Five years later, in 2011, he got a call from the band director at Timpview High School in Provo. With a gun, he could defend himself. For a long time, Haerry never talked about his experiences at Pearl Harbor. 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. Be immersed in the details of the infamous attack on Pearl Harbor and . Bruner was one of them. Potts was returning to the Arizona with fresh produce when the first Japanese bombers dove into Pearl Harbor. He wanted one last unforgettable day. After an initial run-in with the guard at the gate ("Three weeks ago, I was shooting at people and killing them and I didn't even know who they were," he growled at the guard. Pearl Harbor (2001) - IMDb / Reuters. For 30 years, Lauren Bruner punched a clock at a manufacturing plant south of Los Angeles, a World War II veteran in a landscape crawling with them. DES MOINES, Iowa - A World War II veteran thought to be the oldest survivor of the Pearl Harbor attack died last month at 103. He returned after the war to his home along the railway in eastern Oklahoma. Then we got hit.". The inscription reads "Spirit of Aloha Award, Timpview High School Marching Band.". "We made friends. The ship carried four 5-inch anti-aircraft guns and six half-inch machine guns, and, initially, five 21-inch torpedo tubes. The smell of burned skin filled the air. Bass. A few incidents were possible shark bites, but shark involvement was not [] "Hi," he said, introducing himself. It took Ray Jr. years, decades to piece together his father's story. Today, he is one of nine remaining survivors from the mighty battleship. "I never talked about it much then," he says. He would become the final survivor to be interred in the ship. "He remembers body parts in the water, charred burned bodies that he swam by," his son Ray, Jr., says. Jobs were few, so he set off for Warner, Okla, with the idea of playing football at Connors State Agricultural College. "He'd always have to be prompted.". As the ships turned around, a squadron of enemy bombers appeared. That fateful day led the United States . Farther down the paneled wall hangs a painting of the USS Arizona, the battleship Navy recruit Potts boarded in December 1939. Potts picked up the Colt 45 he'd found on Ford Island on Dec. 7, 1941. he met his contact and not long after, he was standing in for Orson Welles in a scene from the movie "The Stranger.". "I told another kid if they come back again tonight, I'm leaving.". Haerry held the rope that connected the ships as another crewman swung an ax to cut it. he said. "It's just not going to happen. "From down inside, it wasn't too bad when they fired it," Cook said. The fireball from the explosion engulfed the six men in the box and trapped them. When they sent me my discharge, I just stayed here.". Some common species of fish sharks hunt include: Tuna. The Coghlan supported Army landings and Navy bombing runs. 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 will tell his story to people he knows well and trusts, but he is 93 and the details are fading from his memory. I had one pair of dungarees and that was it, that and a towel and shaving gear.". 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. "They were holed up behind sandbags, but they never got hit.". On the actual night of the Titanic, were there actually sharks In 1967, Conter retired from the Navy. He remembers all the details and most of what happened later. "We didn't hear much from the outside at first," Hetrick said. He and Libby moved west to Walnut Creek east of San Francisco. Conter told the admiral he was interested in flight school, but doubted he would earn admission. "Lou, let's go to flight school," Conter's buddy said one day. The men followed orders in a fog of wonderment and confusion. He stayed there for months. Then we had to go back.". The paneled room behind the door in the living room of the Provo house is filled with trophies of almost any imaginable sort. 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 watched the band perform and stood as a survivor of the Arizona, one of the sailors who lived. When he returned home, he got another call from the band director. Anderson has returned to the Arizona memorial often and has taken his family there. He likes chocolate and is disappointed if Ray Jr. forgets it. When he dies, his remains will be interred under the No. He put the disc on a turntable and dropped the needle. "We worked with a crane barge capable of lifting 700 tons," he sys. Ken Potts eases around the side of the pool table, waving toward items like a museum tour guide in a back room. They were married in an Episcopal Church on Van Ness Avenue. They met at a dance at the YWCA on North State Street. The Macdonough had collided with another destroyer, the Sicard. -Ryan Dutcher. Photographs hang on the walls of his room. elephant tail jewelry did sharks eat pearl harbor victims. From Virginia, he went to Utah, to France and then to Albuquerque, where he retired in November 1961. The venture was working out well. The trophy sits on a small white base that raises it above other items on a shelf. The next morning, the Arizona was still burning as oil flowed out of her full tanks. Haerry straightened in his seat as his story was told. They catch up. Tensions between Japan and the U.S. simmered throughout the early 20th century and came to a boil in the 1930s as Japan attempted to conquer China, even . "I cleaned up my language," he says, admitting he deployed a salty vocabulary, even after leaving active duty. 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. 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. He signed up for a Navy program that allowed college graduates to attend officer candidate school and emerge as ensigns within three months. They traveled around the country, meeting up with other USS Arizona survivors, with shipmates from the Frazier. Kitchen patrol. For some reason I had always thought that the titanic had gone down way farther North. Haerry accepts the chocolate bars his son has brought him. "No," the worker said. They had voted. "I bought it at the receiving station in Pearl Harbor. "Sometimes they'd get shooting at you and you'd look at the shells and they looked like they were going to hit you. "It didn't take me that long. 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. On December 7, 1941, the Imperial Japanese Navy bombed the Pearl Harbor Naval base in a surprise attack. Within a day or two, someone came into the ward and said a few of the wounded would be sent to California. Someone had stacked the boxes too high and in the humid environment of the island, the cardboard had grown damp and weak. These Photos Of The Pearl Harbor Attack Are Still Shocking Decades Later "A day that will live in infamy." By . On a recent fall afternoon, Stratton ambles down the driveway and fires up the engine. "We don't think you'd make it. "We won't get in," Conter said. He had visited before, but this trip meant more. 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. 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. He and a buddy would sneak off campus and hop freight trains to see how far they could get. "I thought you'd be in flight school," he said. They bought a small ranch and, while Lonnie continued to work welding jobs, they grew walnuts, almonds, peaches, apples, nectarines, cherries and grapes. "Three months later, I was in Korea.". Two deer racks (his wife shot one, his son the other). 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. 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 . A few years later, a new station owner showed Anderson his plans to start a TV station. A painting of the Arizona hangs on the wall of a sitting room. The job paid $700. Sailors jumped into fires to escape sinking vessels. They will celebrate 65 years of marriage in April. So reads the telegram sent to the Mattituck home of Anna and Clifford Penny on Dec. 10, 1941. 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. Usually, sharks will prioritize eating: Smaller fish. Not long after, a second plane dropped a life raft and all 10 of the crew made to shore and, the next night, back to the base. Before the trip, Langdell hadn't talked much about his years in the war, about his time on the Arizona. Some even extend their consumption to seabirds. The ship accompanied General Douglas MacArthur to the Philippines and was anchored in the harbor off Nagasaki, Japan, when the second atomic bomb exploded. He displayed no pictures, kept no mementos that his family knew about. He stepped off the deck into a motor launch as the ship was sinking. ", "I was," Anderson said. He had taken a bullet to the back of his leg as he was climbing the tower, but the burns were far worse. He acknowledged the wreath. on the Arizonawhen the battleship sankon Dec. 7. the final survivor to be interred in the ship. I couldn't.". did sharks eat pearl harbor victims - playtcubed.com UPDATE: Bruner died in 2019. He had stopped at Pearl Harbor more than a decade earlier, on his way to a posting in Korea. The men helped one another, holding up anyone who weakened. They would serve together for a little over a year. Stratton falls easily into the memories of his years on diving boats. 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 . He finished his stint in the Navy in Shanghai, working shore patrol the way he did back in Honolulu. "Lots of big band songs," Randy says, as the first bars of a brass line pour from the speakers. Langdell will return to the Arizona once more. 2022-06-16 Uncategorized Uncategorized "One day our boat was stacked with two dollar bills," he said. world war ii. The gun took away some of the terror he had felt from the moment he saw the first bomber, the panic he felt when he found the armories on board the ship locked. Smoke rises from the battleship USS Arizona as it sinks . He introduced him to other officers. He jumped into the harbor, even though he had never passed his swimming test. noah brown columbus ohio From the Vestal, Bruner was taken to the USS Solace, a hospital ship in the harbor. He climbed aboard the ship, ducking to avoid bullets from the gunner planes. The United States was a neutral country at the time; the attack led to its formal entry into World War II the next day. And he was aboard on Dec. 7, 1941, when the Japanese bombed the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor, a pivotal moment in history, but one that struck Anderson to his core. He didn't know what to tell them. He was active in those groups for many years, serving as president of one devoted to the Arizona. Libby had arranged stays north of the city. Helpless, I watched your bomb sink the Arizona in nine minutes.". "If you can stand up and stay up while we change the linen on this bed, we'll see about it.". They eventually bought a home-furnishings outlet farther inland and finally built their own store in Yuba City, north of Sacramento. Jack shrugged. Still traveling at 17 knots, the Indianapolis began taking on massive amounts of water; the ship sank in just 12 minutes. "We would go in with a landing party or we furnished artillery for the landing force. "If somebody in authority said do something back then, you didn't question it. Attack on Pearl Harbor - Wikipedia Bruner toured Nagasaki in a Jeep with other Navy officers and chief mates. Finally, the Navy gave him a medical discharge. The Hirasaki family suffered some of the worst losses that terrible morning. By Michael E. Ruane. The guns hit the periscope. Bruner thought it an odd request. He spent long months on a tender, a vessel that carries equipment, parts and other supplies for ships at sea. The guns used the same type of control mechanisms Bruner had mastered on the Arizona. Japanese torpedo bombers hit the Lexington and crippled the big ship. He stayed aboard the Solace about a month. After the war, he worked as a stuntman for Orson Welles and John Wayne and helped build Alan Ladd's house in the hills outside Hollywood. The best time for a bombing raid was after 1 a.m., when the ship was quiet. The band would cover all expenses for him and Doris. "I didn't have any speaking parts, but I was working for the studio and they paid me.". LaRocque asked. "I really miss it.". The United States declared war on Japan on December 8, 1941, the day following the attack on Pearl Harbor. As he talks about Pearl Harbor again, other memories surface. He got to know Alan Ladd, who had starred in a series of war movies. Once he was awakened by a loud noise and a flash and thought his ship was under attack. "I was back here on leave before the war started and he was here too," Cook says. 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. Did sharks eat Titanic victims? What do sharks eat in Hawaii? - 2023 He saw action across the South Pacific, patrolled areas where suicide bombers were attacking American destroyers. UPDATE:John Anderson diedin November 2015, less than a year after this report. They offered to perform at a gathering of Utah survivors. They are reminders of a moment in time he can never escape, a moment he sees again and again. What do Sharks Eat? Do They Eat People & Dead Bodies? - Maritime Herald When she says anything, I tell her I'm catching up from the war.".