gear.

  It was now nine o’clock, and the hour had come for the ships in drydock — the flagship Pennsylvania in Drydock No. 1, with the destroyers Cassin and Downes lying side by side just ahead of her; the destroyer Shaw in the new floating drydock a few hundred yards to the west.

  The three ships at the main drydock fought under a special handicap. The water had been pumped out, dropping their decks to a point where the high sides of the drydock blocked most of the view. This was noticed right away by George Walters, a civilian yard worker operating a traveling crane that ran on rails along the side of the dock. From his perch 50 feet up, Walters saw the first planes dive on Ford Island. Like everybody else he thought it was a drill and caught on only when he saw the PBYs crumble.

  He looked down and realized that the men lolling in the sun on the Pennsylvania, Cassin, and Downes were aware of none of this. He yelled but nobody paid attention. He threw a wrench, but that only made them angry. As the attack spread all over the harbor, they finally understood.

  When the Japanese turned their attention to the Pennsylvania, Walters decided to capitalize on the ship’s predicament. He devised a unique defense. He ran his crane back and forth along the ship, hoping to protect it and ward off low-flying planes. A forlorn hope perhaps, but after all this was a crane taking on an air force.

  At first, Walters’ contribution infuriated the Pennsylvania gunners, who felt he was only spoiling their aim. Gradually they learned to use him. They discovered that, sitting in their trough, they couldn’t see the planes soon enough anyhow. The crane’s movements at least gave them a lead on where a plane might next appear. Then they could set their guns and be ready when it came. Walters was just completing his transition from goat to hero when a Japanese bomb blasted the dock, putting him out of business.

  It, of course, made no real difference: planes were swarming on the drydock from every direction. On the Pennsylvania, Gun Captain Alvin Gerth pumped out shells directly over the heads of the next gun crew forward. He had adjusted the gun to shoot a little below the safety cutout, and every time he fired, the blast would knock down the other gun captain. He in turn would jump up, run back, and kick Gerth in the seat of his pants. This went on and on.

  On the Pennsylvania, too, there was a new jauntiness in the air. Electrician’s Mate James Power took time out for a quick glance at his hometown paper, the Odessa, Texas, Times. He just had to know the score of the big Thanksgiving game between Odessa High and Midland. When he saw that Odessa had won for the first time in ten years, he jumped and hollered with joy.

  More bombs rained down, and Captain Charles Cooke of the Pennsylvania began to worry about the drydock gate. He realized that a direct hit would let in a rush of water, pushing his ship into the destroyers lying ahead. To guard against this, he ordered the drydock partially flooded and sent Lieutenant Commander James Craig to tighten up the mooring line. Craig carried out the job in nimble, skillful fashion … paying no attention to the bullets that whipped the ground around him. He seemed to live a charmed life. At 9:06 he stepped back on board, just in time to be killed by a 500-pound bomb that shattered the starboard casemate he was passing through.

  Boatswain’s Mate Robert Jones rushed up to help the men hit by the blast. He gently pulled a blanket over one seaman who was obviously dead. The man thrashed out with both hands, yanked the blanket from his face: “I’ve got to breathe, ain’t I?”

  The dock was flooding fast when yard worker Harry Danner suddenly realized he had left his lunch tin down in the pit. He started back but was too late. It was sailing away into the Cassin and Dowries, carried along by the inrush of water, just the way Captain Cooke figured a loosely moored battleship might do. When Danner fi
nally reached the top of the dock, the Pennsylvania was still smoking from her bomb hit. He decided she could use some help and rushed up the gangplank. After a brief encounter with the duty officer, who couldn’t grasp the idea of a civilian manning a gun, he got on board and joined one of the five-inch antiaircraft crews.

  As the Pennsylvania fought on, a record player could be heard in one of the ship’s repair shops. It had apparently been on when the attack started, and no one bothered to turn it off. Now, in the midst of this early-morning nightmare, it repeated over and over again the pleasant strains of Glenn Miller’s “Sunrise Serenade.”

  Up ahead the Cassin and Downes seemed to catch everything that missed the Pennsylvania — a bad hit at 9:06 … another at 9:15. By the time the drydock was flooded, both destroyers were heavily on fire. Explosions racked their decks, and a big blast ripped the Cassin at 9:37. She sagged heavily to starboard and rolled slowly over onto the Downes. Seaman Eugene McClarty got out from under just in time, and as he streaked onto the drydock, another bomb crashed behind him, shaking the gangway loose. It fell into the drydock as McClarty pulled one sailor to his feet; but two other shipmates were too late, and plunged on down into the blazing caldron.

  On the quarterdeck of the Downes a single sailor hung on, manning a .50-caliber machine gun. Watching from the Pennsylvania, Gunner’s Mate Millard Rucoi wondered how long any man could stand that kind of heat. He soon had his answer. As the flames swept closer, the sailor seemed to have a harder and harder time keeping his head up. Finally he dropped to his knees, head down, but with one hand still hanging on the trigger of the gun. That’s the way Rucoi last saw him when the flames and smoke closed off the view.

  The Shaw was having just as much trouble in the floating drydock to the west. A bad hit around 9:12 … fire spreading toward her forward magazine … a fantastic explosion about 9:30. It was the Fourth of July kind — a huge ball of fire ballooned into the air; bits of flaming material arched and snaked across the sky, trailing white streamers of smoke behind. Once again the whole harbor paused to take in the scene. Seaman Ed Waszkiewicz watched from the Ford Island seaplane ramp, nearly half a mile across the bay. At this distance he knew he was at least safe — until he looked up at the sky. One of the Shaw’s five-inch shells was tumbling end over end, arching directly at him. He dived behind a fire truck as the shell hit the concrete ramp several feet away. It didn’t explode, merely bounced a hundred yards along the ramp and clanged into one of the hangars.