"Iremember hearing explosions at first," he says. Doctors treated him and he recovered, but the his fingers never healed properly. Anderson decided he had nothing to lose. From the Vestal, Bruner was taken to the USS Solace, a hospital ship in the harbor. He was promoted to Lieutenant Commander in February 1954, the rank he held until he retired. She was attending an art academy to learn dress designing. "To see the people I knew back in those days," he says. "Are you out of the Navy, Andy?" 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. Then we had to go back.". "Would you like a job?" Potts was working aboard an oil tanker, making short runs out of the harbor to refuel ships anchored off the coast. There are over 470 species of sharks throughout the world. So reads the telegram sent to the Mattituck home of Anna and Clifford Penny on Dec. 10, 1941. He found a report by a gunner's mate. A few incidents were possible shark bites, but shark involvement was not [] On one mission, Haerry's tender was tied to a larger ship as the crew delivered supplies and completed maintenance tasks. did sharks eat pearl harbor victims. The sea turned rough, tossing the ship with 40-foot swells, bouncing the vessel like a rubber ball in a washing machine. Bruner laughs as he remembers the conversation. Cook was discharged in 1948 in San Diego and stuck around California, where he worked as a metal finisher at Van Nuys manufacturing plant. Once he was awakened by a loud noise and a flash and thought his ship was under attack. He saw Gene LaRocque, a man he'd served with aboard the Macdonough. But he doesn't tell his story anymore, not on his own. He had turned 90 and was starting over again. Three years later, Ray Haerry Jr. holds the cross in his hand, fighting back tears. Still traveling at 17 knots, the Indianapolis began taking on massive amounts of water; the ship sank in just 12 minutes. "Three months later, I was in Korea.". Conter and his buddy waited for new instructions, but heard nothing. As soon as he turned 18, he enlisted in the Navy. "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.". "It's where the war started.". The six men stared straight ahead, almost as if they were back in line, at attention. The ship carried four 5-inch anti-aircraft guns and six half-inch machine guns, and, initially, five 21-inch torpedo tubes. The pieces the largest is about as long as a bus sit in a salvage yard on the Waipi'o Peninsula on Oahu. The day when they assigned him and a crew of divers to a motor launch and sent them to the Arizona to remove bodies of dead sailors. You can't leave the Navy.". He and a buddy would sneak off campus and hop freight trains to see how far they could get. 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. He called back a few days later. Ray Jr. seems surprised. Haerry sailed on Navy ships through World War II and again during the Korean conflict. 1914-1941:The mightiest ship at sea | Dec. 7, 1941: The attack that changed the world| Documentary: 'Witness to Infamy' | 2014: The final toast. He thinks back. 4 Comments. He asked what the fellow did. I guess he'd do anything he could for me. He still tools around town in the truck, but it's a classic now, so he drives it almost as often to car shows. "It sounded like someone shooting guns. He was in the studio on Valentine's Day 1955 when a nervous young man walked in. Soon, he became one of the earliest TV weathermen and an evening fixture in Roswell homes, or at least those with televisions. 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. did sharks eat pearl harbor victims. Toward the end the war, Langdell was stationed in the Philippines, at a base in Manila. He waited for the result. He would work in the port director's office, delivering sealed packets to the captains of Navy ships. I wasn't working for nothing.". 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. Eighty years later, many of those killed are finally returning home and being laid to rest. He helped rescue some of his shipmates. Japan wanted the northern Pacific to control its shipping routes and block U.S. attacks from that direction. "We had to have two crews, a regular crew and a stand-by crew lined up waiting," Bruner said. Many veterans who survived the attack on Pearl Harbor have met over the years and become friends, particularly at the annual Dec. 7 gatherings at the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor. "Hi," he said, introducing himself. He was the opening act for country superstar Hank Snow that night at the North High School auditorium. They said, 'You should have been dead a long time ago.'". Nicaragua. He remembers all the details and most of what happened later. Why is the FBI checking up on you, she wanted to know. Once, I made a dive in a two-man submarine, down in over 1,200 feet of water off Santa Barbara coast. The men stayed afloat until another plane saw the burning wreckage and tossed out a life raft. In Alaska, he helped set up platforms that could keep up with tides that rose and fell as much as 32 feet. "We got into San Francisco," he says, "and they never even opened my bags. He heard the same stories from his grandmother and his aunts. His service on the Arizona also seemed to give him added credibility among the young sailors. Her father was an engineer and a top executive for a dredging company with a big Navy contract. "Not Navy ships, other ships. 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. Nope. "He'd always have to be prompted.". One day in May, crewmen spotted two periscopes in the water and the Frazier opened fire. Some even like to dine on smaller shark species! "He was out to sea nine months out of the year, only home for three months," Ray Jr. says. The survivors' group that found him was right, he has concluded: The stories of the Arizona should not die with the men who lived them. The story follows two lifelong friends and a beautiful nurse who are caught up in the horror of an infamous Sunday morning in 1941. And my co-pilot, Lou Conter, saved my life. We hauled it all back in.". They were dead in the water.". Now, Bruner prepares for his next trip in the Captain's Quarters. View of "Battleship Row" during or . He returned after the war to his home along the railway in eastern Oklahoma. I heard the general say, 'You're a remarkable guy.' The crew was evacuated and another U.S. destroyer scuttled the Lexington to keep the Japanese from capturing her. He is one of nine living survivors from the attack on the USS Arizona, the battleship he boarded in 1941 when he was 17. He jumped into the harbor, even though he had never passed his swimming test. ", He stops in front of a newspaper, the front page of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin with the headline: "WAR! Framed medals. Rays. Inside the packets were the captains' new orders, military secrets, classified information that required clearance to handle. And in the back corner, a real trophy. He wasn't ready to see it all again, to sharpen the memories he'd tried to dull. "The hat represents the Arizona. "It is only by the grace of God that I stand here today," he said. The day after the attack, President Franklin D . He and a buddy had been talking about their future in the Navy. 4 gun turret, with the men who died there and survivors who had died since. did sharks attack titanic survivors. He kept the truck, held on to it through repairs, engine overhauls, new paint jobs. 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. ", "You will go to the Arizona and you will take off all the bodies and body parts above the water line," the man said. "I got the lay a wreath in front of the names of the fallen," he says quietly. "Talk about treating you like royalty," he says. Today, Lou and Valerie Conter live in a two-level house at the end of a winding road on a golf course in Grass Valley, a mountain town about 60 miles outside Sacramento. did sharks eat pearl harbor victimssig sauer minimalist folding stock. Haerry accepted the medal, but found he could not speak. The planes flew up the Sepik River from the northern coast of New Guinea. "One day our boat was stacked with two dollar bills," he said. 12/28/2016. She nods and smiles. It is dated Dec. 21, 1941. Deer and rabbits wander the hillside. It's in good shape for a paper.". 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. An impressive collection of restaurant menus from 30 years of cross-country searches for used cars. The job paid $700. Of the 1,196 men aboard, 900 made it into the water alive. On the Arizona, he worked on the deck crew. Schenkelberg was no stranger to hardships . According to the History Channel, the Arizona "continues to spill up to 9 quarts of oil into the harbor each day " and visitors often say it is as if the ship were still bleeding. "We lit into them, started firing on them," Bruner said. That summer, the ship joined others for the invasion at Guadalcanal, in the Solomon Islands, one of the first major assaults against Japan by the Americans. Stratton and other men climbed into a small boat that took them ashore. A framed painting of the Arizona, the repair ship Vestal next to it. You need the exercise. He got the west coast and I got the east coast. "It gets your breath when you first see it," he says. The crews learned the routines of the Japanese ships. ", "It's a brand new destroyer, the Coghlan, DD-606," he said, "built right here in 'Frisco.". Chile. For a long time, he didn't think he would ever return to Pearl Harbor. "I hadn't told him he was going to be individually honored that day," he says. He gazes at the picture. Among his responsibilities was overseeing the naval officers' clubs in the area. When Anderson said he was, his old friend was incredulous. "They were holed up behind sandbags, but they never got hit.". He wanted to interview Langdell for his project. The Macdonough had collided with another destroyer, the Sicard. He was eating breakfast when he heard the first pops of the attack planes strafing Battleship Row. As far he was concerned he was saving lives.". Langdell took a right turn instead of a left and the newlyweds didn't realize their mistake until they stopped for gas in Gilroy, about 80 miles south of San Francisco. We were going to have a date the next day. "We were told to watch out for them, these guys were assassins," Anderson said. 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. "No one knew where the hell I was," Bruner says. sinastria di coppia karmica calcolo; quincy homeless shelter; plastic bags for cleaning oven racks; claudia procula death; farm jobs in vermont with housing A year later, he felt better, so he re-enlisted. There, he lost his twin brother, "It was a bloody catastrophe, a bloody mess," he says. Crippled ships still floated around the mooring posts along Ford Island. On the morning of May 8, the fighting intensified as American aircraft tried to turn back the enemy planes. It was as if he had none. At 93, he is one of the last survivors ofthe attack on the Arizona. His oldest son had joined the Navy and his first posting was aboard the USS Ouellet, a frigate. "The nights up there were already short, so I didn't get much sleep," Cook says. The Saratoga was attacked by six Japanese suicide bombers within about 24 hours. Tall pines tower over the house. He would answer questions, but in short bursts of description, with no emotion. He built a reputation as a guy who could bring in the harvest on time. This list and the accompanying graphics do not include encounters in which a shark does not actually bite a person or board (e.g. 2 gun turret. 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. He remembers the crewman trying to climb a ladder to escape through a hatchway on the deck. Pearl Harbor Warbirds offers the best Hawai'i flight adventure tours available. No sharks did not eat Titanic passengers. Since the 1920s . Not long after, a second plane dropped a life raft and all 10 of the crew made to shore and, the next night, back to the base. In his dining room in Colorado Springs, he keeps a replica of a hard diving helmet, the kind his divers used. He said he wanted Anderson to join the on-air staff. He joined the Navy because it seemed like a better environment. Conter fought on through World War II, scraped past a lot of close calls, then went to Korea. Repair crews were already at work on the battleships that had survived. He pushes his shirtsleeves up to show his arms. He had visited before, but this trip meant more. 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 brought all of his family: his wife Jeanne, his three sons and their families. "On the day I swore into the Air Force, I was still in my Navy uniform," he said. Haerry accepts the chocolate bars his son has brought him. Knives. He visited the memorial and was relieved to see the builders got it right. "What's up with this one? All rights reserved. His own battle station was beneath the gun turret shattered by the last bomb to hit the Arizona. That same year, he met his wife, Valerie, in Palm Springs. He bought another gun in the states and he is never far from it. 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 . Would Langdell agree to meet Abe on film? The Coghlan's crew battled just to keep the guns free of ice as they headed toward their next target. As he prepared for his new posting on the Frazier, Langdell decided to make a move. Three days earlier, their 20-year-old son became the first Suffolk County casualty in World War II. "I put on two life jackets," Hetrick said. The United States declared war on Japan on December 8, 1941, the day following the attack on Pearl Harbor. But John Anderson, the Navy chief petty officer who called himself Cactus Jack on the air, had a good head start already. The Japanese military had established strategic outposts in the Aleutian Islands and had its eye on Alaska. On Veteran's Day, he participated once more in a parade through Marysville, the next town over from Yuba City. ages 2, 3 and 8, together with a 14-year-old cousin . "We're right-arm rates." On December 7, 1941, Japan attacked the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. "I was here all the time. Civilian Casualties. Sometimes we never landed, but we kept the line, always watching out for kamikazes.". Nobody could debate what that was, no question about it.". Until his partner ran off with all the money. The Coghlan supported Army landings and Navy bombing runs. Libby got the message. If they found anything that belonged to the Navy or hadn't been approved, they'd take it. "Sometimes, we'd come back, eat, then sleep on the beach.". Bruner was the second-to-last man to leave the sinking ship. Just stay together, hold hands and kick slowly 'cause there'll be sharks around. They were having trouble reading his prints, she told Stratton. The Saratoga had returned to Pearl Harbor by the time the Japanese surrendered. At dawn on December 7, 1941, more than half of the United States Pacific Fleet, approximately 150 vessels and service craft, lay at anchor or alongside piers in Pearl Harbor. "Lots of big band songs," Randy says, as the first bars of a brass line pour from the speakers. The Navy loaded 5,000 bunks on board, along with a row of portable latrines, and the Saratoga sailed to San Francisco, passing under the Golden Gate Bridge with toilet paper streamers and thousands of sailors who needed something to do. north but again I'm not a shark expert. The guns used the same type of control mechanisms Bruner had mastered on the Arizona. 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. Jobs were few, so he set off for Warner, Okla, with the idea of playing football at Connors State Agricultural College. They will celebrate 65 years of marriage in April. Cook enlisted in the Navy in 1940 and was assigned to the USS Arizona, one of the largest battleships in the fleet with a crew that, at full complement, numbered more than 1,500. Debris from the Arizona showered the Tennessee's stern and started fires, but the vessel stayed afloat. did sharks attack titanic survivors. Hetrick recovered. Potts was touched. 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. Or got fired. He watched the band perform and stood as a survivor of the Arizona, one of the sailors who lived. He stopped in the small town of Payson, Utah. "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. By 1991, the 50thanniversary of the attack, the number of living Arizona crewmen had shrunk. All but one of the Pacific fleet's battleships were in port that morning, most of them moored to quays flanking Ford Island. He can tell stories about his years with the diving crews, but the truck has evolved into a reminder of another time. "I didn't have any speaking parts, but I was working for the studio and they paid me.". The job wasn't what he expected in September, when he was discharged from the Navy. he said. "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. More than 20 years earlier, he had earned his real estate license in California and had maintained it. He started on a small station, playing organ music. His fingers were almost smooth, lacking all but a few of the swirls that create an identity. The marching band had been invited to fly to Pearl Harbor and perform at activities commemorating the 70thanniversary of the attack. Someone had stacked the boxes too high and in the humid environment of the island, the cardboard had grown damp and weak. "He remembers body parts in the water, charred burned bodies that he swam by," his son Ray, Jr., says. December 7, 1941: Pearl Harbor Casualties. They knew the oil tanker Tippecanoe was out there, but couldn't see her. "They paid me by the day," he said. He stood strong and tall right in front of this general. Only 35 dead were . Fire had blackened much of the structure still visible. I said, 'You send her over, I'll re-enlist.' As the 50thanniversary of the attack neared, Langdell got a call from a documentary filmmaker. 3 min read. Cook has returned to Pearl Harbor three times and he likes the Arizona memorial. They were dedicating it to Potts and wanted him to have it. By early 1941, Langdell was one of the "90-day wonders" and drew his first assignment: The USS Arizona. "What are you looking at?" BuzzFeed News Photo Editor. Whale Shark (Rhincodon typus) The whale shark is the largest shark species, and also the biggest fish species in the world. He has told her about his escape from the Arizona. He has been telling his story to an author, Ed McGrath, who is working on a book and a film about Bruner's escape from a collapsing tower on the ship. Smoke rises from the battleship USS Arizona as it sinks . The Navy began assigning sailors to new postings. He will tell his story to people he knows well and trusts, but he is 93 and the details are fading from his memory. Answer (1 of 23): Before I begin this answer I must confess to a surprising degree of ignorance, I once thought myself pretty well versed in maritime history and sea lore, until I began research for this answer. on the Arizonawhen the battleship sankon Dec. 7. the final survivor to be interred in the ship. Uncle Ray was nearing the end of his career in 1937 when John and Jake both decided to enlist. The Pearl Harbour . He went to work as a junior accountant for a prominent Boston firm. Lonnie had taken up trap shooting and hoped to do a little hunting back home. Two deer racks (his wife shot one, his son the other). "I'm a painter," he said. 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. 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. Hetrick slept on the battleship USS Tennessee, which had been moored just ahead of the Arizona along Ford Island. By the time they were back, the icicles were forming again and two more guys would go out.". Conter attended the same event and was seated next to Valerie. Some even extend their consumption to seabirds. Finally, the Navy gave him a medical discharge. The Japanese-American mother, father and their three children. What he heard wasn't quite country music, but he liked it and he told the kid. A smile spreads across his face as Dean Martin's voice fills the cab. Octopus. 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. He resumed one of his old jobs from the Arizona, piloting motor launches from the receiving station out to the Navy ships. It sits a little higher than most items, but not necessarily on a platform. He signed up for a Navy program that allowed college graduates to attend officer candidate school and emerge as ensigns within three months. They were trying to replenish submarines or send smaller ships in.
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