No sharks did not eat Titanic passengers. For some reason I had always thought that the titanic had gone down way farther North. His wife, Libby, who died two years ago. "When somebody says get out of here and you're on a hundred tons of ammunition, well, you don't question it," he says. The band had won a trophy in one of the competitions during their stay in Honolulu. "Here's the one that told my mother I was missing in action on the Arizona," he says. After about six months of training in San Diego, Hetrick returned to Honolulu and joined the USS Saratoga, the sister ship of the Lexington. Amidst the rush to war following the attack, there was also the painstaking effort to recover those who had been sunk with ships like the USS Oklahoma and the USS Arizona. Posted on December 7, 2021, 5:08 pm. In February, the Aylwin was part of a U.S. task force preparing for a raid on a Japanese base at Raubal, on the island of New Britain near Australia. "What's up with this one? Cook is invited to such events occasionally and sometimes introduced as an Arizona survivor. He has trouble remembering the past. For a long time, Haerry never talked about his experiences at Pearl Harbor. A sailor on the deck of the repair ship Vestal spotted the men and threw a line across. He moved to Provo and sold cars until 1990. Occasionally, they head into Okmulgee for an evening out at the One Fire, a casino operated by the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. Bruner toured Nagasaki in a Jeep with other Navy officers and chief mates. Cook was assigned to the USS Patterson, then two months later, transferred to the Aylwin, a destroyer that had been moored at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7 and engaged the bombers as the attack began. "I really miss it.". Then they'd go by.". In March, the crew turned back Japanese forces in the Battle of Komandorski. Cook made it to his battle station on Dec. 7, 1941, but the Arizona was moored in a cramped harbor and couldn't have fired the big guns even in a prolonged assault. Before the war started, a hospital stay that long would have earned a sailor a discharge, but not anymore. He built a reputation as a guy who could bring in the harvest on time. Bruner lives alone, in a post-war neighborhood in the far northern edges of Orange County. "It was rough weather, foggy, raining cold," Anderson said. He started chatting up a regular customer, a contractor, and got a job building houses. By the end of the day, had persuaded Anderson to sign up for the Navy Reserve. north but again I'm not a shark expert. Or both. He resumed one of his old jobs from the Arizona, piloting motor launches from the receiving station out to the Navy ships. Sharks in turn were revered because they . Handout . Salvage work would begin soon on others. For years, Stratton wore the scars from the Arizona without talking about them much. He gazes at the picture. He was able to visit the national cemetery at an area called the Punch Bowl. Repair crews were already at work on the battleships that had survived. They traveled around the country, meeting up with other USS Arizona survivors, with shipmates from the Frazier. After the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom, the United States opted to construct a naval base in 1899. Crustaceans. Conter's doctor has sidelined him for now for health reasons, but he is certain he will return soon. He wanted men with eyes set in the right place on their face. Some of 'em made it, some of 'em landed on the deck. Among his responsibilities was overseeing the naval officers' clubs in the area. In 2006, one of his sons offered to take Potts to Hawaii for the 65thanniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack. "I knew everything that was going on.". But John Anderson, the Navy chief petty officer who called himself Cactus Jack on the air, had a good head start already. The song, "Hound Dog" and the singer, Elvis Presley, both went over pretty well, the way Cactus Jack remembers it. By then, he'd seen the world, witnessed history before it was history. It turned out little was the right word. did sharks eat pearl harbor victims. Alcohol. At the time, sailors wore patches designating their rates, the enlisted expression of rank, on the right or left sleeve, depending on their assignment. And the ships needed experienced sailors. The Macdonough had collided with another destroyer, the Sicard. 5 Jun. "Once after we crossed the equator, one of the planes came back," he says. "Mr. Langdell, Mr. Langdell, you've got to come here quick," he said. Would Langdell agree to meet Abe on film? "I had to help my father out of his seat. LaRocque took Anderson to San Pedro, where his current ship was anchored. Potts returned to Illinois in late 1945 to await his formal discharge, hanging out in Chicago. That was enough to rattle nerves on board the ship, which was at general quarters every day an hour before sundown and an hour before sunrise. The bomb that shattered the Arizona's bow exploded as Cook and the others climbed out of the turret. "I decided I'd do whatever they told me to. Clayton Schenkelberg, who was born in 1917 in Iowa and joined the U.S. Navy in 1937, died in a senior care facility April 14 in San Diego. There was a tradition at the end of training that the graduates would give the chief a silver dollar. It was the first time Randy, his son, had seen his father cry. In January, another ship took him to San Francisco to the Navy hospital on Treasure Island. They danced. When they sent me my discharge, I just stayed here.". They struck up a conversation and, after a brief courtship, married. ", "Baloney," Conter replied. "Well, I'd brushed enough paint on that damn ship, I figured I could do it," he says. Bruner was one of them. Farther down the paneled wall hangs a painting of the USS Arizona, the battleship Navy recruit Potts boarded in December 1939. The primer went in last, before the end of the gun was sealed shut. Then we got hit.". The fellow he was talking with recognized Anderson's voice and they realized they had served together on the Yangtze Patrol before Pearl Harbor. He still remembers the day he saw the Arizona in dry dock at Bremerton, Wash. "It was quite a sight for an old flatlander like me to see a 35,000-ton battleship out of the water," he says. The Stratton men have taken up a more personal cause. "No one knew where the hell I was," Bruner says. The ship was still a day away from Honolulu when the captain received new orders. Schenkelberg was no stranger to hardships . The Coghlan approached the Aleutians in October, as winter was pushing fall aside. And in the back corner, a real trophy. did sharks eat pearl harbor victimshavelock wool australia. He remembers when the order was given to abandon ship. Stratton climbed to his feet and, biting back the pain, he stood and when his bed was ready, he collapsed back into it. The easy stories he'd tell. "Sometimes, we'd come back, eat, then sleep on the beach.". "I got the lay a wreath in front of the names of the fallen," he says quietly. They were having trouble reading his prints, she told Stratton. Five years later, in 2011, he got a call from the band director at Timpview High School in Provo. He said, 'whatever I can get out of you.' As they talked, Ray mentioned that his dad had been aboard the Arizona. ", "It's a brand new destroyer, the Coghlan, DD-606," he said, "built right here in 'Frisco.". "They played country music because the people here loved that," Anderson says. "I came back to the pier one morning and my name was on the list to do KP work," he says. And he was aboard on Dec. 7, 1941, when the Japanese bombed the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor, a pivotal moment in history, but one that struck Anderson to his core. @webtv.net wrote in message. The guns used the same type of control mechanisms Bruner had mastered on the Arizona. By the time they were back, the icicles were forming again and two more guys would go out.". He . Nope. Three months before he would mark 30 years with the company, he was let go, bought out like a lot other older workers in those days. Anything you choose is fine. Langdell says only this: "It took two days to take all the bodies. "Knock it off. What he heard wasn't quite country music, but he liked it and he told the kid. Hetrick was still just 21 by then, but a seasoned sailor who shared little in common with the 17-year-old kid who left high school and joined the Navy on his parents' signature. That led to a job in Roswell, the Sagebrush Serenade and Elvis Presley. Stratton logged thousands of miles of travel. Joe had met Elizabeth McGauhy in Chicago half a decade earlier. Another five minutes, Bruner figured, and they'd have run out of ammunition. Conter fought on through World War II, scraped past a lot of close calls, then went to Korea. A lot of people agree that what George did was heroic, but the Navy balks at every step, in part because George disobeyed a direct order. The exhausted crew dragged ashore an hour later and hid in the jungle, fearful they would be captured by Japanese soldiers. He finished his stint in the Navy in Shanghai, working shore patrol the way he did back in Honolulu. He went to work as a junior accountant for a prominent Boston firm. Servicemembers stationed in Hawaii took care of the memorial during the 2013 government shutdown: Servicemembers stationed in Hawaii treat Pearl Harbor as a living . -Ryan Dutcher. Seventy-three years later, he is one of just nine survivors of the attack on the Arizona. Maybe next time. You're the bravest man I ever know. Their ordeal . "He said, 'I had survival training in the ocean. "We would go in with a landing party or we furnished artillery for the landing force. And he still likes to talk about that other young fellow from Oklahoma, the one who didn't make it home. He stayed there for months. did sharks eat pearl harbor victims. He will tell his story to people he knows well and trusts, but he is 93 and the details are fading from his memory. The treaty also gave the US Navy exclusive access to use Pearl Harbor as a coaling and repair station. The band would cover all expenses for him and Doris. He thinks back. It turned out most of the regular stuntmen were still in the military. He still tools around town in the truck, but it's a classic now, so he drives it almost as often to car shows. Born in 1914, seven months after the first bolts were tightened on a new battleship in Brooklyn, Langdell grew up wooded agricultural area along the Souhegan River in southern New Hampshire. He was smart enough to excel, but started cutting classes not long after the start of his first semester. One of the survivors would receive the Rhode Island Cross. For a long time, he didn't think he would ever return to Pearl Harbor. Potts picked up the Colt 45 he'd found on Ford Island on Dec. 7, 1941. Discipline seems less important than it was in his day. The Langdells ended up honeymooning in Monterey and Carmel on the central California coast. Dec 12 2014. Put in eight years at least and you'll have a pension, he promised. During construction of the memorial, the Navy sliced off pieces of the Arizona's wreckage to make room for the structure that sits above the sunken ship today. Now, some courses require less than a week of field time. He survived, but was burned badly over two-thirds of his body. Pearl Harbor, naval base and headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, Honolulu county, southern Oahu Island, Hawaii, U.S. He wanted to interview Langdell for his project. "I motioned to crane operator what we needed, what tools to send down." He returned after the war to his home along the railway in eastern Oklahoma. About halfway through the cruise, the Pringle was ordered to accompany the battleship Iowa to Africa, where President Roosevelt was to attend a conference with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in Morocco. The Saratoga was attacked by six Japanese suicide bombers within about 24 hours. "These guys were the first heroes of the war, even though the war hasn't been declared," Ray Jr. says. Bruner was at his battle station in an anti-aircraft gun director, a metal box on the forward mast of the Arizona, when an armor-piercing bomb ignited the ship's powder magazine. We all have to remember that they did not die in vain.". For over an hour, in two waves, some 350 Japanese aircrafthaving taken off from six . Sometimes we never landed, but we kept the line, always watching out for kamikazes.". "We got into San Francisco," he says, "and they never even opened my bags. The clerks decided they could not send Stratton away without his permit. "I'm a painter," he said. His son reaches in the cab and queues up one of the hundreds of songs he and his daughter downloaded onto the new MP3 player. Japanese torpedo bombers hit the Lexington and crippled the big ship. I couldn't.". As he was packing, a buddy warned him that his possessions would be searched at the port in San Francisco. I wanted to know if you could do it for a couple of weeks.". He motions toward his gnarled ear. More than 20 years earlier, he had earned his real estate license in California and had maintained it. "I was here all the time. He and Libby moved west to Walnut Creek east of San Francisco. "He was out to sea nine months out of the year, only home for three months," Ray Jr. says. He was attending midshipman's school at Northwestern University. In 1887 the harbor's military history began when the US Navy set up coaling stations in the harbor. Three days since the war started. He was soon flying one of the Navy's Black Cats, a squadron of long-range patrol bombers painted black for night missions. The marching band had been invited to fly to Pearl Harbor and perform at activities commemorating the 70thanniversary of the attack. dwayne johnson rock foundation contact. Hetrick was sent to the USS Lexington, an aircraft carrier. Until his partner ran off with all the money. He felt a tap on his shoulder. He was still adjusting to his new life in Colorado, hundreds of miles inland from his old home in coastal California and more than a mile higher in elevation. A while back, Stratton and his wife Velma retired to Yuma and lived there about 15 years. Keeping the memories alive. They could ride to the mainland then and leave for Florida. Large species also consume marine mammals such as dolphins, seals, sea lions, and porpoises, as well as large fish species such as tuna, mackerel, and even smaller shark species. Civilian Casualties. Someone from the bureau had been asking questions. He doesn't need to say which Saturday night by now. Tensions between Japan and the U.S. simmered throughout the early 20th century and came to a boil in the 1930s as Japan attempted to conquer China, even . "The Japanese were only a mile away. He had stopped at Pearl Harbor more than a decade earlier, on his way to a posting in Korea. Joe Langdell found a table in the wardroom of one of the ships moored in Pearl Harbor and sat down with his breakfast. He doesn't want to answer questions about his war service, shrugging them off or insisting he can't remember the details anymore. His dad operated a livery stable and a small dairy and later earned money as an auctioneer. The men, their charred skin peeling away, climbed hand-over-hand across the line to safety. The unprovoked attack on Pearl Harbor killed more than 2,400 Americans and struck a blow to the Navy's Pacific fleet, which had been based at Pearl Harbor. Coast watchers were military intelligence operatives who gathered information about enemy activities on islands across the South Pacific. Song's got some zip to it, he said. Stratton falls easily into the memories of his years on diving boats. "These captains of the ships, when they left the states, they had no idea where they were going, just that they're going via Pearl Harbor," Potts said. Haerry would come home on those days with cigar boxes full of the coins. five letter words with l; jaiswal surname caste; pros and cons of herzberg theory; sechrest funeral home obituaries; curious george stuffed animal 1975; cornerstone staffing application 0 Inside, he found broken bottles scattered in a soggy soup of booze and cardboard. A bow. The burn ward filled with the injured. Fires still burned on the broken USS Arizona the morning after the Japanese ambush. Rays. Nightmares invade his sleep when he remembers those final moments. If they found anything that belonged to the Navy or hadn't been approved, they'd take it. At 93, he is one of the last survivors ofthe attack on the Arizona. Lou Conter is telling the story of the night his patrol bomber was shot down seven miles off the coast of New Guinea, dumping the seaplane's 10-man crew into the Pacific Ocean. He half-swam, half-walked the 70 yards to Ford Island and manned a mounted machine gun. He saw Gene LaRocque, a man he'd served with aboard the Macdonough. He squinted and thought about where he was. That was the end of it.". In the late 1930s, American foreign policy in the Pacific hinged on support for China, and . "They said, 'If you re-enlist, we'll send her over.' "I cleaned up my language," he says, admitting he deployed a salty vocabulary, even after leaving active duty. "The Navy Department deeply regrets to inform you that your son Louis Anthony Counter quartermaster third class US Navy is missing following action in the performance of his duty.". At his request, he was assigned to the officer candidate school in Newport, R.I. "I'd already sent word, even before the first one got there," he says. He started on a small station, playing organ music. Pearl Harbor Warbirds offers the best Hawai'i flight adventure tours available. In 2011, he was one of six Rhode Islanders who had lived through the attack on Pearl Harbor, the only one from the Arizona.
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