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A tale of war and romance mixed in with history. He likes to wear a cap that identifies him as a veteran of the Arizona. "There's the battleships there's the Nevada, the Arizona, the Tennessee, the West Virginia, Maryland, the Oklahoma. "I had to help my father out of his seat. Similarly, the . He would sail to San Francisco on one of the cruise ships refitted to move troops, the Lurline, or maybe the Matsonia. Bruner was one of them. He knew his brother hadn't made it off the Arizona alive, but he didn't know much else. December 7, 1941: Pearl Harbor Casualties. "I do as much as I can to keep his story alive," his son says. He says that decision was the best thing he could have done. He keeps it with him when he travels. Williams was in the Arizona's band. "We picked up a couple of girls and made the rounds. Why Did Pearl Harbor Happen? "They said what a wonderful place it was to live, with jobs and everything, so I bought a little place up in Spanish Fork," he says, "I'm still looking for that easy money.". That caught the lieutenant colonel's interest. He will tell his story if he's asked and he will remember details along the way. On the morning of May 8, the fighting intensified as American aircraft tried to turn back the enemy planes. And that's what he told every soldier and airman who took his courses.*. The nurse who checks in on him regularly likes Haerry. She was attending an art academy to learn dress designing. "Would you like to listen to it?" "That lumber was so damn green then, we used to kid we had to shoot the squirrels out of it.". To prepare for the trip, they were studying World War II history, attending lectures, writing research papers. A few incidents were possible shark bites, but shark involvement was not [] Conter told him about the lost orders. "I've gotten letters from some of the officer candidates who had my father as an instructor," Ray Jr. says. Sea turtles. 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. We hauled it all back in.". I couldn't.". 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. He still tools around town in the truck, but it's a classic now, so he drives it almost as often to car shows. "We said we'd volunteer if they'd put two or three of us together on the same ship," he said. "I came back to the pier one morning and my name was on the list to do KP work," he says. "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. Clayton Schenkelberg, who was born in 1917 in Iowa and joined the U.S. Navy in 1937, died in a senior care facility April 14 in San Diego. Before the big battleship could leave Puget Sound, Anderson volunteered for another mission, joining the small Asiatic Fleet along the coast of China. Not war stories, usually, not unless one of them has had it out with a doctor or a pushy clerk. "Three months later, I was in Korea.". A while later, he and Marietta were on the road again, to a missile base in Sturgess, S.D., to gas lines in Wisconsin and North Dakota. 4 gun turret, with the men who died there and survivors who had died since. The man in the boat was from Muskogee, a town about 40 miles east of Morris. Many places around the world are named for a stand-out feature, and Pearl Harbor is no different. After his second discharge, he knocked around Nebraska again, working in his dad's tavern, then on a beer truck, but he grew bored. He looked for what he called medium spacing. "He's there for me. If they found anything that belonged to the Navy or hadn't been approved, they'd take it. The day after, President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared it "a date which will live in infamy," and Congress . Hetrick saw a new opportunity and joined. His mother had moved to Decatur, Ill., by then, so he followed and took a job at a hardware store. The job wasn't what he expected in September, when he was discharged from the Navy. In late 1943, Conter flew a mission to rescue more than 200 coast watchers in New Guinea. Three years later, Ray Haerry Jr. holds the cross in his hand, fighting back tears. Bruner laughs as he remembers the conversation. His ships steamed across the Pacific, through the Panama Canal to Africa. "We got into San Francisco," he says, "and they never even opened my bags. The lead-up to the Pearl Harbor attack. For over an hour, in two waves, some 350 Japanese aircrafthaving taken off from six . He can't relive those images anymore. The Saratoga had returned to Pearl Harbor by the time the Japanese surrendered. He acknowledged the wreath. 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. On December 7, 1941, Japan attacked the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. Japanese torpedo bombers hit the Lexington and crippled the big ship. Once a week, they motor on into Tulsa, where Marietta takes a china painting class and Lonnie wanders the aisles of sporting-goods stores. "Andy, you had 12 years of the damnedest fighting I ever saw. I think it was one of the proudest days of my father's life.". The Navy censors would never allow such information in a letter. "It ain't worth a damn if it ain't loaded," he says. "But I had a brother in Vietnam who didn't want to talk about it at all, so I guess I realized if they want to talk, they'll talk. He could see the planes were flying too low for his guns anyway, but before his crew could figure out their next move, an armor-piercing bomb detonated near the powder magazine beneath the No. ages 2, 3 and 8, together with a 14-year-old cousin . He keeps up with what the military does, and some of it irritates him. 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. His own battle station was beneath the gun turret shattered by the last bomb to hit the Arizona. They went out for coffee afterward. Finally, the four U.S. destroyers were ordered to mount a torpedo run. Libby got the message. As the ships turned around, a squadron of enemy bombers appeared. 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. No sharks did not eat Titanic passengers. In January, another ship took him to San Francisco to the Navy hospital on Treasure Island. However, larger shark species like to eat large marine mammals and large fish species, including dolphins, sea lions, tuna, mackerel, and seals. "Here we are, we can't see the enemy. Did sharks eat Titanic victims? He fought with other sailors in the Battle of Midway and watched the Marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima. "He told you the story?" Now, Bruner prepares for his next trip in the Captain's Quarters. 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. "The Japanese were only a mile away. The river wound through dense vegetation, leaving 15 or 20 feet of clearance on each side of the plane. In order to produce enough energy to hunt and keep their body temperatures up, they have to feed on high-fat animals like seals and large tuna.The sharks have good eyesight, and they have electromagnetic sensors on their snout where they can tell the difference between a seal and a human from over 100 yards away. Conter attended the same event and was seated next to Valerie. In 1887 the harbor's military history began when the US Navy set up coaling stations in the harbor. A sailor on the repair ship Vestal, tied up nearby, spotted them and threw them a line. He asked if Jeanne could come with him. 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. Potts was based out of the port director's office there were two, one at the harbor, one on the ninth floor of the Aloha Tower in downtown Honolulu but he logged most of his hours at the controls of the motor boat, a Jeep or a station wagon. So reads the telegram sent to the Mattituck home of Anna and Clifford Penny on Dec. 10, 1941. medge. He asked what the fellow did. "Randy, come and turn on the music box." What they didn't count on was the side-street parking. Bruner was put in charge of the gun batteries. 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 his dining room in Colorado Springs, he keeps a replica of a hard diving helmet, the kind his divers used. 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 took up golf seriously in Palm Springs and played in the Bob Hope Classic six times, once on a team with crooner Johnny Mathis. Donald Stratton completed the paperwork for a concealed weapons permit at the El Paso County Sheriff's Office and approached the counter to submit fingerprints. Today, the population can almost reach 1,500 when everyone is home. The band members had decided they wanted to honor survivors from that day. They struck up a conversation and, after a brief courtship, married. Fish, in general, are the most common prey for sharks. He had held on to it through the war. Part of his shoulder was blown off. After about six months of training in San Diego, Hetrick returned to Honolulu and joined the USS Saratoga, the sister ship of the Lexington. The fellow he was talking with recognized Anderson's voice and they realized they had served together on the Yangtze Patrol before Pearl Harbor. Calhoun told Conter to put in for the assignment. He eases the truck out of the carport, far enough to show it off. The USS Arizona ballcap that almost every survivor owns and wears. He fought cold and hunger on a ship nearly dead in the ocean off Alaska. As the war with Japan intensified, the Navy was building new warships as fast as it could. If the shark feels like a dead fish isn't worth its time, it will leave without wasting more energy. Why is the FBI checking up on you, she wanted to know. The man walked over and looked at Langdell's name tag. He knew he was near release the day an officer came by and launched into a pep talk about the war and the Navy's role in it. "Sometimes, we'd come back, eat, then sleep on the beach.". Seven decades later, he is one of nine living survivors from the Arizona. "I don't think I'll ever forget what I saw that day.". Bruner toured Nagasaki in a Jeep with other Navy officers and chief mates. He was able to visit the national cemetery at an area called the Punch Bowl. UPDATE: Bruner died in 2019. He wants to secure a proper medal for Joe George, the sailor from the Vestal who helped rescue the six men from the gunner's control tower. ", "I was," Anderson said. The attack was devastating for the Americans, though the Japanese . 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. He stopped in the small town of Payson, Utah. Civilian Casualties. sinastria di coppia karmica calcolo; quincy homeless shelter; plastic bags for cleaning oven racks; claudia procula death; farm jobs in vermont with housing Hetrick slept on the battleship USS Tennessee, which had been moored just ahead of the Arizona along Ford Island. By 1991, the 50thanniversary of the attack, the number of living Arizona crewmen had shrunk. He had a ticket home to Minnesota, but decided to find a place to stay and come up with a plan. Three days later, he and his buddy were on a ship to San Francisco and then a train to Pensacola. It is dated Dec. 21, 1941. Today, he tries to pass on what he knows to students of history. About a year after he boarded the ship, he ran into a young recruit named Clyde Williams, a fellow from Okmulgee, Okla., a few miles down the road from Morris. Once a shark finds its prey, it needs to decide on whether to eat or not based on smell and appearance. 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. We carefully wrapped them in sheets. He clears his throat. "I was back here on leave before the war started and he was here too," Cook says. That same year, he met his wife, Valerie, in Palm Springs. 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. He endured what he did, he says, because that was his job. Potts was returning to the Arizona with fresh produce when the first Japanese bombers dove into Pearl Harbor. 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, Kaahuphau and her brother Kahiuk. Keeping the memories alive. Three days since the war started. As anniversaries of the attack passed, Ray Jr. would asked his dad if he wanted to visit the USS Arizona memorial at Pearl Harbor. Abe's Pearl Harbor speech has been well received in Japan, where most people expressed the opinion that it struck the right balance of regret that the Pacific war occurred, but offered . Ray Jr. has arranged for his father's remains to be interred in the sunken Arizona, an honor accorded any of the sailors or Marines who survived the attack. "I knew everything that was going on.". He told his story as his son, Ted, recorded it on video. Finally, after a few weeks on the tanker, Potts was handed a new assignment. Oceanic whitetip sharks killed many of the surviving crew in the biggest attack on humans ever recorded Credit: Getty - Contributor. Conter helped establish training bases in Florida and California and in 1965, he returned to Pearl Harbor to write training materials for troops headed to Vietnam. Pearl Harbor was the site of the unprovoked aerial attack on the United States by Japan on December 7, 1941. And he was allowed to visit a part of the Arizona few people ever see. "He should have the Navy Cross," Stratton says. An impressive collection of restaurant menus from 30 years of cross-country searches for used cars. "Can you tell me what ship did he go on after the Arizona?" He hired on with a farm labor contractor and within a year, he and a guy he worked with started their own business, contracting with the orchard owners to harvest crops. Hetrick thought about it. 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 wanted one last unforgettable day. Bruner and the Coghlan returned to Honolulu and finished out the war in the South Pacific. He moved to Provo and sold cars until 1990. He didn't know what to tell them. The ship steamed toward the Asiatic Pacific and soon Anderson was chasing Japanese forces again, only this time the United States was at war. "I'd do it a hundred times more," he says. The California was way down here. "You can't get a guy hungry in three or four days," Conter says. He was thrown into the ocean and waited 57 hours to be rescued while shipmates around him were eaten by sharks. . "I got the lay a wreath in front of the names of the fallen," he says quietly. The Navy occasionally cuts away small bits of the wreckage for memorials. The Japanese-American mother, father and their three children. In the late 1930s, American foreign policy in the Pacific hinged on support for China, and . He returned after the war to his home along the railway in eastern Oklahoma. As soon as he turned 18, he enlisted in the Navy. Hetrick earned a Purple Heart for wounds during one of the bombing raids. "One of the last ones" He talks about going aboard the Frazier. He had taken a bullet to the back of his leg as he was climbing the tower, but the burns were far worse. In May 1942, the Aylwin joined a task force in the Coral Sea with the USS Lexington, one of the Navy's early aircraft carriers. "Lots of big band songs," Randy says, as the first bars of a brass line pour from the speakers. He finished his stint in the Navy in Shanghai, working shore patrol the way he did back in Honolulu. "I cleaned up my language," he says, admitting he deployed a salty vocabulary, even after leaving active duty. Their skin charred and falling off, the men crawled down the line to the Vestal. He could see the band was sincere. Conter's crews flew missions across the South Pacific: New Guinea, Borneo, New Britain, the coast off Perth, Australia. "When I got back home, my doctors here wanted to know about my medical background," Bruner said. The inscription reads "Spirit of Aloha Award, Timpview High School Marching Band.". Abe offered condolences and said he prayed that all their souls were at peace. Cook and the other men stayed below deck until the smoke from a fire forced them to leave. He was promoted to Lieutenant Commander in February 1954, the rank he held until he retired. During the conference, the Pringle sailed into the Mediterranean Sea and anchored in a river. Then we got hit.". As far he was concerned he was saving lives.". He tried not to remember the days after the attack. In Alaska, he helped set up platforms that could keep up with tides that rose and fell as much as 32 feet. OAHU BOMBED BY JAPANESE PLANES", "That's one of the first extras that was put out that day," Potts says. 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. Alcohol. He felt a tap on his shoulder. Or got fired. ", "Fine," the worker said. After that, he started teaching U.S. troops the skills of survival, evasion, resistance and escape. The crews were based on tender ships moored in secluded harbors. ", "It's a brand new destroyer, the Coghlan, DD-606," he said, "built right here in 'Frisco.". Salmon. The license plate reads USS ARIZ. A mural on a white bed cover depicts the USS Arizona and the memorial that floats above it in Pearl Harbor. One day, he stopped for coffee at the Brown Derby restaurant in Hollywood. Conter was at the young lady's house one day when her father received an important visitor: Admiral William Calhoun, the commander of base force for the Pacific Fleet. 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. We left and never fired a shot at them.". He visited the memorial and was relieved to see the builders got it right. war. Joe Langdell found a table in the wardroom of one of the ships moored in Pearl Harbor and sat down with his breakfast. Rays. When he dies, his remains will be interred under the No. Wherever he goes on the pickup, people ask him about his experience. It is a piece of rigging used to secure a mooring line from a ship. An electro-mechanical computer would aim the guns. In 2006, one of his sons offered to take Potts to Hawaii for the 65thanniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack. 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. The crews learned the routines of the Japanese ships. It turned out most of the regular stuntmen were still in the military. "It sounded like someone shooting guns. He remembers when the order was given to abandon ship. 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. We can't see our own ships. Everything was taken ashore and properly taken care of.". The job paid $700. . And as the victims' blood spread through the water, sharks - which can smell blood up to three miles away - were attracted to the defenceless sailors, creating a feeding frenzy. 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. Conter and his buddy waited for new instructions, but heard nothing. An avocado tree grows in the backyard. They would be married in San Francisco, before the Frazier set sail. He called back a few days later. He enrolled, but after a couple of weeks, the noisy streetcars and the police sirens kept him up all night. Haerry accepts the chocolate bars his son has brought him. They were having trouble reading his prints, she told Stratton. 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. I asked the boss, 'how many hours is in a day for you?' "Sure, let's see it." "I said, 'Well, come on, then,'" Marietta says, and in 1950, they wed. That's where the cross-country adventures begin. He was at a restaurant last summer and someone noticed his USS Arizona cap. In 1940, Anderson reported to the Arizona once more, joining his brother for the first time since they had enlisted. It sits today in the carport outside his home. 12/28/2016. The Hirasaki family suffered some of the worst losses that terrible morning. He asked his brother, Ted, to visit Libby and see if she could cook. He was soon aboard the USS Frazier, which left the shipyard at San Francisco in July 1942. As Cactus Jack, Anderson made a few concessions to his seagoing past. 11 Oldest Pearl Harbor Survivors (Updated 2021) December 7, 1941 is a date that everyone in America has committed to memory. His younger son believes the experience changed his dad forever. 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. It had been shortly after midnight when their ship, the USS Indianapolis, was torpedoed and sunk by a Japanese submarine in the deepest part of the Pacific Ocean, some 500 miles east of the . Chile. His oldest son had joined the Navy and his first posting was aboard the USS Ouellet, a frigate. "That must be old Clyde Williams," he thought, the Arizona band member killed at Pearl Harbor. "I ain't seen 'em since.". That's why the FBI was nosing around me, Potts thought. Haerry ran away from home to join the Navy. As they talked, Ray mentioned that his dad had been aboard the Arizona. The USS Shaw explodes after being hit by bombs during the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in this December 7, 1941 photo. It scared him a little. For a while, the young family lived in Puerto Rico as Haerry, now a chief boatswain's mate, drew new assignments aboard his tender. He had chased Japanese soldiers along the coast of China three years before America declared war on Japan. Fires still burned on the broken USS Arizona the morning after the Japanese ambush. No sharks did not eat Titanic passengers. He catalogs the scars and their origin. On the 70thanniversary of the attack, the men had been brought to the state capitol to receive new honors. They generally prefer the shallows in temperate, tropical regions, which is usually where divers and surfers come into contact with them and potentially become the victims of shark trauma. His dad operated a livery stable and a small dairy and later earned money as an auctioneer. "They were saying, when it first started, some of the ones whose station was up here ", He traces his finger up onto the main forward mast, to the crow's nest and the bridge. If a shark comes too close, hit it in the nose with your fist as hard as you can.". ", "You will go to the Arizona and you will take off all the bodies and body parts above the water line," the man said. The paneled room behind the door in the living room of the Provo house is filled with trophies of almost any imaginable sort.