"He said, 'I had survival training in the ocean. Anderson has returned to the Arizona memorial often and has taken his family there. Today, he is one of nine remaining survivors from the mighty battleship. "They told me the team was already picked," he said. The job paid $700. An administrator at Eastern New Mexico University in Portales, N.M., heard Anderson and talked him into joining the school to help improve its radio station and start a television station. Civilian Casualties - Pearl Harbor National Memorial (U.S. National Pearl Harbor: Directed by Michael Bay. That fateful day led the United States . "You I know.") What Do Sharks Eat? - American Oceans The treaty also gave the US Navy exclusive access to use Pearl Harbor as a coaling and repair station. ", "Baloney," Conter replied. "I bought it at the receiving station in Pearl Harbor. Once he was awakened by a loud noise and a flash and thought his ship was under attack. A total of 2,403 Americans died in the tragic attack 80 years ago and for many families there was never closure as bodies remained unidentified or left amongst the wreckage. Seventy-three years later, he is one of just nine survivors of the attack on the Arizona. They were dead in the water.". The planes flew up the Sepik River from the northern coast of New Guinea. "No one knew where the hell I was," Bruner says. Williams was on deck, tuning up to play for colors, an early call after the previous day's fleet Battle of the Bands on shore. He was nervous about volunteering for anything, but he raised his hand. "OK," Bruner said. 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. His dad operated a livery stable and a small dairy and later earned money as an auctioneer. "We're right-arm rates." did sharks eat pearl harbor victims - thanhvi.net The song, "Hound Dog" and the singer, Elvis Presley, both went over pretty well, the way Cactus Jack remembers it. The Americans stopped the Japanese ships and wiped out some of the top officers. Jack shrugged. The day after the attack, President Franklin D . But there are moments when he knows what he did meant something. He refused to cut the line no matter what. The ship was dead in the water. That same year, he met his wife, Valerie, in Palm Springs. With eyes too close or two far apart, a crewman could deliver faulty readings. It is about three feet tall, with a carved island figure on top and the silhouette of a Hawaiian warrior on a plaque. Similarly, the . He asked his brother, Ted, to visit Libby and see if she could cook. On December 7, 1941, Japan attacked the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. He had stopped at Pearl Harbor more than a decade earlier, on his way to a posting in Korea. Stratton told her why: He had been aboard the USS Arizona when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec 7, 1941. Seabirds. The exhausted crew dragged ashore an hour later and hid in the jungle, fearful they would be captured by Japanese soldiers. "What are you looking at?" If they found anything that belonged to the Navy or hadn't been approved, they'd take it. He left home at 5 every morning and took a ferry from Jamestown to the Navy base. "They gave me 30 minutes to get off the ship and catch a transport to San Diego for training," he said. He made bargemaster on a huge drilling rig, but yearned for something more interesting, so he got a job as a tender with a commercial deep sea diving business. He bought another gun in the states and he is never far from it. Joe proposed and Libby accepted. 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 kept the truck, held on to it through repairs, engine overhauls, new paint jobs. person grazed by a shark), nor incidents classified by the International Shark Attack File as boat attacks, scavenge, or doubtful. Coast watchers were military intelligence operatives who gathered information about enemy activities on islands across the South Pacific. Before the year was out, Cook was sent to gunnery school in Washington, D.C., and to the South Boston Navy Yard, where he joined the new destroyer Pringle on its shakedown cruise. Japanese torpedo bombers hit the Lexington and crippled the big ship. Their habitats include saltwater and freshwater alike. I wanted to know if you could do it for a couple of weeks.". His old co-pilot in the New Guinea days was asked once if he'd had survival training for the war. Whale sharks can grow to 65 feet in length and weigh up to 75,000 pounds. All rights reserved. More than 20 years earlier, he had earned his real estate license in California and had maintained it. He was 20 when he escaped the burning wreckage ofthe USS Arizonain Pearl Harbor. On a recent fall afternoon, Stratton ambles down the driveway and fires up the engine. Crippled ships still floated around the mooring posts along Ford Island. Before sharks became movie villains, they were celebrated in myths 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. Maybe next time. Except the cap. Around 2005, he and Jeanne moved to Bullhead City. Pearl Harbor was the most important American . Thickets of tangled shrubs and rows of trees are visible from his window. He owns a chunk of the ship's burned deck, a reminder he keeps in a box with a few other items. Cook was discharged in 1948 in San Diego and stuck around California, where he worked as a metal finisher at Van Nuys manufacturing plant. In the chaotic days following the Dec. 7 ambush, the Navy wasn't letting ships into the harbor, fearful the Japanese might send in more bombers. . He saw action across the South Pacific, patrolled areas where suicide bombers were attacking American destroyers. On Oct. 12, Langdell celebrated his 100th birthday with with his older son, John, who flew in from Spearfish, S.D. The sky began to darken and the wind grew. He met up with some of the guys from the turret crew and they hopped a boat to shore, where there was a call for volunteers to join the Navy's destroyers. 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. Conter served on the San Pablo and Half Moon. Put in eight years at least and you'll have a pension, he promised. For a while, the young family lived in Puerto Rico as Haerry, now a chief boatswain's mate, drew new assignments aboard his tender. I guess he'd do anything he could for me. "Listen, all those men down there on that ship, a thousand of them, they wouldn't do it and I don't think they'd want me to do it," he says. He was the opening act for country superstar Hank Snow that night at the North High School auditorium. The flare exploded and started a fire, which forced the plane into the water. At nights, Anderson was taking classes in meteorology and electronics, trying to learn skills that could help him stand out among all the returning servicemen and women. Conter got his wings in November 1942. Bruner was one of them. 5 Facts You Didn't Know About Pearl Harbor | HuffPost Latest News On Veteran's Day, he participated once more in a parade through Marysville, the next town over from Yuba City. Bruner toured Nagasaki in a Jeep with other Navy officers and chief mates. All but one of the Pacific fleet's battleships were in port that morning, most of them moored to quays flanking Ford Island. "I'm a painter," he said. As a youngster, Anderson heard stories about the Navy from his uncle, a man named Ray Stokes. Nobody was expecting anything like that.". Hetrick thought about it. "In the service, if you didn't use nasty words, you weren't a good sailor.". 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 men stayed afloat until another plane saw the burning wreckage and tossed out a life raft. What do Sharks Eat? - Shark Facts and Information The new shoes he left on the deck of the sinking ship, the ones he intended to retrieve later. He asked what the fellow did. Bruner keeps mementos of his time on the Arizona in the sitting room. CARNIVOROUS SHARKS. Why Did Pearl Harbor Happen? He had settled in New Mexico with his family. "It's where the war started.". Pearl Harbor: Attack, Deaths & Facts - HISTORY No one knew much about Bruner's years in the Navy, not the early years anyway. "In three days, we rescued 219 coast watchers without losing anybody," Conter said. Before the trip, Langdell hadn't talked much about his years in the war, about his time on the Arizona. 12/28/2016. Hetrick took a motor launch to the receiving station on shore, where he and other survivors were allowed to shower and given a change of clothes. It is respectful. 3 min read. 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. 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 . He stood strong and tall right in front of this general. The only question was how Langdell would send Libby word about his arrival from Pearl Harbor. He thinks back. "We lit into them, started firing on them," Bruner said. The Navy began assigning sailors to new postings. is clu gulager still alive did sharks attack titanic survivors. The Navy occasionally cuts away small bits of the wreckage for memorials. A carnivorous shark diet usually includes fish, mollusks, and crustaceans. "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 first couple of trips back to Hawaii were difficult. He eases the truck out of the carport, far enough to show it off. They still had to climb onto the dock and then into a truck for a short ride to a Navy hospital. Within a day or two, someone came into the ward and said a few of the wounded would be sent to California. "We made friends. he said. He squeezes past the pool table, past the photos and the maps and the medals. For years, Stratton wore the scars from the Arizona without talking about them much. Haerry felt the entire ship life out of the water. Without them, Riel said, who knows where we'd be today. "Sometimes, we'd come back, eat, then sleep on the beach.". Other crewmen would roll out the shell, use a mechanical device to ram it in, then load four bags of powder behind it. Only 35 dead were . He heard the same stories from his grandmother and his aunts. So reads the telegram sent to the Mattituck home of Anna and Clifford Penny on Dec. 10, 1941. What he heard wasn't quite country music, but he liked it and he told the kid. Bruner's neighbor, who has become a close friend and a source of transportation, picks the fruit to keep it from rotting on the ground. "Three months later, I was in Korea.". The tanker towed them to Adak, Alaska, and from there, another ship took the crippled destroyer to San Francisco for repairs. He remembers all the details and most of what happened later. Many places around the world are named for a stand-out feature, and Pearl Harbor is no different. the young man asked. "I don't think we'll ever be able to swim to shore. @webtv.net wrote in message. Not long after he returned to Pearl Harbor near the end of the war, Anderson searched out some of the battle reports from Dec. 7, 1941. "It was boring," Potts says. It is dated Dec. 21, 1941. "He's there anytime I call him," Hetrick says. One morning, he was at his desk, catching up on paperwork, when he heard a vehicle screech to a halt outside. From Virginia, he went to Utah, to France and then to Albuquerque, where he retired in November 1961. I said, 'You send her over, I'll re-enlist.' The United States was a neutral country at the time; the attack led to its formal entry into World War II the next day. Salmon. He and Libby moved west to Walnut Creek east of San Francisco. Attack on Pearl Harbor - Wikipedia It took more courage on your part to present this wreath than it did for me to accept it.". 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. world war ii. Japan wanted the northern Pacific to control its shipping routes and block U.S. attacks from that direction. Bruner was burned over more than two-thirds of his body. No sharks did not eat Titanic passengers. He needed a truck to carry equipment back and forth, so he scouted out a car lot and bought a 1965 Chevrolet pickup. 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. Cook and the other men stayed below deck until the smoke from a fire forced them to leave. "I don't think I'll ever forget what I saw that day.". He had chased Japanese soldiers along the coast of China three years before America declared war on Japan. "These guys were the first heroes of the war, even though the war hasn't been declared," Ray Jr. says. He finished his training and was discharged in December 1945. In time, he felt no anger toward the Japanese, but he couldn't forget what they did. Almost imperceptibly, he sways. 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. On the Arizona, he worked on the deck crew. "We had to have two crews, a regular crew and a stand-by crew lined up waiting," Bruner said. 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.