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The Solace dispatched motor boats to the Arizona to rescue wounded sailors and her crew pulled others from the water. As a youngster, Anderson heard stories about the Navy from his uncle, a man named Ray Stokes. When they sent me my discharge, I just stayed here.". 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. He would sail to San Francisco on one of the cruise ships refitted to move troops, the Lurline, or maybe the Matsonia. The day after the attack, President Franklin D . The only question was how Langdell would send Libby word about his arrival from Pearl Harbor. He agreed to play it on his show. In early January, Conter visited his young lady friend again and again, Admiral Calhoun was there. The Navy censors would never allow such information in a letter. . / Reuters. "They told me the team was already picked," he said. Did he ever. There are a few personal photos on the table, but nothing from his years in the Navy. "I got another ship for you," the officer said at last. And in the back corner, a real trophy. He can't relive those images anymore. He sits in his wheelchair as his son recites the narrative, keeping his father's story alive. He was attending midshipman's school at Northwestern University. Seven decades later, he is one of nine living survivors from the Arizona. He said he wanted Anderson to join the on-air staff. 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. On Veteran's Day, he participated once more in a parade through Marysville, the next town over from Yuba City. I even had a couple of dates with girls.". Potts was returning to the Arizona with fresh produce when the first Japanese bombers dove into Pearl Harbor. In California, he earned his naval seaman's license and went to work on a drilling rig offshore near Santa Barbara. Pearl Harbor was the site of the unprovoked aerial attack on the United States by Japan on December 7, 1941. He fiddles with the radio. He has met many of his old friends and shipmates. He won't talk much about the escape, or about the men who didn't make it across. He doesn't want to answer questions about his war service, shrugging them off or insisting he can't remember the details anymore. Three years later, Ray Haerry Jr. holds the cross in his hand, fighting back tears. His service on the Arizona also seemed to give him added credibility among the young sailors. While this is a genuine threat to safety, it continues to remain statistically unlikely. Another five minutes, Bruner figured, and they'd have run out of ammunition. Or both. 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. In the documentary, "The Life and Death of a Lady," Langdell and Abe speak, side by side on the memorial. Langdell will return to the Arizona once more. He had taken a bullet to the back of his leg as he was climbing the tower, but the burns were far worse. evolution golf cart forum As he waited, he had a feeling he knew what would happen, but he didn't say anything. Whether they're a spiny dogfish all the way to great whites, sharks love eating fish. ", "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 studios needed tough men who could handle dangerous situations. 9. . "In three days, we rescued 219 coast watchers without losing anybody," Conter said. Haerry would come home on those days with cigar boxes full of the coins. Potts had not returned to Honolulu in the decades since he left for San Francisco in 1945. By the time the woman from Illinois found him, he was ready to face his past. "When I got back home, my doctors here wanted to know about my medical background," Bruner said. No sharks did not eat Titanic passengers. The Frazier patrolled the South Pacific at first, but in early 1943, steamed northward toward Alaska, where Japan was trying to secure positions in the Aleutian Islands. All but one of the Pacific fleet's battleships were in port that morning, most of them moored to quays flanking Ford Island. In 1949, the newly created U.S. Air Force was trying to fill it out its ranks with experienced support crews, almost begging for mechanics who knew the aircraft. They bought a small ranch and, while Lonnie continued to work welding jobs, they grew walnuts, almonds, peaches, apples, nectarines, cherries and grapes. World War II veterans are a special breed, Lt. Col. Denis Riel said as the men accepted the medals. He's not so fond of the crowds around Honolulu and doesn't plan to go back. For a long time, he didn't think he would ever return to Pearl Harbor. "We picked up a couple of girls and made the rounds. CARNIVOROUS SHARKS. Afew weeks after the war started, sometime in early 1942, Potts opened a letter from his mother. He built a reputation as a guy who could bring in the harvest on time. We were going to have a date the next day. He tried to save as many injured crewmen as he could, but when the sun set on Dec. 7, 1941, he was one of just 335 sailors who did not perish. His new employer manufactured industrial refrigeration units. They trade stories. "The hat represents the Arizona. He had visited before, but this trip meant more. Lonnie Cook was born in this rural town south of Tulsa, not long after it was founded as a stop on the Ozark and Cherokee Central Railway. It took Ray Jr. years, decades to piece together his father's story. These Photos Of The Pearl Harbor Attack Are Still Shocking Decades Later "A day that will live in infamy." By . Photographing survivors of the battleship USS Arizona. Langdell arrived at Pearl Harbor along a different path than many of the young sailors, who signed up for the service because they were unable to find work as civilians. The day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Anderson volunteered for duty on the Macdonough, a destroyer that downed at least one of the Japanese attack planes on Dec. 7. Now, Bruner prepares for his next trip in the Captain's Quarters. Pearl Harbor was a United States Naval base on the island of Oahu, located west of Honolulu. The ship was to turn around and steam toward Alaska. He tries to abbreviate it: "We went to California and got married.". "We can't forget what happened there that day. Military Casualties. Bruner toured Nagasaki in a Jeep with other Navy officers and chief mates. At the time, sailors wore patches designating their rates, the enlisted expression of rank, on the right or left sleeve, depending on their assignment. Bruner laughs as he remembers the conversation. Naming Pearl Harbor. Almost imperceptibly, he sways. Anderson always talks about his brother, Delbert "Jake" Anderson, when he tells the story of his own escape from the burning ship. "We had to have two crews, a regular crew and a stand-by crew lined up waiting," Bruner said. "It gets your breath when you first see it," he says. Pearl Harbor centres on a cloverleaf-shaped, artificially . The Navy captain who lived on Waikiki Beach gave a lot of parties and invited these guys. He has told her about his escape from the Arizona. The pieces the largest is about as long as a bus sit in a salvage yard on the Waipi'o Peninsula on Oahu. Keeping the memories alive. That was the end of it.". Stratton could not. His mother had moved to Decatur, Ill., by then, so he followed and took a job at a hardware store. You don't fire guns in port, so I ran out real quick to see what was happening. He did not reach a hospital for several days, but doctors still saved his hand. They were married in an Episcopal Church on Van Ness Avenue. Nicaragua. "It's just not going to happen. Lonnie and Marietta Cook met in Morris after the war, but the road to their home here today winds thousands of miles across the country. All those sailors from all those places and here was a guy who was practically a neighbor. "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. He says that decision was the best thing he could have done. He liked the idea of working as an aircraft mechanic, so he volunteered. "He should have the Navy Cross," Stratton says. Potts returned to Illinois in late 1945 to await his formal discharge, hanging out in Chicago. Using its sonar equipment, the ship fired depth charges and eventually sank the enemy submarine. One day, a Navy officer came on board and asked if anyone wanted to volunteer for an assignment in the aviation section. did sharks eat pearl harbor victims. "I don't think I'll ever forget what I saw that day.". December 7, 1941: Pearl Harbor Casualties. alain picard wife / ap calculus bc multiple choice / did sharks eat pearl harbor victims. Sea turtles. Posted by ; royal canin yorkie dog food reviews; parkland psychiatric hospital dallas, tx . Sometimes he can't control his emotions, so he declines speaking requests. "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. He introduced him to other officers. Some even like to dine on smaller shark species! Langdell lives now in a skilled nursing center. At Kulangsu, an international settlement on an island off the southern Chinese coast, Anderson's unit ran into the French Foreign Legion, who had been cornered by Japanese soldiers on a high ridge. The lead-up to the Pearl Harbor attack. He had turned 90 and was starting over again. Langdell was an ensign, an entry-level officer, not yet a year in the Navy. "It didn't take me that long. "It was rough weather, foggy, raining cold," Anderson said. Within a day or two, someone came into the ward and said a few of the wounded would be sent to California. Japan wanted the northern Pacific to control its shipping routes and block U.S. attacks from that direction. McBride reached the last man, Raymond Haerry, a 20-year-old coxswain on the day of the assault. It identifies Stratton as a survivor of the attack that sank the ship. An impressive collection of restaurant menus from 30 years of cross-country searches for used cars. No sharks did not eat Titanic passengers. The Coghlan's crew battled just to keep the guns free of ice as they headed toward their next target. Nobody could debate what that was, no question about it.". 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. "I said, 'sure, I'll take it.' Anything you choose is fine. "Would you like a job?" "We worked with a crane barge capable of lifting 700 tons," he sys. The river wound through dense vegetation, leaving 15 or 20 feet of clearance on each side of the plane. Afterward, Langdell sought out other survivors who had formed reunion organizations. Alcohol. Their skin charred and falling off, the men crawled down the line to the Vestal. He wanted men with eyes set in the right place on their face. 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. On December 7, 1941, the Imperial Japanese Navy bombed the Pearl Harbor Naval base in a surprise attack. In Hawaiian custom, sharks were cared for by families who fed them and kept their bodies free of barnacles. He stepped off the deck into a motor launch as the ship was sinking. 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. View of "Battleship Row" during or . "I thought you'd be in flight school," he said. They stayed composed as their stories were told, stories of bravery, of quick thinking. Haerry sailed on Navy ships through World War II and again during the Korean conflict. "After 36 hours, I still hadn't put in a day. A carnivorous shark diet usually includes fish, mollusks, and crustaceans. 4 Comments. The Macdonough had collided with another destroyer, the Sicard. Three days since the war started. "The station wagon was for the captains of some of the ships that would come in," he said. Whale Shark (Rhincodon typus) The whale shark is the largest shark species, and also the biggest fish species in the world. Calhoun told Conter to put in for the assignment. That same year, he met his wife, Valerie, in Palm Springs. "I don't think we'll ever be able to swim to shore. Nope. They were dead in the water.". We got into a run-and-gun battle. He told Ray about the plans to honor Pearl Harbor survivors at the statehouse. "The kids coming up now have never heard of it," he says, his voice tinged with sadness and dismay. The body parts we put in pillow cases. Yes, he'll say, he was on the Arizona and he survived. 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. 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. He squinted and thought about where he was. I asked the boss, 'how many hours is in a day for you?' 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. "I was back here on leave before the war started and he was here too," Cook says. It fit in that location. "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. About a month later, Japanese suicide bombers sunk the Pringle near Okinawa. Put in eight years at least and you'll have a pension, he promised. Williams was in the Arizona's band. By the end of the day, had persuaded Anderson to sign up for the Navy Reserve. The inscription reads "Spirit of Aloha Award, Timpview High School Marching Band.". "But it was a lot better than being shot at.". 4 gun turret, with the men who died there and survivors who had died since. "It acknowledges to people that I'm a survivor," Joe replies, his voice soft. With eyes too close or two far apart, a crewman could deliver faulty readings. He touches the diving helmet. Today, the population can almost reach 1,500 when everyone is home. The man in the boat was from Muskogee, a town about 40 miles east of Morris. One day, some smaller boats sailed past. 2023 www.azcentral.com. The countries of Japan and The United States had been at odds for several decades before the attack on Pearl Harbor on the morning of December 7, 1941. I had one pair of dungarees and that was it, that and a towel and shaving gear.". A painting of the Arizona hangs on the wall of a sitting room. 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. "I motioned to crane operator what we needed, what tools to send down." The USS Arizona ballcap that almost every survivor owns and wears. "Sometimes, we'd come back, eat, then sleep on the beach.". "The lesson I've learned from that experience is that the 1,177 men entombed on the ship right now will never know the love of a wife or the joy of grandchildren," he said. He would answer questions, but in short bursts of description, with no emotion. The family visited the Arizona memorial and toured other sites near the harbor. Conter told him about the lost orders. a director yelled. He looks forward to his time with the guys from his years in the Navy. Two deer racks (his wife shot one, his son the other). The Saratoga sailed across the South Pacific, to Guam, the Philippines, around New Guinea. One of the survivors would receive the Rhode Island Cross. He is one of nine living survivors of the Arizona and, at 97, he has amassed a lifetime of unforgettable days. He wrote a training manual whose precepts the Navy still follows. Before the big battleship could leave Puget Sound, Anderson volunteered for another mission, joining the small Asiatic Fleet along the coast of China. Dec 12 2014. Fish, in general, are the most common prey for sharks. The man walked over and looked at Langdell's name tag. "You I know.") Amidst the rush to war following the attack, there was also the painstaking effort to recover those who had been sunk with ships like the USS Oklahoma and the USS Arizona. The new shoes he left on the deck of the sinking ship, the ones he intended to retrieve later. Just another site did sharks eat pearl harbor victims popeyes vs chicken express; do venmo requests expire "I had to help my father out of his seat. On the 70thanniversary of the attack, the men had been brought to the state capitol to receive new honors. The strike climaxed a decade of worsening relations between the United States and Japan. person grazed by a shark), nor incidents classified by the International Shark Attack File as boat attacks, scavenge, or doubtful. As it fell, he was thrown from the ship into the harbor. Tall pines tower over the house. Servicemembers stationed in Hawaii took care of the memorial during the 2013 government shutdown: Servicemembers stationed in Hawaii treat Pearl Harbor as a living . Colombia. An avocado tree grows in the backyard. Conter was talking about survival, about coming back alive. He was nervous about volunteering for anything, but he raised his hand. By winter, temperatures plunged below zero. "That's what I'm catching up now. A year later, he felt better, so he re-enlisted. "To go through that to me is incomprehensible. Bruner was burned over more than two-thirds of his body. They are the marks of a survivor, 73 years on. 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. Some even extend their consumption to seabirds. We cut the torpedoes loose.". Everything was taken ashore and properly taken care of.". "The Arizona was a fighting battleship," Joe says. He wrote Libby a letter and suggested it would be a good idea if Libby visited her friend on or about a particular date. He finally received his orders to return to the states. They moved to Santa Maria, not far from Santa Barbara, to be near their oldest son, then to Colorado Springs to be near Randy. Conter got his wings in November 1942. did sharks eat pearl harbor victims. His dad has never sought recognition for his service on the Arizona and barely talks about the day of the attack. "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.". He squeezes past the pool table, past the photos and the maps and the medals. At 93, he is one of the last survivors ofthe attack on the Arizona. The six men stared straight ahead, almost as if they were back in line, at attention. One of our cruisers, the heavy cruiser, got hit and water got into the oil. It turned out most of the regular stuntmen were still in the military. There are over 470 species of sharks throughout the world. As the ships turned around, a squadron of enemy bombers appeared. They had voted. "We didn't hear much from the outside at first," Hetrick said. 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 . As the 50thanniversary of the attack neared, Langdell got a call from a documentary filmmaker. You're on your own, every day.'". His fingers were almost smooth, lacking all but a few of the swirls that create an identity. "I was on a date on that Saturday night with a gal I'd been running around with," he says. As his stint was about to end, the Navy decided to transfer him back to Pearl Harbor. "They gave me 30 minutes to get off the ship and catch a transport to San Diego for training," he said. queensland figure skating. "We had 10 or 12 sharks around us all the time," Conter says. By the time they were back, the icicles were forming again and two more guys would go out.". He got to know Alan Ladd, who had starred in a series of war movies. Fires still burned on the broken USS Arizona the morning after the Japanese ambush. "They played country music because the people here loved that," Anderson says. He looked for what he called medium spacing. He signed up for a Navy program that allowed college graduates to attend officer candidate school and emerge as ensigns within three months. The United States was a neutral country at the time; the attack led to its formal entry into World War II the next day. "Mr. Langdell, Mr. Langdell, you've got to come here quick," he said. "Remember Pearl Harbor!" became a rallying cry for the U.S. during World War II. He and his wife, Doris, have lived in the same house for 54 years. As the boat heaved, the man with the ax missed and hit Haerry's hand, nearly severing it from his wrist. "I left them there and hoped to get them back," he says. The men stayed afloat until another plane saw the burning wreckage and tossed out a life raft. The crews learned the routines of the Japanese ships. He cleaned and painted day after day, but he also operated the motor boats used to ferry crew members to shore, a job that let him leave the ship periodically. Did he know anything about meteorology? The ships sent up their own planes and turned back the assault. "They said, 'If you re-enlist, we'll send her over.' "He wanted the east coast, I wanted the west coast. It's the same place where the oil is leaking" oil stores aboard the ship that, even today, still seep to the surface "that's where I got out from below.". 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. To prepare for the trip, they were studying World War II history, attending lectures, writing research papers. 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. They found a way to take prints from the edges of his fingers, enough to satisfy the law. A month after the Coral Sea battle, Cook's ship was part of the American forces in the critical Battle of Midway. Langdell's ship, the USS Arizona, lay dead in the water where she sank 14 minutes into the attack. He's more like family than just a friend.". The smile widens. He stayed aboard the Solace about a month. The fireball from the explosion engulfed the six men in the box and trapped them. LaRocque asked. 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. As he recounts the experience, he rubs his hands together, then holds them out, turning them over. Then we got hit.". A few incidents were possible shark bites, but shark involvement was not [] Occasionally, they would close the store and hook a 33-foot trailer to a pick-up truck. They still had to climb onto the dock and then into a truck for a short ride to a Navy hospital. He had turned down a promotion to ensign, preferring the camaraderie of the enlisted ranks. "The sea was real rough when it came in and the sharks started gathering around. A tale of war and romance mixed in with history. The family sold maple syrup distilled from the trees on their farm. The planes took off and landed on the water; the pilots tied up to buoys near the ship. "This shows where all the ships were," he says, pointing at a map depicting Pearl Harbor on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941. The cities were in ruins. Once a shark finds its prey, it needs to decide on whether to eat or not based on smell and appearance. The sky began to darken and the wind grew. He was treated there for four months. As Cactus Jack, Anderson made a few concessions to his seagoing past. We got as close as 5,000 yards, which was point-blank for those ships. They were having trouble reading his prints, she told Stratton. He played a lot of golf, but missed California. pearl harbor 1941. uss arizona. 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. He will tell his story to people he knows well and trusts, but he is 93 and the details are fading from his memory. 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. He tried to keep his thoughts on the work in the office. He had settled in New Mexico with his family. 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. 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. The offshore diving business could leave its own kind of scars. Oceanic whitetip sharks killed many of the surviving crew in the biggest attack on humans ever recorded Credit: Getty - Contributor. Thickets of tangled shrubs and rows of trees are visible from his window. He left home at 5 every morning and took a ferry from Jamestown to the Navy base. The guns hit the periscope. As a tender, he stayed on the surface, monitoring the divers working on rigs, piers, pipelines, any piece of seaside or seagoing equipment. And he keeps it loaded. Salvage work would begin soon on others. The planes could fly at low altitudes, then buzz upward for a bombing run, confounding enemy gunners trying to calculate speed and distance. Soon, he became one of the earliest TV weathermen and an evening fixture in Roswell homes, or at least those with televisions. When she says anything, I tell her I'm catching up from the war.". Jack shrugged. 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. He wanted to interview Langdell for his project. five letter words with l; jaiswal surname caste; pros and cons of herzberg theory; sechrest funeral home obituaries; curious george stuffed animal 1975; cornerstone staffing application 0 He had stopped at Pearl Harbor more than a decade earlier, on his way to a posting in Korea. "Hi," he said, introducing himself. "We got into San Francisco," he says, "and they never even opened my bags. In U.S. history the name recalls the surprise Japanese air attack on December 7, 1941, that temporarily crippled the U.S. Fleet and resulted in the United States' entry into World War II. As he was packing, a buddy warned him that his possessions would be searched at the port in San Francisco. In the waters off Honolulu, he confronted his memories. He fought with other sailors in the Battle of Midway and watched the Marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima. Bruner was put in charge of the gun batteries. The story of the USS Indianapolis has become legendary with regards to shark attacks, and is known as the worst shark attack in recorded history. They listened for their names and their service branch. Hetrick saw a new opportunity and joined. The telegram, which misspelled Conter's last name, promises further information and asks his family not to divulge Conter's posting. If the shark feels like a dead fish isn't worth its time, it will leave without wasting more energy. Three months before he would mark 30 years with the company, he was let go, bought out like a lot other older workers in those days. A sailor on the repair ship Vestal, tied up nearby, spotted them and threw them a line. The ship steamed toward the Asiatic Pacific and soon Anderson was chasing Japanese forces again, only this time the United States was at war. "We wouldn't get much fire back and by the time they sounded general quarters, we were on our way," Conter said. medge. As he walked past a bar, still in his Navy uniform, a fellow popped out the door and looked Anderson up and down, checking him out more closely someone would ordinarily. "The new ones, they didn't know beans.". 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. Handout . "He's there for me. "Talk about treating you like royalty," he says. He was eating breakfast when he heard the first pops of the attack planes strafing Battleship Row. "A brush painter.". They spoil their granddaughters and can now move on to a new great-granddaughter. We can't let it happen again.". Pictures of past parades. I think that's what kept me living to this day.". "On the day I swore into the Air Force, I was still in my Navy uniform," he said. 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. He keeps a folder of newspaper clippings, magazine stories and copies of a telegram. Stratton falls easily into the memories of his years on diving boats. His name was Cactus Jack and to his fans in southeastern New Mexico, he was the dulcet-voiced host of Sagebrush Serenade, a program of country music on KSWS radio.