did sharks eat pearl harbor victims did sharks eat pearl harbor victims

He gazes at the picture. Potts was returning to the Arizona with fresh produce when the first Japanese bombers dove into Pearl Harbor. "I hadn't told him he was going to be individually honored that day," he says. "He was very military by then, very disciplined.". We can't see our own ships. "Sometimes they'd get shooting at you and you'd look at the shells and they looked like they were going to hit you. He eases the truck out of the carport, far enough to show it off. She likes the story of how they tied the knot. He spent the rest of the day retrieving bodies from the harbor. The attack was devastating for the Americans, though the Japanese . Posted on December 7, 2021, 5:08 pm. But he could not be prepared for what he found on the charred hulk of the battleship. They traveled around the country, meeting up with other USS Arizona survivors, with shipmates from the Frazier. The band had won a trophy in one of the competitions during their stay in Honolulu. As he prepared to jump off the burning ship, he took the shoes off and set them on the quarterdeck. The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, just before 8:00 a.m. (local time) on Sunday, December 7, 1941. "I would tell them. / Reuters. Potts had not returned to Honolulu in the decades since he left for San Francisco in 1945. The owner said, 'give it a name and say who are. Another five minutes, Bruner figured, and they'd have run out of ammunition. But John Anderson, the Navy chief petty officer who called himself Cactus Jack on the air, had a good head start already. "I appreciate your thoughtfulness. "Say your prayers, men, we're seven miles off shore and we're in 10, 15-foot swells," one of the officers said as the crew abandoned the plane. There was a tradition at the end of training that the graduates would give the chief a silver dollar. Only 35 dead were . It fit in that location. He describes the store of booze they pulled out of safe and the money. For years, Stratton wore the scars from the Arizona without talking about them much. 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. Conter's doctor has sidelined him for now for health reasons, but he is certain he will return soon. He squinted and thought about where he was. We got as close as 5,000 yards, which was point-blank for those ships. And that's what he told every soldier and airman who took his courses.*. As he was packing, a buddy warned him that his possessions would be searched at the port in San Francisco. They found a way to take prints from the edges of his fingers, enough to satisfy the law. He felt a tap on his shoulder. "He's there anytime I call him," Hetrick says. "Something had happened that no one could comprehend.". He tries to abbreviate it: "We went to California and got married.". She prods him to move around more and to leave the room for meals. Seabirds. He told his story as his son, Ted, recorded it on video. Conter was talking about survival, about coming back alive. View of "Battleship Row" during or . A while back, Stratton and his wife Velma retired to Yuma and lived there about 15 years. After so many years of travel, the Cooks have settled into a more tranquil pace. The pieces the largest is about as long as a bus sit in a salvage yard on the Waipi'o Peninsula on Oahu. On one mission, Haerry's tender was tied to a larger ship as the crew delivered supplies and completed maintenance tasks. You can't leave the Navy.". I wasn't working for nothing.". Anderson always talks about his brother, Delbert "Jake" Anderson, when he tells the story of his own escape from the burning ship. "The only people he would talk to were either very close friends or relatives," his son says. They had voted. I wanted to know if you could do it for a couple of weeks.". Occasionally, they head into Okmulgee for an evening out at the One Fire, a casino operated by the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. But Hetrick couldn't find work, so inside of six months, he signed up for the Navy Reserve. Potts returned to Illinois in late 1945 to await his formal discharge, hanging out in Chicago. It is respectful. That caught the lieutenant colonel's interest. One day, some smaller boats sailed past. He had chased Japanese soldiers along the coast of China three years before America declared war on Japan. The USS Arizona ballcap that almost every survivor owns and wears. His dad operated a livery stable and a small dairy and later earned money as an auctioneer. He and his father chat a little. Civilian Casualties. 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 got the west coast and I got the east coast. Military Casualties. No one among the groups knew where he was or what he was doing, but the woman persisted. "Here we are, we can't see the enemy. "They paid me by the day," he said. Calhoun quizzed Conter about his posting, his job on the ship. Bruner was put in charge of the gun batteries. Salmon. Born in 1914, seven months after the first bolts were tightened on a new battleship in Brooklyn, Langdell grew up wooded agricultural area along the Souhegan River in southern New Hampshire. After that, he steamed north to Kodiak, Alaska, where other Navy ships were trying to turn back Japanese inroads throughout the strategically important Aleutian Islands. what is florentine milan straw. In 1940, Anderson reported to the Arizona once more, joining his brother for the first time since they had enlisted. "The Japanese were only a mile away. "We got into San Francisco," he says, "and they never even opened my bags. The United States declared war on Japan on December 8, 1941, the day following the attack on Pearl Harbor. Song's got some zip to it, he said. If they found anything that belonged to the Navy or hadn't been approved, they'd take it. 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. "I put on two life jackets," Hetrick said. "To go through that to me is incomprehensible. One day, he stopped for coffee at the Brown Derby restaurant in Hollywood. Hetrick still likes to talk about the new shoes he bought the day before the attack in Honolulu. They were having trouble reading his prints, she told Stratton. The family sold maple syrup distilled from the trees on their farm. "We were told to watch out for them, these guys were assassins," Anderson said. Stratton logged thousands of miles of travel. The report said most of the guys in the anti-aircraft batteries, where Jake fought, were shot down early in the assault. "I bought it at the receiving station in Pearl Harbor. He grew up in New Jersey and after high school, enrolled at MIT in Boston. As the ships turned around, a squadron of enemy bombers appeared. "It gets your breath when you first see it," he says. "I just didn't want to. "I ran the decompression chamber on jobs. He first visited the Arizona memorial in Pearl Harbor on the 50thanniversary of the attack and has returned since. Pictures of past parades. It took Ray Jr. years, decades to piece together his father's story. He ran to the anti-aircraft battery, his battle station, but there was no ammunition ready. "I'd already sent word, even before the first one got there," he says. The bomb that shattered the Arizona's bow exploded as Cook and the others climbed out of the turret. 1914-1941:The mightiest ship at sea | Dec. 7, 1941: The attack that changed the world| Documentary: 'Witness to Infamy' | 2014: The final toast. "You either had a nice place aboard a ship and were high and dry or you didn't have anything," he reasoned. As it fell, he was thrown from the ship into the harbor. It turned out little was the right word. A young sailor ran in, out of breath. striking a number of people in the water. After his second discharge, he knocked around Nebraska again, working in his dad's tavern, then on a beer truck, but he grew bored. Fire had blackened much of the structure still visible. Trains run close enough to hear the horns during the day, but not close enough to make them a nuisance. In 1887 the harbor's military history began when the US Navy set up coaling stations in the harbor. 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. "It just didn't appeal to me to bring it up," he says. Bruner was at his battle station in an anti-aircraft gun director, a metal box on the forward mast of the Arizona, when an armor-piercing bomb ignited the ship's powder magazine. Anderson grew up in the Red River Valley of northern Minnesota, the son of a prominent local judge. The six-year Pentagon project identified nearly 400 who died on the USS Oklahoma in 1941. 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. Here is a story he will tell, a memory he will keep. She tracked him to the Los Angeles area, then started a phone search. He owns a chunk of the ship's burned deck, a reminder he keeps in a box with a few other items. He half-swam, half-walked the 70 yards to Ford Island and manned a mounted machine gun. Then they'd go by.". Just stay together, hold hands and kick slowly 'cause there'll be sharks around. But the war was over. Stratton's eyes brighten. Langdell says only this: "It took two days to take all the bodies. The exhausted crew dragged ashore an hour later and hid in the jungle, fearful they would be captured by Japanese soldiers. When she says anything, I tell her I'm catching up from the war.". They would be married in San Francisco, before the Frazier set sail. He missed enough of his classes that he was finally asked to leave. Posted on . 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. Yes, a lot of brave men died. Pearl Harbor was the site of the unprovoked aerial attack on the United States by Japan on December 7, 1941. Dec 12 2014. Finally, the Navy gave him a medical discharge. Once, I made a dive in a two-man submarine, down in over 1,200 feet of water off Santa Barbara coast. He wrote Libby a letter and suggested it would be a good idea if Libby visited her friend on or about a particular date. "From down inside, it wasn't too bad when they fired it," Cook said. He had turned 90 and was starting over again. Libby got the message. He won't talk much about the escape, or about the men who didn't make it across. Stratton told her why: He had been aboard the USS Arizona when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec 7, 1941. "Remember Pearl Harbor!" became a rallying cry for the U.S. during World War II. Sentiment ran high against the Japanese, he said, but also against U.S. leaders whose decisions many questioned in the aftermath. "They paid everybody in two dollar bills back then. The Navy occasionally cuts away small bits of the wreckage for memorials. He was cut loose in San Francisco and returned to Los Angeles, where he had married a girl back in late 1942. The USS Shaw explodes after being hit by bombs during the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in this December 7, 1941 photo. Coast watchers were military intelligence operatives who gathered information about enemy activities on islands across the South Pacific. Someone from the bureau had been asking questions. "It's hard to explain." June 12, 2022 . Sight-setters and pointers would locate targets visually and determine their distance and range. All but one of the Pacific fleet's battleships were in port that morning, most of them moored to quays flanking Ford Island. (See Pearl Harbor Attack.) 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. For some reason I had always thought that the titanic had gone down way farther North. They met at a dance at the YWCA on North State Street. We had survival training on the job. Until his partner ran off with all the money. He points out the cranes and the locations along the ship where he would tie up the motor boats he piloted to fetch supplies and ferry sailors to and from shore. Sailors jumped into fires to escape sinking vessels. As each name was read, Rhode Island National Guard Maj. Gen. Kevin McBride presented the man with the Rhode Island Star, one of the state's highest military honors. He stayed on the 17thfloor of a hotel on Waikiki Beach. Anderson decided he had nothing to lose. 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. During the conference, the Pringle sailed into the Mediterranean Sea and anchored in a river. The ships encountered a Japanese fleet, two big cruisers, six destroyers, some troop ships, and engaged. "In three days, we rescued 219 coast watchers without losing anybody," Conter said. 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. Years later, at a reunion in Tucson, Cook learned that one of his buddies from the Arizona had been sent to the Lexington and was in the Coral Sea when the carrier was attacked. A woman from Illinois drew Bruner's name. Lots of men brought home scars from World War II and Korea. As far he was concerned he was saving lives.". They covered the growing seasons: cherries, peaches, nectarines, apricots, grapes. The shock of jumping into a harbor knowing he couldn't swim. Anything you choose is fine. I think it was one of the proudest days of my father's life.". Pearl Harbor is a U.S. naval base near Honolulu, Hawaii, that was the scene of a devastating surprise attack by Japanese forces on December 7, 1941. Ted asks. His old co-pilot in the New Guinea days was asked once if he'd had survival training for the war. He doesn't want to answer questions about his war service, shrugging them off or insisting he can't remember the details anymore. "He's there for me. 12/28/2016. 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. On Veteran's Day, he participated once more in a parade through Marysville, the next town over from Yuba City. I said, 'You send her over, I'll re-enlist.' The studios needed tough men who could handle dangerous situations. Or got fired. He went out to the floating memorial. He had a record, a new song he was trying out. What do great white sharks eat in Hawaii? "But it was a lot better than being shot at.". "We'd send two guys out to knock the icicles off the guns, then they'd high-tail it back in. 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. He would work in the port director's office, delivering sealed packets to the captains of Navy ships. Early in the morning on Dec. 7, 1941, Japan's Imperial Navy launched a surprise airstrike on the US military base at Pearl Harbor on the island of Oahu . After that, he started teaching U.S. troops the skills of survival, evasion, resistance and escape. "You know, you can see where I came out of, the hatchway.