When she says anything, I tell her I'm catching up from the war.". 3 min read. He settled in Palm Springs and built a career as a real estate developer, buying up land for commercial and residential projects. "Talk about treating you like royalty," he says. "It's where the war started.". The cities were in ruins. For Haerry, McBride had a the state's highest military honor, the Rhode Island Cross. 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. Servicemembers stationed in Hawaii took care of the memorial during the 2013 government shutdown: Servicemembers stationed in Hawaii treat Pearl Harbor as a living . The Tennessee took hits in the attack, but two of the armor piercing bombs, the kind that sunk the Arizona, failed to detonate. Las Vegas seems to like Hetrick. He started on a small station, playing organ music. person grazed by a shark), nor incidents classified by the International Shark Attack File as boat attacks, scavenge, or doubtful. He still will not talk about it. 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. But Hetrick couldn't find work, so inside of six months, he signed up for the Navy Reserve. sinastria di coppia karmica calcolo; quincy homeless shelter; plastic bags for cleaning oven racks; claudia procula death; farm jobs in vermont with housing Bruner was burned over more than two-thirds of his body. Conter served on the San Pablo and Half Moon. After high school, Langdell enrolled at Boston University, working nights to pay for his classes, and in 1938, he earned a degree in business administration. "It's just not going to happen. He was still active, so would report to the Navy Pier each morning to check a list for the names of sailors who had been given duties for the day. He watched the band perform and stood as a survivor of the Arizona, one of the sailors who lived. On the 70thanniversary of the attack, the men had been brought to the state capitol to receive new honors. Most sharks are carnivores, meaning their diets consist of live prey, including fish, crustaceans, and mollusks. Inside, he found broken bottles scattered in a soggy soup of booze and cardboard. We had survival training on the job. Among his responsibilities was overseeing the naval officers' clubs in the area. During construction of the memorial, the Navy sliced off pieces of the Arizona's wreckage to make room for the structure that sits above the sunken ship today. He squinted and thought about where he was. "I was back here on leave before the war started and he was here too," Cook says. Dec 12 2014. Only 35 dead were . I still had to wait 29 years for that guy to come back and take his brush back.". 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. This time the objective was clear. He spent the rest of the day retrieving bodies from the harbor. 11 Oldest Pearl Harbor Survivors (Updated 2021) December 7, 1941 is a date that everyone in America has committed to memory. We hauled it all back in.". "I've gotten letters from some of the officer candidates who had my father as an instructor," Ray Jr. says. The nurse who checks in on him regularly likes Haerry. "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. Crippled ships still floated around the mooring posts along Ford Island. "Mr. Langdell, Mr. Langdell, you've got to come here quick," he said. How could he say no? They listened for their names and their service branch. For over an hour, in two waves, some 350 Japanese aircrafthaving taken off from six . Nicaragua. On one mission, Haerry's tender was tied to a larger ship as the crew delivered supplies and completed maintenance tasks. A storm was approaching, a big one by the looks of it. That caught the lieutenant colonel's interest. Potts was returning to the Arizona with fresh produce when the first Japanese bombers dove into Pearl Harbor. The easy stories he'd tell. "Iremember hearing explosions at first," he says. UPDATE:Joe Langdell diedin February 2015, months after this report. Why not try radio? It is about three feet tall, with a carved island figure on top and the silhouette of a Hawaiian warrior on a plaque. She likes the story of how they tied the knot. He still tools around town in the truck, but it's a classic now, so he drives it almost as often to car shows. He told his story as his son, Ted, recorded it on video. "I said, 'sure, I'll take it.' The paneled room behind the door in the living room of the Provo house is filled with trophies of almost any imaginable sort. One day, a Navy officer came on board and asked if anyone wanted to volunteer for an assignment in the aviation section. You don't fire guns in port, so I ran out real quick to see what was happening. CARNIVOROUS SHARKS. The mast and towers near the bow tilted at a sickening angle. "I was here all the time. He remembers when the order was given to abandon ship. The Navy captain who lived on Waikiki Beach gave a lot of parties and invited these guys. Cook asked. / Reuters. And my co-pilot, Lou Conter, saved my life. I still get to the point when I'm talking about it, first thing you know, I go to bed at night, wake up and can't sleep for a week.". You need the exercise. LaRocque took Anderson to San Pedro, where his current ship was anchored. Anderson's road to the radio booth started in Hollywood, with a screen test at a studio where he had worked. "You either had a nice place aboard a ship and were high and dry or you didn't have anything," he reasoned. The things I don't want to remember was the blood.". After he returned from Korea, Haerry was promoted to master chief petty officer, signifying his experience and level of service. "If you can stand up and stay up while we change the linen on this bed, we'll see about it.". The clerks decided they could not send Stratton away without his permit. Hetrick thought about it. He had taken a bullet to the back of his leg as he was climbing the tower, but the burns were far worse. "This went on for four straight hours. "We're were out and around. "No one knew where the hell I was," Bruner says. On the other end of the line is an old shipmate from the USS Saratoga, the aircraft carrier where Hetrick worked as a mechanic through most of World War II. It's in good shape for a paper.". One morning, he was at his desk, catching up on paperwork, when he heard a vehicle screech to a halt outside. He thinks back. There are over 470 species of sharks throughout the world. It fit in that location. Stratton logged thousands of miles of travel. "They played country music because the people here loved that," Anderson says. 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. Why Did Pearl Harbor Happen? As he waited, he had a feeling he knew what would happen, but he didn't say anything. The Edsall sailed farther north, then headed to the Philippines, where they played baseball with a group of indigenous Moros, who had fought the United States more than 20 years earlier. did sharks attack titanic survivors. But he is proud of his service, of the other sailors on the Arizona. 2023 www.azcentral.com. Anderson grew up in the Red River Valley of northern Minnesota, the son of a prominent local judge. By then, he'd seen the world, witnessed history before it was history. He stayed there for months. He has told her about his escape from the Arizona. His dad will return finally at his death. He was nervous about volunteering for anything, but he raised his hand. Conter and others in his group boarded a boat to go out to the platform and see his old ship. "It was a big ship with a lot of metal, I'll tell you." The ships sent up their own planes and turned back the assault. Conter told the admiral he was interested in flight school, but doubted he would earn admission. But he clutches the cap and puts it on as he sits in an easy chair by the window. 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. Afew weeks after the war started, sometime in early 1942, Potts opened a letter from his mother. He and his father chat a little. He played a lot of golf, but missed California. "It is only by the grace of God that I stand here today," he said. They found a way to take prints from the edges of his fingers, enough to satisfy the law. There was a tradition at the end of training that the graduates would give the chief a silver dollar. Late in the year, after an overhaul in San Francisco, the Coghlan returned to patrol duty off the Aleutians with a half dozen other U.S. vessels. His fingers were almost smooth, lacking all but a few of the swirls that create an identity. He missed enough of his classes that he was finally asked to leave. "I'm a painter," he said. Potts picked up the Colt 45 he'd found on Ford Island on Dec. 7, 1941. The man in the boat was from Muskogee, a town about 40 miles east of Morris. Cook made it off alive. "The Japanese were only a mile away. "The only people he would talk to were either very close friends or relatives," his son says. Hetrick, who is 91, has outlived most of the men he knew on the Saratoga. The Coghlan's crew battled just to keep the guns free of ice as they headed toward their next target. he met his contact and not long after, he was standing in for Orson Welles in a scene from the movie "The Stranger.". The men, their charred skin peeling away, climbed hand-over-hand across the line to safety. She tracked him to the Los Angeles area, then started a phone search. 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. "I didn't have the slightest idea what would happen when I signed up," he said. The Black Cats flew surveillance, search and rescue, sea patrol, but they proved especially valuable for nighttime assaults and nuisance raids on Japanese submarines and ships. Their ordeal . "It acknowledges to people that I'm a survivor," Joe replies, his voice soft. They wouldn't send her over so I didn't re-enlist.". He asked what the fellow did. We cut the torpedoes loose.". 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. OAHU BOMBED BY JAPANESE PLANES", "That's one of the first extras that was put out that day," Potts says. The band had won a trophy in one of the competitions during their stay in Honolulu. Three days earlier, their 20-year-old son became the first Suffolk County casualty in World War II. LaRocque asked. "Sometimes they'd get shooting at you and you'd look at the shells and they looked like they were going to hit you. December 7, 1941: Pearl Harbor Casualties. One of our cruisers, the heavy cruiser, got hit and water got into the oil. Part of his shoulder was blown off. It hastened the United States' entry . I think it was one of the proudest days of my father's life.". By 1991, the 50thanniversary of the attack, the number of living Arizona crewmen had shrunk. Anderson picked up and moved to New Mexico. "Can you tell me what ship did he go on after the Arizona?" "He wanted the east coast, I wanted the west coast. 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 had escaped the USS Arizona, the battleship whose losses surpassed any other. And he was allowed to visit a part of the Arizona few people ever see. In 1940, Anderson reported to the Arizona once more, joining his brother for the first time since they had enlisted. Cook was discharged in 1948 in San Diego and stuck around California, where he worked as a metal finisher at Van Nuys manufacturing plant. "I knew everything that was going on.". He and Libby moved west to Walnut Creek east of San Francisco. When was the shark attack on the Jersey Shore? 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. As anniversaries of the attack passed, Ray Jr. would asked his dad if he wanted to visit the USS Arizona memorial at Pearl Harbor. "They said, 'If you re-enlist, we'll send her over.' The Macdonough stayed until September, then sailed back on patrol in the Pacific. With Ben Affleck, Josh Hartnett, Kate Beckinsale, William Lee Scott. what is florentine milan straw. Enemy patrol planes spotted the ships and the raid was canceled. Squid. Seven decades later, he is one of nine living survivors from the Arizona. In California, he earned his naval seaman's license and went to work on a drilling rig offshore near Santa Barbara. dwayne johnson rock foundation contact. "No," the worker said. Hetrick saw a new opportunity and joined. It turned out most of the regular stuntmen were still in the military. 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. He tried to keep his thoughts on the work in the office. The family sold maple syrup distilled from the trees on their farm. When the fourth bomb detonated in the powder magazine, anyone left was blown over the side. A while back, Stratton and his wife Velma retired to Yuma and lived there about 15 years. "He was very military by then, very disciplined.". In 2011, he was one of six Rhode Islanders who had lived through the attack on Pearl Harbor, the only one from the Arizona. did sharks eat pearl harbor victimshavelock wool australia. He would work in the port director's office, delivering sealed packets to the captains of Navy ships. As the 50thanniversary of the attack neared, Langdell got a call from a documentary filmmaker. He spent long months on a tender, a vessel that carries equipment, parts and other supplies for ships at sea. Seventy-three years later, he is one of just nine survivors of the attack on the Arizona. "That's what I'm catching up now. 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 can't relive those images anymore. Pearl Harbor was the site of the unprovoked aerial attack on the United States by Japan on December 7, 1941. 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. The fireball from the explosion engulfed the six men in the box and trapped them. "I can understand that," Ray Jr. says. "But it was a lot better than being shot at.". He had a ticket home to Minnesota, but decided to find a place to stay and come up with a plan. "That's what I want to remember. As they walked toward it, Langdell reeled at an odor. niagara this week flyer delivery. Someone from the bureau had been asking questions. He keeps a folder of newspaper clippings, magazine stories and copies of a telegram. I had to take them to the parties and sit there until it was over.". "I just didn't want to. A year later, he felt better, so he re-enlisted. Langdell will return to the Arizona once more. As it fell, he was thrown from the ship into the harbor. When he reaches that part of his story, he stops. In 2006, Hetrick returned to Pearl Harbor for the 65thanniversary of the Japanese attack. Potts returned to Illinois in late 1945 to await his formal discharge, hanging out in Chicago. Haerry accepts the chocolate bars his son has brought him. He got the west coast and I got the east coast. His old co-pilot in the New Guinea days was asked once if he'd had survival training for the war. "Andy, you had 12 years of the damnedest fighting I ever saw. The best time for a bombing raid was after 1 a.m., when the ship was quiet. 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. "I appreciate your thoughtfulness. I guess he'd do anything he could for me. The ship was still a day away from Honolulu when the captain received new orders. Naming Pearl Harbor. 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. Eighty years later, many of those killed are finally returning home and being laid to rest. "We said we'd volunteer if they'd put two or three of us together on the same ship," he said. They could ride to the mainland then and leave for Florida. "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. 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. He sits in his wheelchair as his son recites the narrative, keeping his father's story alive. He told Ray about the plans to honor Pearl Harbor survivors at the statehouse. "When we got up into the Aleutians, we started banging on the Japanese that had already landed," Bruner said. One day, some smaller boats sailed past. He introduced him to other officers. "It's always been my fear that people are going to forget that day, that people are going to forget the sacrifice that was made that day.". Almost imperceptibly, he sways. Whale Shark (Rhincodon typus) The whale shark is the largest shark species, and also the biggest fish species in the world. Salvage work would begin soon on others. "Lou, let's go to flight school," Conter's buddy said one day. He fought with other sailors in the Battle of Midway and watched the Marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima. "I don't think we'll ever be able to swim to shore. "I ain't seen 'em since.". John was sent from training camp in Illinois to Bremerton, Wash. 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. Many places around the world are named for a stand-out feature, and Pearl Harbor is no different. Abe offered condolences and said he prayed that all their souls were at peace. "I went back and told my mother I wasn't going up there anymore," he said. He left home at 5 every morning and took a ferry from Jamestown to the Navy base. They had voted. It was the first time Randy, his son, had seen his father cry. He had visited before, but this trip meant more. "He should have the Navy Cross," Stratton says. Bruner started as a painter, trained as a carpenter, then helped start a new sheet-metal department. About a month later, Japanese suicide bombers sunk the Pringle near Okinawa. 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. Just another site did sharks eat pearl harbor victims Why is the FBI checking up on you, she wanted to know. "It never gets easy to go back," he says. is clu gulager still alive did sharks attack titanic survivors. Some even extend their consumption to seabirds. With a total of 1,195 men aboard, about 300 went down with the ship. Bruner and the Coghlan returned to Honolulu and finished out the war in the South Pacific. He kept the truck, held on to it through repairs, engine overhauls, new paint jobs. All those sailors from all those places and here was a guy who was practically a neighbor. He gave Anderson the name of a contact there. A smile spreads across his face as Dean Martin's voice fills the cab. Pearl Harbor, naval base and headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, Honolulu county, southern Oahu Island, Hawaii, U.S. "We made so many landings," Anderson said. Pearl Harbor was a United States Naval base on the island of Oahu, located west of Honolulu. Hetrick recovered. It wasn't, but the flash was a reminder, as if he needed anything more. Hetrick was on board during battles at Midway and Wake Island and for the U.S. invasion of Iwo Jima early in 1945. 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. 4 Comments. His mother had moved to Decatur, Ill., by then, so he followed and took a job at a hardware store. For some reason I had always thought that the titanic had gone down way farther North. Cha c sn phm trong gi hng. Joe Langdell found a table in the wardroom of one of the ships moored in Pearl Harbor and sat down with his breakfast. By Christmas, he was in a hospital at Mare Island near San Francisco. Updated: Dec 8, 2021 / 05:46 AM CST. One of the survivors would receive the Rhode Island Cross. The ship provided fire support for the Marines going ashore. All but one of the Pacific fleet's battleships were in port that morning, most of them moored to quays flanking Ford Island. 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. Haerry sailed on Navy ships through World War II and again during the Korean conflict. He signed up for a Navy program that allowed college graduates to attend officer candidate school and emerge as ensigns within three months. With his experience running cranes on the Arizona, Potts figures he could have landed a decent job at the Geneva Steel operation, but he didn't want to work shifts, so he worked as a carpenter again and eventually went into the used car business with a friend. Smoke rises from the battleship USS Arizona as it sinks . He bought another gun in the states and he is never far from it. He was cut loose in San Francisco and returned to Los Angeles, where he had married a girl back in late 1942. "Here we are, we can't see the enemy. Conter fought on through World War II, scraped past a lot of close calls, then went to Korea. "What are you looking at?" The new shoes he left on the deck of the sinking ship, the ones he intended to retrieve later. 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. We swept the decks and took the small bones. '", "Some things," he says, "you don't know about what they'll mean until years later.". The face plate is glass and around the bottom are screws that would secure it to the diving suit. He was assigned a battle station in the No. He describes the store of booze they pulled out of safe and the money. Cook and the other men stayed below deck until the smoke from a fire forced them to leave. Some of 'em made it, some of 'em landed on the deck. 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. Cook made it to his battle station on Dec. 7, 1941, but the Arizona was moored in a cramped harbor and couldn't have fired the big guns even in a prolonged assault. He stopped in the small town of Payson, Utah. Stratton climbed to his feet and, biting back the pain, he stood and when his bed was ready, he collapsed back into it. 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. Haerry felt the entire ship life out of the water. A year after World War II ended, Haerry went home for a while and married a girl he'd met not long before. The ones that gave him nightmares, the stories from the day he nearly burned to death, he kept to himself. "He said, 'I had survival training in the ocean. Posted on December 7, 2021, 5:08 pm. But John Anderson, the Navy chief petty officer who called himself Cactus Jack on the air, had a good head start already. The Coghlan turned back, almost spent. Golfers play through 50 yards from Conter's driveway. "We don't think you'd make it. He needed a truck to carry equipment back and forth, so he scouted out a car lot and bought a 1965 Chevrolet pickup. "The new ones, they didn't know beans.". The unprovoked attack on Pearl Harbor killed more than 2,400 Americans and struck a blow to the Navy's Pacific fleet, which had been based at Pearl Harbor. From the shore, he helped wounded men from the water, men whose bodies had been torn apart by bombs and bullets and fire.