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Check the boxes for emails you'd like to receive. Inbox overcrowded? Don't worry, you can unsubscribe or update your preferences at any time. Want to hear more? Check out Civil Beat's other podcasts. Are We Doomed?! The damage at Pearl Harbor was not the first hit that the Arizona had taken. Less than two months before the attack, during a training exercise, the ship was struck on the port side by the U.
More than sailors and Marines could not be recovered , either. In , former President Dwight Eisenhower approved a law that would allow the Pacific War Memorial Commission to raise money that would go towards constructing a memorial honor that loss. The memorial — a white arched concrete structure for onlookers to pay their respects — was unveiled in and is located above the wreckage. It draws in about 1. There, the names of the 1, men who died on the Arizona are inscribed on a white marble wall.
Not every part of the Arizona lies at the bottom of the harbor. He sent the bell to the University of Arizona in , where it remains till this day in a tower especially created for it.
But the majority of the ship is seen today only by those who dive to see it. Reminders of the men who lived aboard the Arizona are scattered across the underwater wreckage: a uniform on a hanger, shaving kits, cooking pots, shoe soles. What strikes him as the most poignant observation is a fire hose, coiled in its ready position, just at the edge of where the massive fire raged.
The blast was so great there was not even a prayer of fighting the fire. Seymour, who says he has taken more than dives around the U. Edward Linenthal, a history professor at Indiana University who has studied the U. While the Navy determined in the past that it was best to leave the Arizona at solemn rest, what happens to the wreckage in the future is less clear. The ship once held about 1. The Arizona continues to leak close to a gallon of oil every day.
The oil that remains in the ship is not stored in one big tank but in more than different compartments, according to Seymour. But he notes that the park service does communicate with the Coast Guard and the surrounding water is frequently monitored by NPS staff should any significant leakage occur.
Even without the oil, the Arizona, if left alone, would not be there forever. He looked up and saw an airplane with the big red ball on its underside. He double-timed it to his battle station, three decks down. His job was to help send ammunition up a conveyor belt, but someone there was hollering for help.
Hetrick, who had turned 18 in May, took a breath and pushed until the man was able to drag himself onto the deck. At the edge of the quarterdeck, Hetrick paused. He couldn't swim. He'd never passed the swimming test. The ship shook, and he saw flames. He looked down at his shoes, the ones he'd bought in Honolulu the day before.
He slipped them off and set them on the deck. Langdell was awakened by loud noises and saw the first Japanese aircraft through the windows of the bachelor officers' quarters. The year-old ensign, assigned to the Arizona early in , had been detached temporarily for training and spent most of his nights on the island. He and others from the barracks ran to the shore and watched helplessly as the Japanese attack planes bombed one American ship after another.
Langdell saw a bomb strike the forward part of the Arizona. An explosion blew the bow apart. If he had been on board, Langdell would been below the No. Instead, there he was on the shore of Ford Island, helping lift injured sailors out of motor launches, or grasping the ones who came lurching out of the water, covered with oil. Many were burned, their skin sloughing off. Langdell and the rest of the men on guided the survivors toward the hospital.
One sailor walked stepped onto shore. He was burned black. As he moved, the skin on his back parted and fell off. He died before he reached help. When he got to the hospital, Langdell saw two lines forming. A doctor would examine each survivor.
He would send him through the first door if the man could be saved. The others were moved to the second line. Through that door, medics did the best they could do. On the rear deck of the Arizona, Anderson tried to move injured men out of danger, under the overhang at the No. Nearby, Lt. Fuqua tried to fight fires, but the water system was failing. The Arizona was sinking into the harbor.
A boat pulled up alongside the deck. It was the captain's gig, once one of the better motor craft on board. Now it looked like hell.
It had been battered by machine gun fire and was smudge with ash and oil. But it still floated. Fuqua ordered Anderson and the others to start moving the wounded to the boat. Anderson helped as many men as he could. Fast was more critical than gentle at this point. He felt a shove from behind and turned around. Fuqua shoved Anderson harder, down into the boat. Anderson was trying to carry another man and couldn't fight back any longer. He rode the small craft to Ford Island, crazed with fear and desperate to find Jake.
On the island, Anderson wandered up to a bunker. He saw a few guys standing there, watching the Arizona. He caught the eye of a sailor, another refugee from the Arizona, a boatswain's mate from Kentucky named Chester Rose. He was at least six feet tall, muscular, a member of the ship's football team. On the port side control platform, time was almost up for the six men still alive. One or two men had already jumped. One or two more tried to climb down. None made it. Stratton felt his T-shirt burn.
His skin melted. His hair was gone. He felt the bloody pulp of a mangled ear. He looked around, terrified. The Arizona seemed to have split. Pieces of it had plunged inward. He felt the heat from the deck sear the soles of his shoes.
He looked at his charred hands. Then he looked out and saw the repair ship Vestal, which had been docked next to the Arizona. A man was about the cut the lines so the ship could move away. One of the Arizona crew, Alvin Dvorak waved and yelled. The Vestal sailor, a coxswain named Joe George, sized up the situation. As the Arizona shook again, George threw a weighted heaving line from the Vestal across to the Arizona. Stratton, Bruner and their crewmates caught it, then secured a heavier hemp line to the tower.
This was it. The only way out. They had to shimmy down the rope, hand over burned hand, suspended 70 feet over a burning oil slick. On the Vestal, a captain yelled at George to cut the rope so the repair ship could move away from the dying Arizona.
George shook his head and motioned toward the tower crew. His eyes met Stratton's. Another young Seaman 1 st Class, Harold Kuhn, went first. Then Stratton, then Russell Lott, a sailor from Iowa, gunner's mate Earl Riner, then Bruner, and finally Dvorak, who had spotted the escape route moments before.
All six made it to the Vestal, burned, blinded by pain. Dvorak would die on Christmas Eve on a ship bound for San Francisco. Stratton and Bruner collapsed on the Vestal as the ship left the burning hulk of the mighty Arizona. Anderson and Rose steered their boat back to the Arizona and climbed on board.
The ship had sunk farther into the harbor. The deck felt deserted. The main mast and the tower where Anderson's brother had likely gone sat in ruins, tilting, burning. No one could be alive there. Anderson searched the rear deck and found three men who were still alive. He dragged them to where Rose waited with the boat and together, they loaded the men on board. Another wave of Japanese planes tore into the harbor, machine guns strafing the wreckage.
Anderson and Rose tried to steer the boat through the gunfire, toward Hospital Point on the main shore. The Oklahoma had rolled over. The West Virginia had sunk. Other ships were on fire. The oil-slicked harbor burned. Something hit the small craft, hard. The boat splintered and all five men were thrown into the water.
Anderson managed to stay afloat. He thrashed in the water, trying to find the three injured men. They were gone. He searched for Chester Rose, the brave football player. He was gone. After what seemed like hours, Anderson made it back to Ford Island. Covered in oil. Trying not to think about Jake.
He headed away from the shore. He stopped at a tree. A rifle and two bandoliers of ammunition hung from a branch, where someone had abandoned them. Anderson loaded up and kept walking. A crater had opened up on the runway, where the bombers had gone after the small air station. Anderson climbed into the crater. He crouched in his battlefield bunker until another sailor from the Arizona, a seaman first class named Walt Gaskins, found Anderson and joined him.
Lonnie Cook, who had won a craps game the night before, slept in the airmen's bunks that night, wearing clothes dug up from around officers' quarters. In the middle of the night, a commotion woke him. It was the airmen, returning after searching for the Japanese fleet. They had found nothing. When he landed on Ford Island, Raymond Haerry, forced to abandon the anti-aircraft battery on the Arizona, found a 50 caliber machine gun mounted in position. He fired at planes through the attack.
He wanted to return to the Arizona, but it was burning furiously. For the rest of the day, he pulled bodies out of the harbor.
Clare Hetrick moved supplies to shelters on Ford Island, food, blankets, clothing. He slept on the Tennessee, still afloat in the harbor. Someone came out at dusk and asked if anyone had spent time at a shooting range. Hetrick raised his hand. He was given a machine gun. He held on to it all night. Ken Potts stayed on Ford Island through the day.
He found a Colt 45 on the ground and picked it up. It felt good. On the Arizona, the armories had been locked and Potts felt like he couldn't defend himself.
Sunlight filters through a window near the front of the house in Roswell, N. A small white dog naps contentedly on the back of the sofa where John Anderson has retold, with the precision of a Navy man, one of the worst days of his life. Anderson's eyes cloud as he feels the loss all over again. They said Commander Geiselman—" Ellis Geiselman, the Arizona's executive officer who had seemingly survived the attack — "wanted all the survivors of the Arizona who can make it to go over to the dock.
We were spare gear then.
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