"They were saying, when it first started, some of the ones whose station was up here ", He traces his finger up onto the main forward mast, to the crow's nest and the bridge. And he still likes to talk about that other young fellow from Oklahoma, the one who didn't make it home. He will meet three other survivors in Hawaii for their last reunion. That led to a job in Roswell, the Sagebrush Serenade and Elvis Presley. Potts says, shaking his head. 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. did sharks attack titanic survivors. Within a day or two, someone came into the ward and said a few of the wounded would be sent to California. 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. He was cut loose in San Francisco and returned to Los Angeles, where he had married a girl back in late 1942. He has told her about his escape from the Arizona. "To see the people I knew back in those days," he says. "They played country music because the people here loved that," Anderson says. "The kids coming up now have never heard of it," he says, his voice tinged with sadness and dismay. The Japanese military had established strategic outposts in the Aleutian Islands and had its eye on Alaska. The guns hit the periscope. 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. "I was always wanting to learn more when I was younger," says Hetrick's younger son, Robert, who lives not far from his dad in Las Vegas. Williams was in the Arizona's band. "It was a big ship with a lot of metal, I'll tell you." They are the marks of a survivor, 73 years on. Conter had made friends with a young lady in Honolulu. I couldn't.". Guns. He will tell his story to people he knows well and trusts, but he is 93 and the details are fading from his memory. Pearl Harbor was the site of the unprovoked aerial attack on the United States by Japan on December 7, 1941. Bruner was one of them. "They told me the team was already picked," he said. 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. But he could not be prepared for what he found on the charred hulk of the battleship. "I wasn't going out there. Doctors and nurses wove among gurneys, administering morphine shots and looking for the victims most in need. It turned out little was the right word. 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. Conter got his wings in November 1942. "It's one of the best actual memorials I've seen," he says. The river wound through dense vegetation, leaving 15 or 20 feet of clearance on each side of the plane. His name never appeared and he would leave for the day. He is one of nine living survivors from the attack on the USS Arizona, the battleship he boarded in 1941 when he was 17. The Macdonough had collided with another destroyer, the Sicard. 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. He stayed on the 17thfloor of a hotel on Waikiki Beach. He has been telling his story to an author, Ed McGrath, who is working on a book and a film about Bruner's escape from a collapsing tower on the ship. The Macdonough pulled picket patrol often, protecting other troops and guarding against kamikaze attacks by Japanese planes. In 1940, Anderson reported to the Arizona once more, joining his brother for the first time since they had enlisted. 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 started on a small station, playing organ music. That was the end of it.". Kitchen patrol. Ray Jr. has arranged for his father's remains to be interred in the sunken Arizona, an honor accorded any of the sailors or Marines who survived the attack. "We would go in with a landing party or we furnished artillery for the landing force. He visited the memorial and was relieved to see the builders got it right. As he waited, he had a feeling he knew what would happen, but he didn't say anything. Calhoun told Conter to put in for the assignment. The planes took off and landed on the water; the pilots tied up to buoys near the ship. Photographing survivors of the battleship USS Arizona. They called the Marines out with rifles to protect the plane and the guys while we hauled it in.". Cha c sn phm trong gi hng. One day, he stopped for coffee at the Brown Derby restaurant in Hollywood. It's in good shape for a paper.". Nobody could debate what that was, no question about it.". "Can you tell me what ship did he go on after the Arizona?" She tracked him to the Los Angeles area, then started a phone search. Doctors treated him and he recovered, but the his fingers never healed properly. "This shows where all the ships were," he says, pointing at a map depicting Pearl Harbor on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941. Never would've found it.". The Coghlan supported Army landings and Navy bombing runs. BuzzFeed News Photo Editor. They catch up. The venture was working out well. You're the bravest man I ever know. He wrote a training manual whose precepts the Navy still follows. Conter was stationed on the Arizona at Pearl Harbor in September 1941, when he turned 20. That fateful day led the United States . One day in May, crewmen spotted two periscopes in the water and the Frazier opened fire. And my co-pilot, Lou Conter, saved my life. "I ain't seen 'em since.". The California was way down here. "A brush painter.". "Here we are, we can't see the enemy. "They said what a wonderful place it was to live, with jobs and everything, so I bought a little place up in Spanish Fork," he says, "I'm still looking for that easy money.". Langdell will return to the Arizona once more. The guns used the same type of control mechanisms Bruner had mastered on the Arizona. The six men stared straight ahead, almost as if they were back in line, at attention. 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. Another five minutes, Bruner figured, and they'd have run out of ammunition. We got into a run-and-gun battle. The ship was moored in the shallows of Pearl Harbor's . I heard the general say, 'You're a remarkable guy.' That caught the lieutenant colonel's interest. Bruner started as a painter, trained as a carpenter, then helped start a new sheet-metal department. A few years later, a new station owner showed Anderson his plans to start a TV station. In World War II, he fought at Guadalcanal, in the battle of the Coral Sea, at Okinawa and Iwo Jima. Finally, after a few weeks on the tanker, Potts was handed a new assignment. Conter's doctor has sidelined him for now for health reasons, but he is certain he will return soon. What they didn't count on was the side-street parking. Before the attack, many Americans were reluctant to become involved in the war in Europe. Keeping the memories alive. Cook never got a chance to catch up with his buddy, but marveled at the connections he seemed to make from his short stint aboard the Arizona. He kept the truck, held on to it through repairs, engine overhauls, new paint jobs. UPDATE: Bruner died in 2019. Hetrick saw a new opportunity and joined. The ship accompanied General Douglas MacArthur to the Philippines and was anchored in the harbor off Nagasaki, Japan, when the second atomic bomb exploded. On the morning of May 8, the fighting intensified as American aircraft tried to turn back the enemy planes. The sea turned rough, tossing the ship with 40-foot swells, bouncing the vessel like a rubber ball in a washing machine. Posted on December 7, 2021, 5:08 pm. Discipline seems less important than it was in his day. The first couple of trips back to Hawaii were difficult. He wasn't ready to see it all again, to sharpen the memories he'd tried to dull. "I came back to the pier one morning and my name was on the list to do KP work," he says. 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. Five years ago, Haerry moved into a nursing home, He stays in a room on the second floor. The survivors' group that found him was right, he has concluded: The stories of the Arizona should not die with the men who lived them. Cook has returned to Pearl Harbor three times and he likes the Arizona memorial. war. I saw one airplane, with a big red meatball on the side. "I canned 500 quarts of fruit one year," Marietta says. No one knew much about Bruner's years in the Navy, not the early years anyway. 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. He was assigned a battle station in the No. "Talk about treating you like royalty," he says. Then they'd go by.". Ted asks. He remembers when the order was given to abandon ship. All those sailors from all those places and here was a guy who was practically a neighbor. If a shark comes too close, hit it in the nose with your fist as hard as you can.". Anderson has returned to the Arizona memorial often and has taken his family there. Anderson had finished his first day as a Hollywood stunt man. "I'm a painter," he said. In the documentary, "The Life and Death of a Lady," Langdell and Abe speak, side by side on the memorial. CARNIVOROUS SHARKS. The worst shark attack in recorded history also happened to be a disaster for the US Navy. Haerry felt the entire ship life out of the water. Some even extend their consumption to seabirds. A bow. His own battle station was beneath the gun turret shattered by the last bomb to hit the Arizona. Usually, sharks will prioritize eating: Smaller fish. Back on land, Cook followed welding jobs from Kentucky and Pennsylvania to New Jersey and Long Island, west to North Dakota and Wisconsin and finally to a ranch house in Salinas, Calif., where he raised a family and stayed put for almost 30 years. "But it was a lot better than being shot at.". "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.". OAHU, Hawaii (NEXSTAR) On the day that will live in infamy December 7, 1941 2,403 U.S. personnel were killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor. 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. Some even like to dine on smaller shark species! 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. The Coghlan approached the Aleutians in October, as winter was pushing fall aside. 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. One day, a Navy officer came on board and asked if anyone wanted to volunteer for an assignment in the aviation section. "Hi," he said, introducing himself. And he has watched with dismay the changes in survival training. On the Arizona, he worked on the deck crew. The tanker towed them to Adak, Alaska, and from there, another ship took the crippled destroyer to San Francisco for repairs. High winds could slam one ship into the other and sink one or both of the vessels. If the shark feels like a dead fish isn't worth its time, it will leave without wasting more energy. The Tennessee took hits in the attack, but two of the armor piercing bombs, the kind that sunk the Arizona, failed to detonate. Anything you choose is fine. Farther down the paneled wall hangs a painting of the USS Arizona, the battleship Navy recruit Potts boarded in December 1939. His ships steamed across the Pacific, through the Panama Canal to Africa. The clerks decided they could not send Stratton away without his permit. Potts stayed in Honolulu until the end of the war. The Solace dispatched motor boats to the Arizona to rescue wounded sailors and her crew pulled others from the water. "That must be old Clyde Williams," he thought, the Arizona band member killed at Pearl Harbor. Conter's plane hadn't been out long in September 1943 when enemy bullets pierced one of their rear hatches and hit a parachute flare. Langdell had borrowed a car, a Dusenburg, for the honeymoon. Joe saved six lives and he didn't get crap. I had one pair of dungarees and that was it, that and a towel and shaving gear.". Bruner was the second-to-last man to leave the sinking ship. 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. With a total of 1,195 men aboard, about 300 went down with the ship. In 1967, Conter retired from the Navy. Hetrick recovered. For over an hour, in two waves, some 350 Japanese aircrafthaving taken off from six . Finally, the Navy gave him a medical discharge. Why is the FBI checking up on you, she wanted to know. "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. They would serve together for a little over a year. From the shore, he helped wounded men from the water, men whose bodies had been torn apart by bombs and bullets and fire. "Not Navy ships, other ships. The crews learned the routines of the Japanese ships. A pistol sits on top of his television at home. Japan wanted the northern Pacific to control its shipping routes and block U.S. attacks from that direction. He had five brothers, including Jake, and four sisters, all grouped so close in age that paying for college wasn't practical for their folks. They were having trouble reading his prints, she told Stratton. He had taken a bullet to the back of his leg as he was climbing the tower, but the burns were far worse. The Navy occasionally cuts away small bits of the wreckage for memorials. Bass. The ship was dead in the water. In 2006, one of his sons offered to take Potts to Hawaii for the 65thanniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack. The buddy wasn't home, but his son-in-law answered. "So that's what we did," he says, staring out at the harbor nearly seven decades later. "It's always a great thing for me to see them," he says. With eyes too close or two far apart, a crewman could deliver faulty readings. He returned after the war to his home along the railway in eastern Oklahoma. A woman from Illinois drew Bruner's name. 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 stepped off the deck into a motor launch as the ship was sinking. Stratton logged thousands of miles of travel. He had a record, a new song he was trying out. by Pia Peterson. In March, the crew turned back Japanese forces in the Battle of Komandorski. Conter served on the San Pablo and Half Moon. north but again I'm not a shark expert. Only 335 men survived the bombing of the USS Arizona, the mighty battleship whose loss at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, inspired a nation to go to war. The lead-up to the Pearl Harbor attack. Crustaceans. He still will not talk about it. "We made so many landings," Anderson said. Pearl Harbor was a United States Naval base on the island of Oahu, located west of Honolulu. On the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, Harold, 24, was on deck of the Oklahoma while William, 23, was working below, according to their family. The shock of jumping into a harbor knowing he couldn't swim. That was enough to rattle nerves on board the ship, which was at general quarters every day an hour before sundown and an hour before sunrise. They could ride to the mainland then and leave for Florida. Three years ago, Ray Jr. received a call from a lieutenant colonel in the Rhode Island National Guard. There's a little air bubble. Williams was on deck, tuning up to play for colors, an early call after the previous day's fleet Battle of the Bands on shore. "What's up with this one? Naming Pearl Harbor. A sailor on the deck of the repair ship Vestal spotted the men and threw a line across. It was carrying parts of the Little Boy atomic bomb as a top secret mission and the Navy learned about its sinking four days after ot was torpedoed. At the USS Arizona memorial, he became friends with a National Park Service historian and inspired a Pearl Harbor action figure that the service sold at the gift shop. Potts had not returned to Honolulu in the decades since he left for San Francisco in 1945. The report said most of the guys in the anti-aircraft batteries, where Jake fought, were shot down early in the assault. Whale sharks can grow to 65 feet in length and weigh up to 75,000 pounds. "It didn't take me that long. Hetrick shrugs, trying to get comfortable in the recliner. 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. "Well, I'd brushed enough paint on that damn ship, I figured I could do it," he says. In early January, Conter visited his young lady friend again and again, Admiral Calhoun was there. He told his story as his son, Ted, recorded it on video. That was the way it was.". Once he was awakened by a loud noise and a flash and thought his ship was under attack. He was nervous about volunteering for anything, but he raised his hand. And that's what he told every soldier and airman who took his courses.*. That's why the FBI was nosing around me, Potts thought. The family visited the Arizona memorial and toured other sites near the harbor. His story is always in demand, though he'd just as soon not tell it in front of a lot of people. "Knock it off. He liked the idea of working as an aircraft mechanic, so he volunteered. His old co-pilot in the New Guinea days was asked once if he'd had survival training for the war. Deer and rabbits wander the hillside. We were going to have a date the next day. Posted on . He remembers the crewman trying to climb a ladder to escape through a hatchway on the deck. Her father was an engineer and a top executive for a dredging company with a big Navy contract. "The new ones, they didn't know beans.". 4. He had chased Japanese soldiers along the coast of China three years before America declared war on Japan. Haerry accepted the medal, but found he could not speak. Schenkelberg was no stranger to hardships . At 93, he is one of the last survivors ofthe attack on the Arizona. Hetrick, who is 91, has outlived most of the men he knew on the Saratoga. Haerry had made two runs to shore on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941. person grazed by a shark), nor incidents classified by the International Shark Attack File as boat attacks, scavenge, or doubtful. He fought with other sailors in the Battle of Midway and watched the Marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima. 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. ", He stops in front of a newspaper, the front page of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin with the headline: "WAR! 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 . It took Ray Jr. years, decades to piece together his father's story. "The hat represents the Arizona. 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. Sometimes he can't control his emotions, so he declines speaking requests. We can't see our own ships. He and a buddy had been talking about their future in the Navy. Why Did Pearl Harbor Happen? "Through all that, I never did lose consciousness," he says. He remembers all the details and most of what happened later. "I just didn't want to. LaRocque took Anderson to San Pedro, where his current ship was anchored. He describes the store of booze they pulled out of safe and the money. pearl harbor 1941. uss arizona. December 7, 1941: Pearl Harbor Casualties. 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. "I appreciate your thoughtfulness. "The nights up there were already short, so I didn't get much sleep," Cook says. Lots of men brought home scars from World War II and Korea. We got as close as 5,000 yards, which was point-blank for those ships. "That's what I want to remember. An impressive collection of restaurant menus from 30 years of cross-country searches for used cars. "You know, you can see where I came out of, the hatchway. The mangled bodies such as J.J. Astor was probably caused by the 1st smokestack falling into the water and. 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 Pearl Harbour . . He had stopped at Pearl Harbor more than a decade earlier, on his way to a posting in Korea. Explosions rocked the vessel and fires burned into the evening. "I bought it at the receiving station in Pearl Harbor. Bruner was burned over more than two-thirds of his body. He returned to Oklahoma again and started his own business, outfitting a one-ton Ford pickup with a winch and other equipment that let him work the oil fields.
