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Several weeks before the attack on Pearl Harbor, the USS California (BB-44), two other battleships, and several destroyers were conducting night main battery firing practice when unidentified submarines were reported in the vicinity. The U. S. forces returned to port and resumed their normal routine as if nothing had happened. I have never understood why this warning alone did not sound the alarm.
On 7 December 1941, I started the day by standing the 0000 to 0400 mid-watch on the California. I was supervisor of the signal watch. The sea was as smooth as glass and there was no wind. Visual traffic was light except for the yardarm blinker drill every hour. I was a senior signalman third class (SM-3/C), acting second class (I had passed my exam but it was not yet official), and was serving my fourth year in the Navy. I dogged the watch as was customary then on the mid when traffic was light. That means half the men were allowed to sleep while the others remained on alert. I think I took the 0000 to 0200 watch.
On Sunday mornings all hands got up at reveille. After sweepers and morning chow, we could hit the sack again and stay there all day. One man, Mitch, had a magazine 1 wanted to see, so I sat down on the bunk beside him to wait. This bunk was amidship in the signal compartment, which ran athwartship below the protected deck.
Then, the general alarm sounded and we waited for the boatswain’s pipe to announce the drill—it never came. We began to swear: “What kind of Navy would have a drill on Sunday morning?” Mitch gave me the magazine and, taking my time (I was mad), I went to my locker on
the port side to store it. As I opened the locker a loud explosion shook the ship. My locker contents fell out. We had not been hit, but I believe this sound was one of the battleships behind us, or perhaps it was the Ford Island Air Station.
Since the general alarm was still sounding, and men were pouring down the hatches with stunned looks, I decided it must be general quarters. Because many watertight doors and hatches were closed or closing, I could not get above the protected deck in the usual way. I believe I came up through the conning tower and got to the signal bridge through the solarium. As I came out the solarium starboard door, 1 noticed the joe (coffee) pot and my pipe lying broken on the once beautiful, red waxed vinyl deck, with grounds and “mud” everywhere. SM-l/C E. C. Ritchie pulled me down beside the starboard carbon signal light platform and said: “They are the Japanese; I said they would attack us here.” One of their planes flew over the number three turret, and sprayed the ship with machine-gun fire. The Japanese gunner appeared to be handcranking his weapon. I was momentarily nauseated and weak in the knees.
Vice Admiral William S. Pye, Commander Battle Force, came on deck in civilian clothes. His Marine orderly was holding his uniform. I believe he gave the majority of the fleet orders that morning because we originated many flag signals. 1 do not know why I could not raise any of the signalmen manning the water tank signal station, which handled the traffic for CinCPac (Commander in Chief, Pacific). Even through the long-glasses, there was no sign of life up there.
C. E. Sharinan hooked and SM-3/C J. A. Gewalt hoisted the flag signal either for. CinCPac or to get under way. This is the lone flag display shown in the picture of the California that has been published many times. The display looks like zero-four-two, which is the signal tor CinCPac—if I saw the color I would know for sure.
Several of us on the starboard wing looking aft watched the USS Oklahoma (BB-37) capsize, which took 10-15 minutes. About the same time, we saw the planes drop a torpedo spread. We all ran to starboard, thinking we would be next. Perhaps we would blow like the USS Arizona (BB-39). Instead, there were just muffled booms and a couple of heavy shakes. The ship continued to shudder like she was in a heavy sea. The cruiser St. Louis (CL-49) appeared to be coming alongside to take otl Admiral Pye. I know now that this did not happen. I do not remember how or when the admiral left. I recognized a gunner from my home town, but could not get his attention. Later I learned he did see me and told my parents so, after I was first reported dead.
The ship began listing alarmingly to port. We kept a close watch on the inclinometer. I then noticed that our guns were firing—I guess they had been firing all the while. I was trying to receive a message from the cruiser Raleigh (CL-7) onthe starboard forward flood light. Chief SM Pappy Yost was the recorder. I was having trouble seeing the Raleigh across Ford Island because of the smoke rising from both the cruiser and the island. In my line of vision, the Jap planes appeared to land and then
take off without stopping during their strafing runs.
I heard Pappy say, “Here they come for us, boys.” 1 turned my head to see Pappy looking up. I did not see the bombers, but I saw the bombs, which appeared to be floating down. I soon found out that this floating means they are coming straight at you. I believe there were three 14- inch shell bombs in this cluster. One hit the forecastle on the starboard side a little inboard the lifelines. It cut a neat, almost square hole in the wooden deck, then through the main deck, and exploded on the protected deck. A near miss fell just off the port side and a dud hit the quarterdeck. It was the torpedoes that sank us; the bomb set the ship on fire. When I left the ship, the starboard casemate doors were actually melting, and I never did receive the Raleigh's message. We lost power for my light. As a result of this experience, I lost partial hearing and still have the problem today.
I do not remember any more signaling that morning. Oddly enough, I was no longer frightened. 1 went forward to the conning tower and saw the USS Shaw (DD-373) blow up. A splash of water, which 1 later heard was another near miss, soaked me to the skin. I found out when the ship was in dry dock that this “near miss” had put another hole in the California below the waterline.
Happily, I saw the USS Nevada (BB-36) under way, perhaps because she had a military guard on board and flew the zero flag. Then the Japanese planes concentrated on her. As she went by, I could not see her bridge for all the flames and smoke. I heard later that her chief quartermaster set her on the beach off Hospital Point. (I have read recently that the Navy is giving credit to a commissioned officer. Why in hell can’t this country tell history as it really was? At least wait until all the veterans who took part are dead before you change it.)
I returned to the bridge and was surprised to see no one there. I never heard the abandon ship order. Just before I jumped into the water, I took off my doughboy helmet, World War I gas mask, and life jacket. I hit the water at exactly 1010. My new watch stopped at that moment. I had bought it the day before for my Christmas present. I bypassed the burning oil, but I had to go through the oil slicks. When I reached Ford Island, I could not hold onto the oily rocks. A Marine came over and helped me.
I helped the Marines with a Lewis gun in a new water main ditch. Afterwards, I helped some air station men take aircraft cameras out of their storage building and spread them over the field so a direct hit would not destroy them all. I found an old car cut down to a pick-up truck. (1 believe it was a 1930 Pontiac.) It would not run so I worked on the carburetor. I was doing all this while the fleet was sinking just a few hundred yards behind my back.
In the late afternoon, some of us were rounded up and returned to the ship because most of the fire was out. The port list had increased a degree, so it was difficult to walk athwartship.
After dark, we were told that friendly carrier planes would be coming in with running lights on. When they began to arrive, a ship (I believe it was the California) opened fire. This started a chain reaction—everyone was firing. The first shots seemed to come from the California's .50-caliber machine guns in her fore and main tops. Some of the planes fell in the cane fields and burned for a long time. Captain Bunkley came on the bridge, sat down on the flagbag and said, “They were our planes.” He repeated this several times, and appeared to be weeping.
I remember many fires that night, mostly from the ships themselves. I also remember slipping on unbumed gunpowder that had fallen all over our ship and on Ford Island. Perhaps it came from the explosions on the Arizona. By 0130 the ships’ fires were out. I do not remember whether I slept on the signal bridge or in the Ford Island water main ditch that night. It had been a long, confused day. I have always felt that if I had not split the watch that night, one of us might have seen something to alert the fleet.
The next day was freezing cold and rainy, perhaps because of all the gunfire and smoke the preceding day. In any event, I stayed cold for many days; I was in shock.
The ship had cooled down so we started bringing out the dead. Many were brought out of a starboard hatch near the number two turret. This hatch was just forward of where the bomb entered the deck. We covered the bodies with white Navy blankets before bringing them topside. Most were charred black and baked stiff in whatever position the poor men were in when the bomb exploded.
Wire cable and our anchor chains were wrapped around the concrete quays to prevent the ship from sliding into deeper water. Many civilian and Navy divers started routine salvage work. Yard craft were alongside trying to keep the ship afloat. It was several days before the California settled completely. She just gave up.
Our signal gang of approximately 45 to 50 men was scattered to God-knows-where—33, including myself,
“(00 V OF2) L Z OF2 081915 00 ZPQ GR 46 BT TO BE POSTED ON ALL BULLETIN BOARDS OF SHIPS IN HARBOR X YOUR CONDUCT AND
were ship signalmen. To my knowledge, none of us were hurt. I saw only two or three of them after I was transferred, and none since 1943. I was one of six signalmen who stayed with the ship until January 1942.
On 8 December SM C. M. Ball received and I recorded the following message from CinCPac, whose signalmen were operating on top of the yard water tank:
ACTION HAS BEEN SPLENDID X WE TOOK A BLOW YESTERDAY X IT WILL NOT BE A SHORT WAR X WE WILL GIVE MANY HEAVY BLOWS TO THE JAPANESE X CARRY ON.”
I still have the green signal bridge copy.
The few of us who remained continued to man the signal bridge while living on Ford Island. When not on day watch, I would drive around the air station in the old truck I had repaired during the action on 7 December.
My uniform was black with oil.[*] The air station had collected a batch of used uniforms in huge piles in an empty hangar—jumpers in one pile, pants in another, etc. We lined up and picked one of each. Nothing fit. Since I was cold, I picked up a Marine Corps greatcoat.
One day I was wearing this coat while driving around the station in my truck when a Navy doctor stopped me and said, ‘‘Son, are you a sailor or a marine?” After I said sailor he put me to work hauling the dead by ferry to the hospital. He later picked up another loose sailor to help. When I went back to the ship for my watch, I hid the truck’s rotor so no one would steal it. But later, the air station located the truck and towed it away.
For a while, I had trouble getting food. I remember eating raisins that had washed up on shore from the ships, and drinking the water from the officers’ swimming pool. The Arizona had broken Pearl’s water main when she settled on the bottom.
About 10 or 12 December, things became a bit more organized. We began to have our meals at the air station or have them brought to the ship in stacked tureens.
The night watches on the bridge were lonely—two men per watch, sometimes only one. The ship was listing so badly that many times in the dark I thought she was capsizing. My imagination was magnified by many weird sounds coming out of the open hatches, galley, and stack. The smell was indescribable—like burnt cloth and cordite. The nights were totally black. At times, the ship would shift and shake as she settled. Each time, I would go into the solarium and check the inclinometer with a small flashlight using a piece of carbon paper with a pin hole in it over the lens. When nature called. I just could not let go over the side because of my respect tor the ship, crippled as she was. Instead. I went down the starboard ladder to the water, which was only two feet below the port side of the signal bridge.
One day the carrier Enterprise (CV-6) stood in and, as she passed, gave the California a bugle salute to port. Since we had nothing to return it with and no one to return it, I just saluted with the California's men. It was good to see such a smart, healthy ship and know she was ours.
The air station pulled a Jap “Kate” torpedo plane out of the water just forward of the California’s bow. One very small body was still in it, severely eaten by crabs. The plane was a dark gray-green, with a dark red “meatball.
I took a piece of the wing fabric (I still have it) and what I thought to be a voice tube at the time—it turned out to be a urinal tube.
I had Christmas dinner at the air station. It was very strange and lonely.
Sometime in January, SM W. K. Boltz and I were transferred to the receiving ship at the Navy yard. I never saw C. M. Ball or Chief Pappy Yost again.[†]
An officer approached me one day with a letter from my mother requesting my personal belongings. He asked why I had not written her—she thought I was dead. With the 25 cents I had when I abandoned ship, I bought five penny post cards and a 20-cent Clipper mail stamp. She never received my card, but meanwhile the Navy had corrected the mistake. I have wondered often if any of my shipmates had been reported dead, not missing. I still have the newspaper clippings: “FIRST DURHAM [North Carolina] BOY KILLED IN ACTION.”
Boltz and I were transferred to a signal tower located on one of the Navy yard water tanks—the same station I was trying to raise during the attack. CinCPac's signalmen also manned this station. Neither Boltz nor myself really were accepted by the tank signalmen. Never had I seen so many newly-rated chiefs. (I will not write what went on at that station—let me just say that I was educated quickly and disgusted thoroughly.)
It was very boring duty: busy as hell during the day, nothing after dark. We stood 12-hour watches: 0800 to 2000. On the night watch, I would haul my radio out, hoist my antenna up to the yardarm, and listen to the world. Tokyo Rose told us exactly what ships were damaged. We could look down in the daytime and verify what she said. It was as if Japan had a spy on the tank with us. I, for one, never will believe that there was only one Japanese spy in Hawaii, as some still insist.
The Office of Naval Intelligence took me with them one night to the hospital out on the point. Some patients had claimed they saw flashing lights on the ocean horizon. We climbed out on the roof and waited until long after dark. Sure enough, there was a light, but it was a star. The stars fooled me again while I was in the South Pacific, where the nights were much clearer.
I especially was interested in the refloating of the California. You see, I had over $300 in my locker. I put the long-glass on her every day to check the progress. When her armor belt came into view, I hustled over. 1 was too late. The divers had busted every locker, scattering the contents everywhere. Some mates told me they did this while the ship was still underwater.
I paid the ship one more visit when she was moved into dry dock. There were three large holes—two caused by torpedoes, the third by the near miss. In all these years. I never have read or heard anyone mention this third hole.
In April, I was transferred to a west-bound ship and never saw the California again. I really loved that of “prune barge.”
[*]Most people today do not know what the uniform of the day for the battle force was on 7 December 1941. Hollywood has pictured us in everything from dress whites to dress blues. The uniform was white shorts, skivvy tops with our rates stenciled on the sleeves, white socks, white hats, and black shoes. 1 have never seen so many ugly legs. This uniform was never used again after that day; too many bums, I guess.
[†]I cannot say enough in Pappy’s behalf. He was all over the bridge during the attack. He gave me courage when I needed it most.