did sharks eat pearl harbor victims

Langdell was discharged at the war's end and returned to Massachusetts, where his wife, Libby, waited. McBride reached the last man, Raymond Haerry, a 20-year-old coxswain on the day of the assault. He won't talk much about the escape, or about the men who didn't make it across. The six-year Pentagon project identified nearly 400 who died on the USS Oklahoma in 1941. He was smart enough to excel, but started cutting classes not long after the start of his first semester. He can't relive those images anymore. "I wasn't going out there. A bow. We'd go out and blow them up.". Hetrick saw a new opportunity and joined. While this is a genuine threat to safety, it continues to remain statistically unlikely. He's not so fond of the crowds around Honolulu and doesn't plan to go back. He wrote Libby a letter and suggested it would be a good idea if Libby visited her friend on or about a particular date. "I canned 500 quarts of fruit one year," Marietta says. 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. Within a day or two, someone came into the ward and said a few of the wounded would be sent to California. Yes, he'll say, he was on the Arizona and he survived. He finally received his orders to return to the states. Were there sharks Pearl Harbor? "Something had happened that no one could comprehend.". Usually, sharks will prioritize eating: Smaller fish. 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. Conter fought on through World War II, scraped past a lot of close calls, then went to Korea. 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. "The hat represents the Arizona. I asked the boss, 'how many hours is in a day for you?' "It was rough weather, foggy, raining cold," Anderson said. Lonnie had taken up trap shooting and hoped to do a little hunting back home. For an hour or so, the two men talk. Three days earlier, their 20-year-old son became the first Suffolk County casualty in World War II. And that's what he told every soldier and airman who took his courses.*. "Hi," he said, introducing himself. His mother suggested Hills Business College in Oklahoma City. Langdell knew Libby was friends with a skater in the Ice Follies, which was summering in San Francisco. "But it was a lot better than being shot at.". Your California Privacy Rights / Privacy Policy. 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. He displayed no pictures, kept no mementos that his family knew about. They had voted. "They paid everybody in two dollar bills back then. Hetrick recovered. After so many years of travel, the Cooks have settled into a more tranquil pace. "No," the worker said. 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. "Talk about treating you like royalty," he says. Only 35 dead were . Hetrick was sent to the USS Lexington, an aircraft carrier. He didn't have to pay for dinner. "We made so many landings," Anderson said. He enrolled, but after a couple of weeks, the noisy streetcars and the police sirens kept him up all night. The day after, President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared it "a date which will live in infamy," and Congress . "We're right-arm rates." 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. Helpless, I watched your bomb sink the Arizona in nine minutes.". Now, Bruner prepares for his next trip in the Captain's Quarters. The report: Oh, yes, she can cook. He was 20 when he escaped the burning wreckage ofthe USS Arizonain Pearl Harbor. A carnivorous shark diet usually includes fish, mollusks, and crustaceans. "It acknowledges to people that I'm a survivor," Joe replies, his voice soft. He would sail to San Francisco on one of the cruise ships refitted to move troops, the Lurline, or maybe the Matsonia. And it holds deep meaning for Potts, even though he did nothing to win it. A moment passes. When he returned home, he got another call from the band director. Framed medals. Many places around the world are named for a stand-out feature, and Pearl Harbor is no different. Once a month or so, Clarendon Hetrick's phone rings with a call from Utah. "Some of the ships I was on had guys who liked to play the guitar, so I knew something about it. They were dead in the water.". The man walked over and looked at Langdell's name tag. Cook has returned to Pearl Harbor three times and he likes the Arizona memorial. It is a piece of rigging used to secure a mooring line from a ship. 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. They bought a small ranch and, while Lonnie continued to work welding jobs, they grew walnuts, almonds, peaches, apples, nectarines, cherries and grapes. He would draw out snippets and stash them away, collecting them until he would weave the barest narrative. Naming Pearl Harbor. 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. Handout . He half-swam, half-walked the 70 yards to Ford Island and manned a mounted machine gun. After his second discharge, he knocked around Nebraska again, working in his dad's tavern, then on a beer truck, but he grew bored. That led to a job in Roswell, the Sagebrush Serenade and Elvis Presley. Cook is invited to such events occasionally and sometimes introduced as an Arizona survivor. His mother had moved to Decatur, Ill., by then, so he followed and took a job at a hardware store. His dad operated a livery stable and a small dairy and later earned money as an auctioneer. Bruner, who turned 94 in November, is now one of nine living USS Arizona crewmen who survived the ship's sinking. "What's up with this one? "Are you out of the Navy, Andy?" Soon, he became one of the earliest TV weathermen and an evening fixture in Roswell homes, or at least those with televisions. Photographing survivors of the battleship USS Arizona. He wanted men with eyes set in the right place on their face. For a lot of people, meeting Elvis and playing one of his first records on the air might sound like one of life's truly unforgettable days. 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. He said, 'whatever I can get out of you.' A painting of the Arizona hangs on the wall of a sitting room. "I ran the decompression chamber on jobs. Keeping the memories alive. Their backs are gray, blue, or brown in color and covered with regularly arranged light spots. Potts was returning to the Arizona with fresh produce when the first Japanese bombers dove into Pearl Harbor. But when Ka'ahupahau realized that the girl actually did die, she regretted her rash order and instead said that sharks should never attack humans in the Pearl Harbor region. "Would you like to listen to it?" Ken Potts eases around the side of the pool table, waving toward items like a museum tour guide in a back room. queensland figure skating. Octopus. He put the disc on a turntable and dropped the needle. A few years after that, they left for Las Vegas, where their son, Bob, and his family help them get around. Potts says, shaking his head. On December 7, 1941, the Imperial Japanese Navy bombed the Pearl Harbor Naval base in a surprise attack. Before the attack, many Americans were reluctant to become involved in the war in Europe. "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 gave Anderson the name of a contact there. 2022-06-16 Uncategorized Uncategorized The face plate is glass and around the bottom are screws that would secure it to the diving suit. Langdell's ship, the USS Arizona, lay dead in the water where she sank 14 minutes into the attack. He agreed to play it on his show. The band members had decided they wanted to honor survivors from that day. He refused to cut the line no matter what. "The stuff he likes.". The Navy wanted to keep him in Idaho, working with new recruits at a boot camp, but he pushed for a seagoing assignment and wound up on the destroyer USS Stack as a gunner's mate. Toward the end the war, Langdell was stationed in the Philippines, at a base in Manila. 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. And there's a trophy in the corner the paneled room that means as much as anything else there. "There was a huge oil fire on the surface of the water fueled by the ships' tanks, so it created these giant fires all over the water," Nelson said. Bruner was burned over more than two-thirds of his body. ages 2, 3 and 8, together with a 14-year-old cousin . He saw action across the South Pacific, patrolled areas where suicide bombers were attacking American destroyers. He likes chocolate and is disappointed if Ray Jr. forgets it. 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. Anderson has returned to the Arizona memorial often and has taken his family there. "He called me one night and said if you won't let me come to California, I found a lady who's got a new black Buick and I'm going to move to Texas.". "Well, I'd brushed enough paint on that damn ship, I figured I could do it," he says. Stratton logged thousands of miles of travel. "They agreed.". "It gets your breath when you first see it," he says. Joe proposed and Libby accepted. Pearl Harbor, naval base and headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, Honolulu county, southern Oahu Island, Hawaii, U.S. The ships encountered a Japanese fleet, two big cruisers, six destroyers, some troop ships, and engaged. Stratton falls easily into the memories of his years on diving boats. "In three days, we rescued 219 coast watchers without losing anybody," Conter said. Potts returned to Illinois in late 1945 to await his formal discharge, hanging out in Chicago. The family sold maple syrup distilled from the trees on their farm. A sign over the arched door marks the room as "Captain's Quarters.". An impressive collection of restaurant menus from 30 years of cross-country searches for used cars. He hasn't hunted in a while, though he still reloads his own ammunition on a garage workbench. He settled in Palm Springs and built a career as a real estate developer, buying up land for commercial and residential projects. Lou Conter is telling the story of the night his patrol bomber was shot down seven miles off the coast of New Guinea, dumping the seaplane's 10-man crew into the Pacific Ocean. He returns his attention to the cranes and the catapults that flung the seaplanes into flight. "You I know.") From Virginia, he went to Utah, to France and then to Albuquerque, where he retired in November 1961. Admiral Yamamoto of the Imperial Japanese Navy came to the conclusion that for the Japanese to be victorious in the pacific, they had to destroy the . Smoke rises from the battleship USS Arizona as it sinks . "I would tell them. Today, he tries to pass on what he knows to students of history. He fought cold and hunger on a ship nearly dead in the ocean off Alaska. They met at a dance at the YWCA on North State Street. Not war stories, usually, not unless one of them has had it out with a doctor or a pushy clerk. "After 36 hours, I still hadn't put in a day. "That's what I'm catching up now. The inscription reads "Spirit of Aloha Award, Timpview High School Marching Band.". For years, Stratton wore the scars from the Arizona without talking about them much. After the war, Langdell returned to the family auction business in Massachusetts, but after all those years in Hawaii, the Philippines and in the tropical South Seas, he couldn't readjust to the cold. "Lots of big band songs," Randy says, as the first bars of a brass line pour from the speakers. 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. pearl harbor 1941. uss arizona. The woman helped connect Bruner with other survivors from the Arizona and Pearl Harbor. Lonnie finally retired from welding in 1982 and in 1994, the Cooks moved back to Morris. He had a ticket home to Minnesota, but decided to find a place to stay and come up with a plan. The body parts we put in pillow cases. As Conter told it, the story wasn't about punching sharks, or skulking in the jungle or chasing shadows to the waiting rescue boat. Langdell lives now in a skilled nursing center. He called back a few days later. "Why do you like the hat, dad?" No one knew much about Bruner's years in the Navy, not the early years anyway. "One day our boat was stacked with two dollar bills," he said. When she says anything, I tell her I'm catching up from the war.". Hetrick still likes to talk about the new shoes he bought the day before the attack in Honolulu. Bruner laughs as he remembers the conversation. Yes, some of them were his friends. Similarly, the . Marietta shakes her head. He remembers the crewman trying to climb a ladder to escape through a hatchway on the deck. Once a week, they motor on into Tulsa, where Marietta takes a china painting class and Lonnie wanders the aisles of sporting-goods stores. He stepped off the deck into a motor launch as the ship was sinking. 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. At dawn on December 7, 1941, more than half of the United States Pacific Fleet, approximately 150 vessels and service craft, lay at anchor or alongside piers in Pearl Harbor. When they said, 'grab your sea bags and let's go,' I did.". So he did. Colombia. 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. 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. After the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom, the United States opted to construct a naval base in 1899. "OK," Bruner said. June 12, 2022 . During the conference, the Pringle sailed into the Mediterranean Sea and anchored in a river. Just another site did sharks eat pearl harbor victims He had turned down a promotion to ensign, preferring the camaraderie of the enlisted ranks. The Stratton men have taken up a more personal cause. Sometimes, Japanese pilots attended memorial ceremonies and some of the other survivors would shake their hands. 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. If a shark comes too close, hit it in the nose with your fist as hard as you can.". The strike climaxed a decade of worsening relations between the United States and Japan. "Mr. Langdell," he said, "when you're done with your breakfast, you'll report to the pier and you'll be met by a motor whale boat and a party of 20 enlisted men with sheets and pillow cases. Around 2005, he and Jeanne moved to Bullhead City. The parties sometimes dragged into the early morning hours. He started chatting up a regular customer, a contractor, and got a job building houses. "We didn't hear much from the outside at first," Hetrick said. He told his story as his son, Ted, recorded it on video. 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. The first couple of trips back to Hawaii were difficult. They moved to Santa Maria, not far from Santa Barbara, to be near their oldest son, then to Colorado Springs to be near Randy. The shock of jumping into a harbor knowing he couldn't swim. So reads the telegram sent to the Mattituck home of Anna and Clifford Penny on Dec. 10, 1941. I had to take them to the parties and sit there until it was over.". "What houses they built!" Anderson always talks about his brother, Delbert "Jake" Anderson, when he tells the story of his own escape from the burning ship. "I can understand that," Ray Jr. says. The Coghlan's crew battled just to keep the guns free of ice as they headed toward their next target. Military Casualties. "I decided I'd do whatever they told me to. 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. "We won't get in," Conter said. "Can you tell me what ship did he go on after the Arizona?" "The station wagon was for the captains of some of the ships that would come in," he said. "Would you like a job?" We cut the torpedoes loose.". That's why the FBI was nosing around me, Potts thought. In the years after, he became active in survivors' groups and started going back to Pearl Harbor more often. Except the cap. A platform marked the wreckage of the USS Arizona. Photos of the ship and other survivors at reunions in Honolulu. Only a few hundred people lived there then. He keeps it with him when he travels. No one among the groups knew where he was or what he was doing, but the woman persisted. Bass. "We're were out and around. evolution golf cart forum On the morning of May 8, the fighting intensified as American aircraft tried to turn back the enemy planes. "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. Minutes later, the Japanese attacked and the Arizona was on fire, sinking beneath the surface. But he became restless. . 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. In late 1943, Conter flew a mission to rescue more than 200 coast watchers in New Guinea. In January, another ship took him to San Francisco to the Navy hospital on Treasure Island. By Christmas, he was in a hospital at Mare Island near San Francisco. He was assigned a battle station in the No. It never returned, crippled in the Battle of the Coral Sea and scuttled by the Navy to keep the enemy from salvaging her. "Sure, let's see it." "They gave me 30 minutes to get off the ship and catch a transport to San Diego for training," he said. At dawn on December 7, 1941, more than half of the United States Pacific Fleet, approximately 150 vessels and service craft, lay at anchor or alongside piers in Pearl Harbor. 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. They were having trouble reading his prints, she told Stratton. What they didn't count on was the side-street parking. 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 "We would go in with a landing party or we furnished artillery for the landing force. But the war was over. It took more courage on your part to present this wreath than it did for me to accept it.". He waited for the result. "The nights up there were already short, so I didn't get much sleep," Cook says. A smile spreads across his face as Dean Martin's voice fills the cab. Alcohol. He and a buddy would sneak off campus and hop freight trains to see how far they could get. The day after the attack, President Franklin D . In the late 1930s, American foreign policy in the Pacific hinged on support for China, and . To prepare for the trip, they were studying World War II history, attending lectures, writing research papers. He made bargemaster on a huge drilling rig, but yearned for something more interesting, so he got a job as a tender with a commercial deep sea diving business. He spent the rest of the day retrieving bodies from the harbor. "He remembers body parts in the water, charred burned bodies that he swam by," his son Ray, Jr., says. The fireball from the explosion engulfed the six men in the box and trapped them. BuzzFeed News Photo Editor. As he recounts the experience, he rubs his hands together, then holds them out, turning them over. Anderson spoke to one of the tanker's crew about towing the Macdonough. Sentiment ran high against the Japanese, he said, but also against U.S. leaders whose decisions many questioned in the aftermath. The six men stared straight ahead, almost as if they were back in line, at attention. He struggles to speak at times (though when he's feeling good, he likes to flirt with the nurses). His ships steamed across the Pacific, through the Panama Canal to Africa. Williams was in the Arizona's band. That was the way it was.". "The new ones, they didn't know beans.". He started on a small station, playing organ music. He spent long months on a tender, a vessel that carries equipment, parts and other supplies for ships at sea. They ran Joe and Libby Langdell's Village Mart for more than 20 years until they retired. In Alaska, he helped set up platforms that could keep up with tides that rose and fell as much as 32 feet. "The sea was real rough when it came in and the sharks started gathering around. The ships sent up their own planes and turned back the assault. The crews were based on tender ships moored in secluded harbors. They eventually bought a home-furnishings outlet farther inland and finally built their own store in Yuba City, north of Sacramento. Photographs. As he prepared for his new posting on the Frazier, Langdell decided to make a move. He went out to the floating memorial. Then they'd go by.". Langdell will return to the Arizona once more. niagara this week flyer delivery. The clerks decided they could not send Stratton away without his permit. "You either had a nice place aboard a ship and were high and dry or you didn't have anything," he reasoned. "I didn't have any speaking parts, but I was working for the studio and they paid me.". In February, the Aylwin was part of a U.S. task force preparing for a raid on a Japanese base at Raubal, on the island of New Britain near Australia. Cook made it off alive. The war's over.". The Saratoga sailed across the South Pacific, to Guam, the Philippines, around New Guinea. The report said most of the guys in the anti-aircraft batteries, where Jake fought, were shot down early in the assault. He's not sure he'd have learned that lesson if he hadn't enlisted in the Navy. All but one of the Pacific fleet's battleships were in port that morning, most of them moored to quays flanking Ford Island. The two men not only met, they took a boat to the USS Arizona memorial and laid a wreath in front of the wall with the names of the crewmen who died on the ship. 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. The ones after that were, too. 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. He still will not talk about it. "We were told to watch out for them, these guys were assassins," Anderson said. Then we got hit.". But he clutches the cap and puts it on as he sits in an easy chair by the window. The Macdonough stayed until September, then sailed back on patrol in the Pacific. "I was on a date on that Saturday night with a gal I'd been running around with," he says. Crippled ships still floated around the mooring posts along Ford Island.

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