He played a lot of golf, but missed California. Helpless, I watched your bomb sink the Arizona in nine minutes.". The smile widens. He acknowledged the wreath. Today, the population can almost reach 1,500 when everyone is home. He introduced him to other officers. He visited the memorial and was relieved to see the builders got it right. It is a piece of rigging used to secure a mooring line from a ship. Joe saved six lives and he didn't get crap. He has trouble remembering the past. "There's the battleships there's the Nevada, the Arizona, the Tennessee, the West Virginia, Maryland, the Oklahoma. The paneled room behind the door in the living room of the Provo house is filled with trophies of almost any imaginable sort. Stratton's eyes brighten. Conter got his wings in November 1942. Langdell lives now in a skilled nursing center. The guns used the same type of control mechanisms Bruner had mastered on the Arizona. They would serve together for a little over a year. They went out for coffee afterward. On the 70thanniversary of the attack, the men had been brought to the state capitol to receive new honors. Joe had met Elizabeth McGauhy in Chicago half a decade earlier. Langdell arrived at Pearl Harbor along a different path than many of the young sailors, who signed up for the service because they were unable to find work as civilians. Over the next year, Anderson would sail across the South Pacific, joining other ships in the American assault on the Marshall Islands, Parry Island and the Palau Islands. He remembers all the details and most of what happened later. He's never been back. Hotline & WhatsApp : +971556212280 | Landline : +97143873596 , +97167499398 james reynolds obituary. They eventually bought a home-furnishings outlet farther inland and finally built their own store in Yuba City, north of Sacramento. "They were holed up behind sandbags, but they never got hit.". Pearl Harbor, naval base and headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, Honolulu county, southern Oahu Island, Hawaii, U.S. Lonnie finally retired from welding in 1982 and in 1994, the Cooks moved back to Morris. In 2011, he was one of six Rhode Islanders who had lived through the attack on Pearl Harbor, the only one from the Arizona. He looks forward to his time with the guys from his years in the Navy. The six-year Pentagon project identified nearly 400 who died on the USS Oklahoma in 1941. "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.". Inside, he found broken bottles scattered in a soggy soup of booze and cardboard. As he was packing, a buddy warned him that his possessions would be searched at the port in San Francisco. Five years later, in 2011, he got a call from the band director at Timpview High School in Provo. He didn't know what to tell them. It turned out most of the regular stuntmen were still in the military. He started chatting up a regular customer, a contractor, and got a job building houses. Haerry says he wants lunch delivered to his room, but the nurse says no. 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. The nurse who checks in on him regularly likes Haerry. But one day and one place in Cook's 94 years seem to embody all the rest, the day in December 1941 when the young sailor from Oklahoma escaped the ship that sent America to war. Toward the end the war, Langdell was stationed in the Philippines, at a base in Manila. I quit. Some even like to dine on smaller shark species! Before the big battleship could leave Puget Sound, Anderson volunteered for another mission, joining the small Asiatic Fleet along the coast of China. That was the end of it.". The mangled bodies such as J.J. Astor was probably caused by the 1st smokestack falling into the water and. The license plate reads USS ARIZ. A mural on a white bed cover depicts the USS Arizona and the memorial that floats above it in Pearl Harbor. After about six months of training in San Diego, Hetrick returned to Honolulu and joined the USS Saratoga, the sister ship of the Lexington. "In three days, we rescued 219 coast watchers without losing anybody," Conter said. "Next thing you know, I'm in a movie with John Wayne," Anderson says years later. Cook stood on a shelf in the gun mount with his big binoculars and watched the Marines raise the flag to mark the U.S. victory. They listened for their names and their service branch. After high school, Langdell enrolled at Boston University, working nights to pay for his classes, and in 1938, he earned a degree in business administration. No one seemed to be in charge on Ford Island, where Cook had spent the night. 2 gun turret. Military Casualties. They are the marks of a survivor, 73 years on. The story of the USS Indianapolis has become legendary with regards to shark attacks, and is known as the worst shark attack in recorded history. Other crewmen would roll out the shell, use a mechanical device to ram it in, then load four bags of powder behind it. "We can't forget what happened there that day. One of the survivors would receive the Rhode Island Cross. "You I know.") The United States declared war on Japan on December 8, 1941, the day following the attack on Pearl Harbor. 5 Jun. Around 2005, he and Jeanne moved to Bullhead City. That didn't last long and he headed back to Morris, where he met Marietta. He would draw out snippets and stash them away, collecting them until he would weave the barest narrative. ages 2, 3 and 8, together with a 14-year-old cousin . Medals. As the boat heaved, the man with the ax missed and hit Haerry's hand, nearly severing it from his wrist. The Macdonough pulled picket patrol often, protecting other troops and guarding against kamikaze attacks by Japanese planes. Potts returned to Illinois in late 1945 to await his formal discharge, hanging out in Chicago. Once, I made a dive in a two-man submarine, down in over 1,200 feet of water off Santa Barbara coast. Potts had not returned to Honolulu in the decades since he left for San Francisco in 1945. Sometimes, Japanese pilots attended memorial ceremonies and some of the other survivors would shake their hands. "Some of the ships I was on had guys who liked to play the guitar, so I knew something about it. When he dies, his remains will be interred under the No. If a shark comes too close, hit it in the nose with your fist as hard as you can.". Ken Potts eases around the side of the pool table, waving toward items like a museum tour guide in a back room. He and Evelyn had their first son, Ray, Jr., in 1947. Bruner laughs as he remembers the conversation. They struck up a conversation and, after a brief courtship, married. "I went back and told my mother I wasn't going up there anymore," he said. It sits today in the carport outside his home. "Are there any officers from the Arizona here?" As the war with Japan intensified, the Navy was building new warships as fast as it could. We got into a run-and-gun battle. He put the disc on a turntable and dropped the needle. For years, Stratton wore the scars from the Arizona without talking about them much. Bass. But Hetrick couldn't find work, so inside of six months, he signed up for the Navy Reserve. I heard the general say, 'You're a remarkable guy.' "I ain't seen 'em since.". Put in eight years at least and you'll have a pension, he promised. The new shoes he left on the deck of the sinking ship, the ones he intended to retrieve later. Bruner was put in charge of the gun batteries. The burn ward filled with the injured. During the conference, the Pringle sailed into the Mediterranean Sea and anchored in a river. Naming Pearl Harbor. It is about three feet tall, with a carved island figure on top and the silhouette of a Hawaiian warrior on a plaque. They had voted. All but one of the Pacific fleet's battleships were in port that morning, most of them moored to quays flanking Ford Island. After the war, Langdell returned to the family auction business in Massachusetts, but after all those years in Hawaii, the Philippines and in the tropical South Seas, he couldn't readjust to the cold. "Cut!" Yes, some of them were his friends. With a gun, he could defend himself. He finally received his orders to return to the states. He half-swam, half-walked the 70 yards to Ford Island and manned a mounted machine gun. By 1991, the 50thanniversary of the attack, the number of living Arizona crewmen had shrunk. war. Another five minutes, Bruner figured, and they'd have run out of ammunition. The Macdonough stayed until September, then sailed back on patrol in the Pacific. One day in May, crewmen spotted two periscopes in the water and the Frazier opened fire. But he is proud of his service, of the other sailors on the Arizona. He was sent to the Los Alamitos Naval Air Station up the coast in Orange County. "It is only by the grace of God that I stand here today," he said. As a youngster, Anderson heard stories about the Navy from his uncle, a man named Ray Stokes. Hetrick earned a Purple Heart for wounds during one of the bombing raids. In Korea, Conter flew 29 missions, but his work in Naval intelligence left him vulnerable if the North Koreans captured him, so he was shipped to Washington, D.C. Cook was discharged in 1948 in San Diego and stuck around California, where he worked as a metal finisher at Van Nuys manufacturing plant. Anderson would serve another 23 years before finally retiring once more. "We would go in with a landing party or we furnished artillery for the landing force. His dad operated a livery stable and a small dairy and later earned money as an auctioneer. Conter attended the same event and was seated next to Valerie. The Coghlan left San Francisco in September 1942 and sailed toward Pearl Harbor for an assignment. He returned to Oklahoma again and started his own business, outfitting a one-ton Ford pickup with a winch and other equipment that let him work the oil fields. The first couple of trips back to Hawaii were difficult. The two men not only met, they took a boat to the USS Arizona memorial and laid a wreath in front of the wall with the names of the crewmen who died on the ship. Redfish. He had five brothers, including Jake, and four sisters, all grouped so close in age that paying for college wasn't practical for their folks. For a lot of people, meeting Elvis and playing one of his first records on the air might sound like one of life's truly unforgettable days. He left home at 5 every morning and took a ferry from Jamestown to the Navy base. The Coghlan supported Army landings and Navy bombing runs. Ke awa lau o Puuloa, the bay and lochs that make up the complex most people know simply as Pearl Harbor, was once the home of the guardian sharks, Kaahupahau and her brother Kahiuka. "We got halfway there and I told them to turn around," Conter said. Occasionally, they head into Okmulgee for an evening out at the One Fire, a casino operated by the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. He ran to the anti-aircraft battery, his battle station, but there was no ammunition ready. As far he was concerned he was saving lives.". He was still active, so would report to the Navy Pier each morning to check a list for the names of sailors who had been given duties for the day. "I motioned to crane operator what we needed, what tools to send down." "It was a big ship with a lot of metal, I'll tell you." did sharks eat pearl harbor victims. "I ran the decompression chamber on jobs. Over the course of nearly two hours during the morning of December 7th, 1941, a fleet of Japanese fighters and bombers assaulted the American naval base at Pearl Harbor in hopes of crippling the US Navy for the duration of World War II. The marching band had been invited to fly to Pearl Harbor and perform at activities commemorating the 70thanniversary of the attack. It was carrying parts of the Little Boy atomic bomb as a top secret mission and the Navy learned about its sinking four days after ot was torpedoed. Nope. Now, stateside again, Hetrick reported to a Navy station in San Diego, where he met the woman who would become his wife, Jeanne. A woman from Illinois drew Bruner's name. It was Sunday and some of the crewmen with liberty wanted an early start. Abe's Pearl Harbor speech has been well received in Japan, where most people expressed the opinion that it struck the right balance of regret that the Pacific war occurred, but offered . "I told another kid if they come back again tonight, I'm leaving.". We swept the decks and took the small bones. One day, some smaller boats sailed past. "Are you in the Navy? I still had to wait 29 years for that guy to come back and take his brush back.". Bruner, who turned 94 in November, is now one of nine living USS Arizona crewmen who survived the ship's sinking. The band would cover all expenses for him and Doris. For Hetrick, the section of mooring line links him to those final moments of the Arizona. 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. How could he say no? If a plane crashed, crocodiles awaited in the river. A smile spreads across his face as Dean Martin's voice fills the cab. He will answer questions about that December day when he escaped the burning wreckage of the Arizona, reciting as many of the details as he can remember. "It was like a hard jolt.". We left and never fired a shot at them.". The crews learned the routines of the Japanese ships. "It just didn't appeal to me to bring it up," he says. Before the war started, a hospital stay that long would have earned a sailor a discharge, but not anymore. dwayne johnson rock foundation contact. A few years later, a new station owner showed Anderson his plans to start a TV station. Anderson always talks about his brother, Delbert "Jake" Anderson, when he tells the story of his own escape from the burning ship. We were going to have a date the next day. He was treated there for four months. It took Ray Jr. years, decades to piece together his father's story. He called back a few days later. The day after, President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared it "a date which will live in infamy," and Congress . After the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom, the United States opted to construct a naval base in 1899. In late 1943, Conter flew a mission to rescue more than 200 coast watchers in New Guinea. They were dead in the water.". what is florentine milan straw. Whether they're a spiny dogfish all the way to great whites, sharks love eating fish. Coast watchers were military intelligence operatives who gathered information about enemy activities on islands across the South Pacific. Once he was awakened by a loud noise and a flash and thought his ship was under attack. He moved to Provo and sold cars until 1990. They spoil their granddaughters and can now move on to a new great-granddaughter. The tender didn't want to be tied to the larger ship when the worst of the storm blew through. An avocado tree grows in the backyard. Conter was stationed on the Arizona at Pearl Harbor in September 1941, when he turned 20. medge. His job was to put the primer in the big 14-inch gun. The Coghlan's crew battled just to keep the guns free of ice as they headed toward their next target. He gazes at the picture. A carnivorous shark diet usually includes fish, mollusks, and crustaceans. Rays. He gave Anderson the name of a contact there. "It's always a great thing for me to see them," he says. A few weeks later, Conter and his buddy passed a flight test at sea and on Nov. 1, they got their orders: Report to Navy flight school in Pensacola, Fla. Two weeks later, the Arizona's captain called the two sailors in and told them the ship was headed back to Long Beach in early December. A few years after that, they left for Las Vegas, where their son, Bob, and his family help them get around. LaRocque took Anderson to San Pedro, where his current ship was anchored. He fought with other sailors in the Battle of Midway and watched the Marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima. He stayed there for months. Some of 'em made it, some of 'em landed on the deck. He would work in the port director's office, delivering sealed packets to the captains of Navy ships. Ray Jr. seems surprised. Anderson picked up and moved to New Mexico. He doesn't want to answer questions about his war service, shrugging them off or insisting he can't remember the details anymore. Only 335 men survived the bombing of the USS Arizona, the mighty battleship whose loss at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, inspired a nation to go to war. He needed a truck to carry equipment back and forth, so he scouted out a car lot and bought a 1965 Chevrolet pickup. "The only people he would talk to were either very close friends or relatives," his son says. He had a ticket home to Minnesota, but decided to find a place to stay and come up with a plan. One of the men started yelling. He grew up in New Jersey and after high school, enrolled at MIT in Boston. They were having trouble reading his prints, she told Stratton. Yes, he'll say, he was on the Arizona and he survived. A young sailor ran in, out of breath. Ted asks. "If somebody in authority said do something back then, you didn't question it. He got to know Alan Ladd, who had starred in a series of war movies. Her father was an engineer and a top executive for a dredging company with a big Navy contract. Almost three decades later, he was the plant manager, second-in-command. UPDATE: Bruner died in 2019. On Oct. 12, Langdell celebrated his 100th birthday with with his older son, John, who flew in from Spearfish, S.D. "He called me one night and said if you won't let me come to California, I found a lady who's got a new black Buick and I'm going to move to Texas.". Once a shark finds its prey, it needs to decide on whether to eat or not based on smell and appearance. "We're were out and around. A few days later, the drove through the crumbling streets of Hiroshima. The Navy wanted to keep him in Idaho, working with new recruits at a boot camp, but he pushed for a seagoing assignment and wound up on the destroyer USS Stack as a gunner's mate. A framed painting of the Arizona, the repair ship Vestal next to it. He saw Gene LaRocque, a man he'd served with aboard the Macdonough. To prepare for the trip, they were studying World War II history, attending lectures, writing research papers. With his experience running cranes on the Arizona, Potts figures he could have landed a decent job at the Geneva Steel operation, but he didn't want to work shifts, so he worked as a carpenter again and eventually went into the used car business with a friend. "Once after we crossed the equator, one of the planes came back," he says. Fires still burned on the broken USS Arizona the morning after the Japanese ambush. Langdell had borrowed a car, a Dusenburg, for the honeymoon. Posted by ; royal canin yorkie dog food reviews; parkland psychiatric hospital dallas, tx . As he talks about Pearl Harbor again, other memories surface. did sharks eat pearl harbor victimssig sauer minimalist folding stock. ", "It's a brand new destroyer, the Coghlan, DD-606," he said, "built right here in 'Frisco.". 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. sinastria di coppia karmica calcolo; quincy homeless shelter; plastic bags for cleaning oven racks; claudia procula death; farm jobs in vermont with housing The band had won a trophy in one of the competitions during their stay in Honolulu. Kitchen patrol. 4 Comments. "I knew everything that was going on.". "The lesson I've learned from that experience is that the 1,177 men entombed on the ship right now will never know the love of a wife or the joy of grandchildren," he said. The fireball from the explosion engulfed the six men in the box and trapped them. The easy stories he'd tell. ", "I was," Anderson said. He returned after the war to his home along the railway in eastern Oklahoma. Now, Bruner prepares for his next trip in the Captain's Quarters. One of our cruisers, the heavy cruiser, got hit and water got into the oil. All but one of the Pacific fleet's battleships were in port that morning, most of them moored to quays flanking Ford Island. The Saratoga was attacked by six Japanese suicide bombers within about 24 hours. "We made friends. Stratton logged thousands of miles of travel. Their backs are gray, blue, or brown in color and covered with regularly arranged light spots. Their orders were lost on the Arizonawhen the battleship sankon Dec. 7. Bruner was burned over more than two-thirds of his body. "It's always been my fear that people are going to forget that day, that people are going to forget the sacrifice that was made that day.". Conter had made friends with a young lady in Honolulu. Marietta shakes her head. At this one, he was looking around the room and he saw a picture of a sailor way back in the back, in a setting arranged like a memorial. "When somebody says get out of here and you're on a hundred tons of ammunition, well, you don't question it," he says. One of the first people to do that.". For over an hour, in two waves, some 350 Japanese aircrafthaving taken off from six . "OK," Bruner said. He stayed aboard the Solace about a month. Back on land, Cook followed welding jobs from Kentucky and Pennsylvania to New Jersey and Long Island, west to North Dakota and Wisconsin and finally to a ranch house in Salinas, Calif., where he raised a family and stayed put for almost 30 years.