He catalogs the scars and their origin. He called back a few days later. There, he lost his twin brother, "It was a bloody catastrophe, a bloody mess," he says. Lonnie had taken up trap shooting and hoped to do a little hunting back home. Of the 1,196 men aboard, 900 made it into the water alive. "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.". He tried not to remember the days after the attack. Hetrick thought about it. . "I had to help my father out of his seat. It turned out most of the regular stuntmen were still in the military. Potts was touched. He hasn't hunted in a while, though he still reloads his own ammunition on a garage workbench. Haerry nods and like a good sailor taking orders from the chief, he pulls himself up with a walker and shuffles off to lunch. He saw Gene LaRocque, a man he'd served with aboard the Macdonough. He eases the truck out of the carport, far enough to show it off. But there are moments when he knows what he did meant something. You need the exercise. There's a little air bubble. But he didn't want to start his civilian life in the brig, so he left it in Honolulu. Enemy patrol planes spotted the ships and the raid was canceled. A smile spreads across his face as Dean Martin's voice fills the cab. "Iremember hearing explosions at first," he says. Bruner looked each recruit in the eyes to determine the right job, but he wasn't testing their mettle, not yet. "We made so many landings," Anderson said. "I told the men, 'If a shark comes close, hit it in the nose with your fist as hard as you can.'". "Lou, let's go to flight school," Conter's buddy said one day. 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. He heard the same stories from his grandmother and his aunts. "This shows where all the ships were," he says, pointing at a map depicting Pearl Harbor on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941. That's why the FBI was nosing around me, Potts thought. Wherever he goes on the pickup, people ask him about his experience. CARNIVOROUS SHARKS. He gazes at the picture. "Are you out of the Navy, Andy?" 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. In World War II, he fought at Guadalcanal, in the battle of the Coral Sea, at Okinawa and Iwo Jima. Just stay together, hold hands and kick slowly 'cause there'll be sharks around. 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. "We can't forget what happened there that day. 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. "We saved people on commercial ships on the seas, we rescued missionaries in the interior of China, we shot up a bunch of pirates," Anderson said. I still get to the point when I'm talking about it, first thing you know, I go to bed at night, wake up and can't sleep for a week.". Redfish. It turned out little was the right word. He asked for volunteers. -Ryan Dutcher. Debris from the Arizona showered the Tennessee's stern and started fires, but the vessel stayed afloat. Once a shark finds its prey, it needs to decide on whether to eat or not based on smell and appearance. This list and the accompanying graphics do not include encounters in which a shark does not actually bite a person or board (e.g. He resumed one of his old jobs from the Arizona, piloting motor launches from the receiving station out to the Navy ships. A few years ago, the Cooks attended a fund-raising dinner at a local American Legion post. He had visited before, but this trip meant more. He owns a chunk of the ship's burned deck, a reminder he keeps in a box with a few other items. He remembers all the details and most of what happened later. His service on the Arizona also seemed to give him added credibility among the young sailors. He then spent 14 months recovering in Great . A framed painting of the Arizona, the repair ship Vestal next to it. Sailors jumped into fires to escape sinking vessels. "Remember Pearl Harbor!" became a rallying cry for the U.S. during World War II. The United States was a neutral country at the time; the attack led to its formal entry into World War II the next day. She prods him to move around more and to leave the room for meals. Almost three decades later, he was the plant manager, second-in-command. He felt a tap on his shoulder. Their ordeal . Anderson grew up in the Red River Valley of northern Minnesota, the son of a prominent local judge. They knew the oil tanker Tippecanoe was out there, but couldn't see her. "We'd send two guys out to knock the icicles off the guns, then they'd high-tail it back in. He finished his training and was discharged in December 1945. He asked what the fellow did. Yet in a place where you couldn't cross the street without running into a war vet, Bruner was not just another ex-sailor who made it home. 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. When, on July 30, 1945, USS Indianapolis was sunk by a Japanese submarine, the Navy didn't realize the ship had been lost until four days later - after which hundreds of men floating in the ocean for days had been eaten by sharks.. Toward the end of July 1945, the Portland-class heavy cruiser USS . The six men stared straight ahead, almost as if they were back in line, at attention. He liked teaching and liked the chance to instill discipline. Stratton and other men climbed into a small boat that took them ashore. "There was a huge oil fire on the surface of the water fueled by the ships' tanks, so it created these giant fires all over the water," Nelson said. "The station wagon was for the captains of some of the ships that would come in," he said. "He should have the Navy Cross," Stratton says. I asked the boss, 'how many hours is in a day for you?' Langdell will return to the Arizona once more. It is about three feet tall, with a carved island figure on top and the silhouette of a Hawaiian warrior on a plaque. He said he wanted Anderson to join the on-air staff. "Never heard of it.". "Not Navy ships, other ships. Would Langdell agree to meet Abe on film? 3 min read. He was soon aboard the USS Frazier, which left the shipyard at San Francisco in July 1942. Cook and the other men stayed below deck until the smoke from a fire forced them to leave. By 1941, he worked the cranes on the ship, a job that entailed retrieving the Arizona's small seaplanes after they landed on the water. The tender didn't want to be tied to the larger ship when the worst of the storm blew through. This time the objective was clear. He had escaped the USS Arizona, the battleship whose losses surpassed any other. As the ships turned around, a squadron of enemy bombers appeared. He enrolled, but after a couple of weeks, the noisy streetcars and the police sirens kept him up all night. The owner said, 'give it a name and say who are. "I went back and told my mother I wasn't going up there anymore," he said. 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. He said, 'whatever I can get out of you.' He worked his way up to crew chief on a squadron of B-26 bombers, After 18 months overseas, he returned to Langley Field in Virginia. We had survival training on the job. Cook was the gun captain on the Pringle at the battle of Iwo Jima in 1945. 1. "It's always a great thing for me to see them," he says. His job was to put the primer in the big 14-inch gun. Some even extend their consumption to seabirds. In the years after, he became active in survivors' groups and started going back to Pearl Harbor more often. From the shore, he helped wounded men from the water, men whose bodies had been torn apart by bombs and bullets and fire. He was treated there for four months. USS Indianapolis was a Portland class heavy cruiser of the United States Navy. He tried to save as many injured crewmen as he could, but when the sun set on Dec. 7, 1941, he was one of just 335 sailors who did not perish. The Navy censors would never allow such information in a letter. Libby got the message. "I said goodbye and left.". Bruner lives alone, in a post-war neighborhood in the far northern edges of Orange County. "Knock it off. For Haerry, McBride had a the state's highest military honor, the Rhode Island Cross. Anything you choose is fine. He weighed 92 pounds by the time he was sent to rehabilitation in Corona, Calif. Once, I made a dive in a two-man submarine, down in over 1,200 feet of water off Santa Barbara coast. After his second discharge, he knocked around Nebraska again, working in his dad's tavern, then on a beer truck, but he grew bored. Sometimes he can't control his emotions, so he declines speaking requests. Haerry accepted the medal, but found he could not speak. However, larger shark species like to eat large marine mammals and large fish species, including dolphins, sea lions, tuna, mackerel, and seals. When he first arrived at Pearl Harbor, Hetrick wasn't even old enough to buy a beer until he found a place where they didn't ask questions if a guy was in a service uniform. Just another site did sharks eat pearl harbor victims Conter's doctor has sidelined him for now for health reasons, but he is certain he will return soon. Toward the end the war, Langdell was stationed in the Philippines, at a base in Manila. His own battle station was beneath the gun turret shattered by the last bomb to hit the Arizona. On a fall day in 1945, John Anderson teetered on the base of a church steeple 110 feet above the ground. The ships encountered a Japanese fleet, two big cruisers, six destroyers, some troop ships, and engaged. Did sharks eat Titanic victims? 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. One day in May, crewmen spotted two periscopes in the water and the Frazier opened fire. If a plane crashed, crocodiles awaited in the river. "I told another kid if they come back again tonight, I'm leaving.". By the end of the day, had persuaded Anderson to sign up for the Navy Reserve. 5 Jun. It's in good shape for a paper.". ", "You will go to the Arizona and you will take off all the bodies and body parts above the water line," the man said. He keeps it with him when he travels. / Reuters. We can't let it happen again.". He wrote Libby a letter and suggested it would be a good idea if Libby visited her friend on or about a particular date. He half-swam, half-walked the 70 yards to Ford Island and manned a mounted machine gun. Everything was taken ashore and properly taken care of.". The sky began to darken and the wind grew. We carefully wrapped them in sheets. USS Indianapolis at Mare Island. We cut the torpedoes loose.". Anderson decided he had nothing to lose. "I left them there and hoped to get them back," he says. Stratton falls easily into the memories of his years on diving boats. This all changed when the United States declared war on Japan, bringing the country into World War II. On a recent fall afternoon, Stratton ambles down the driveway and fires up the engine. He cleaned and painted day after day, but he also operated the motor boats used to ferry crew members to shore, a job that let him leave the ship periodically. Before the war started, a hospital stay that long would have earned a sailor a discharge, but not anymore. In 1949, the newly created U.S. Air Force was trying to fill it out its ranks with experienced support crews, almost begging for mechanics who knew the aircraft. We swept the decks and took the small bones. "I bought it at the receiving station in Pearl Harbor. Yes, he'll say, he was on the Arizona and he survived. Anderson went aboard the USS Edsall, a destroyer that supported various military action at sea and ashore. He put the disc on a turntable and dropped the needle. In March, the crew turned back Japanese forces in the Battle of Komandorski. The Stratton men have taken up a more personal cause. Explosions rocked the vessel and fires burned into the evening. In the spring of 1943, the Macdonough headed north toward the Aleutian Islands, where Japan was trying to establish strategic strongholds that could control shipping lanes and thwart allied attacks on the Japanese islands. As the USS Arizona burned and sunk into the harbor, Stratton and five other men had been trapped on an anti-aircraft gun control platform on the ship's foremast, burned in a fireball when below-deck ammunition exploded. Potts had not returned to Honolulu in the decades since he left for San Francisco in 1945. The primer went in last, before the end of the gun was sealed shut. He left home at 5 every morning and took a ferry from Jamestown to the Navy base. "I'm a painter," he said. They eventually bought a home-furnishings outlet farther inland and finally built their own store in Yuba City, north of Sacramento. 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 fiddles with the radio. He settled in Palm Springs and built a career as a real estate developer, buying up land for commercial and residential projects. 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 Navy began assigning sailors to new postings. The things I don't want to remember was the blood.". 2022-06-16 Uncategorized Uncategorized He joined the USS Arizona Reunion Association and stays in touch with a few of the remaining survivors. As the 50thanniversary of the attack neared, Langdell got a call from a documentary filmmaker. Cook never got a chance to catch up with his buddy, but marveled at the connections he seemed to make from his short stint aboard the Arizona. Nope. Within a day or two, someone came into the ward and said a few of the wounded would be sent to California. And he was allowed to visit a part of the Arizona few people ever see. By 1991, the 50thanniversary of the attack, the number of living Arizona crewmen had shrunk. I wanted to know if you could do it for a couple of weeks.". A painting of the Arizona hangs on the wall of a sitting room. You have a great voice, he was told. Anderson had finished his first day as a Hollywood stunt man. "I'd already sent word, even before the first one got there," he says. Farther down the paneled wall hangs a painting of the USS Arizona, the battleship Navy recruit Potts boarded in December 1939. The Pearl Harbour . A platform marked the wreckage of the USS Arizona. "I was back here on leave before the war started and he was here too," Cook says. "I would tell them. Whale Shark (Rhincodon typus) The whale shark is the largest shark species, and also the biggest fish species in the world. "Randy, come and turn on the music box." Langdell returned to Pearl Harbor in 1976. A young sailor ran in, out of breath. Cook got the buddy's telephone number and tried to call him. Bruner was one of them. And that's what he told every soldier and airman who took his courses.*. The Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor began just before 8 a.m. local time Sunday morning, December 7, 1941. He's never been back. Pearl Harbor was the site of the unprovoked aerial attack on the United States by Japan on December 7, 1941. Cook was discharged in 1948 in San Diego and stuck around California, where he worked as a metal finisher at Van Nuys manufacturing plant. "I motioned to crane operator what we needed, what tools to send down." "It just didn't appeal to me to bring it up," he says. Hetrick shrugs, trying to get comfortable in the recliner. He keeps the mementos from his experience the maps, the photos, the clippings, the medals, the painting in a room behind a door on the side wall of the living room in the house where he has lived for 54 years. When she says anything, I tell her I'm catching up from the war.". 12/28/2016. Knives. Stratton grew up in the tiny prairie town of Red Cloud, Neb., about as far away from an ocean as any place in the country. In late 1943, Conter flew a mission to rescue more than 200 coast watchers in New Guinea. "Mr. Langdell," he said, "when you're done with your breakfast, you'll report to the pier and you'll be met by a motor whale boat and a party of 20 enlisted men with sheets and pillow cases. Langdell's ship, the USS Arizona, lay dead in the water where she sank 14 minutes into the attack. One morning, he was at his desk, catching up on paperwork, when he heard a vehicle screech to a halt outside. Sometimes we never landed, but we kept the line, always watching out for kamikazes.". "This went on for four straight hours. "It's one of the best actual memorials I've seen," he says. 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. "Are you in the Navy? "If you can stand up and stay up while we change the linen on this bed, we'll see about it.". Among his responsibilities was overseeing the naval officers' clubs in the area. Haerry had made two runs to shore on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941. Many have since died. At Kulangsu, an international settlement on an island off the southern Chinese coast, Anderson's unit ran into the French Foreign Legion, who had been cornered by Japanese soldiers on a high ridge. As he was packing, a buddy warned him that his possessions would be searched at the port in San Francisco. Bruner was put in charge of the gun batteries. It wasn't, but the flash was a reminder, as if he needed anything more. "Well, I'd brushed enough paint on that damn ship, I figured I could do it," he says. The Coghlan approached the Aleutians in October, as winter was pushing fall aside. Mess hall duty. I think it was one of the proudest days of my father's life.". Browse 2,614 pearl harbor attack stock photos and images available, or search for world war ii or pearl harbor 1941 to find more great stock photos and pictures. In 1887 the harbor's military history began when the US Navy set up coaling stations in the harbor. A month after the Coral Sea battle, Cook's ship was part of the American forces in the critical Battle of Midway. Seventy-three years later, he is one of just nine survivors of the attack on the Arizona. He did not reach a hospital for several days, but doctors still saved his hand. The Edsall sailed farther north, then headed to the Philippines, where they played baseball with a group of indigenous Moros, who had fought the United States more than 20 years earlier. "Can you tell me what ship did he go on after the Arizona?" He was also interviewing a Japanese pilot named Zenji Abe, a pilot who had taken part in the raid on Pearl Harbor in 1941. The fellow told him to report to the front gate of Sam Goldwyn's studio in Hollywood on Monday morning. The Saratoga sailed across the South Pacific, to Guam, the Philippines, around New Guinea. 1914-1941:The mightiest ship at sea | Dec. 7, 1941: The attack that changed the world| Documentary: 'Witness to Infamy' | 2014: The final toast. Pearl Harbor attack, (December 7, 1941), surprise aerial attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor on Oahu Island, Hawaii, by the Japanese that precipitated the entry of the United States into World War II. I couldn't.". The ship was dead in the water. 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. "It's where the war started.". He likes chocolate and is disappointed if Ray Jr. forgets it. No sharks did not eat Titanic passengers. He found a report by a gunner's mate. war. He describes the store of booze they pulled out of safe and the money. 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. He headed east and landed in Paducah, Ky. From there, he worked jobs in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland and back to New York, where he welded 20-inch gas lines going through Brooklyn. ", "I was," Anderson said. Here is a story he will tell, a memory he will keep. "We'd leave at 5:30 in the evening and stay out 12 or 14 hours, then return in the morning," Conter said. Another five minutes, Bruner figured, and they'd have run out of ammunition. Eighty years later, many of those killed are finally returning home and being laid to rest. He helped rescue some of his shipmates. "I'm going to be back out there one of these days," Conter said, his voice wistful as he watches a foursome trying to stay on the greens. The Pentagon said Tuesday it would exhume and try to identify the remains of nearly 400 sailors and Marines killed when the USS Oklahoma sank in the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. During the conference, the Pringle sailed into the Mediterranean Sea and anchored in a river. "I appreciate your thoughtfulness. The song, "Hound Dog" and the singer, Elvis Presley, both went over pretty well, the way Cactus Jack remembers it. He went to work as a junior accountant for a prominent Boston firm. He told Ray about the plans to honor Pearl Harbor survivors at the statehouse. Pearl Harbor: Directed by Michael Bay. His old co-pilot in the New Guinea days was asked once if he'd had survival training for the war. Lonnie finally retired from welding in 1982 and in 1994, the Cooks moved back to Morris. They trade stories. Posted by ; royal canin yorkie dog food reviews; parkland psychiatric hospital dallas, tx . "I'd do it a hundred times more," he says. He returns his attention to the cranes and the catapults that flung the seaplanes into flight. He . Admiral Yamamoto of the Imperial Japanese Navy came to the conclusion that for the Japanese to be victorious in the pacific, they had to destroy the . Calhoun told Conter to put in for the assignment. The ship remained anchored outside Pearl Harbor for most of a month as U.S. commanders planned their next move against the Japanese in the South Pacific.
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