did sharks eat pearl harbor victims

That same year, he met his wife, Valerie, in Palm Springs. He settled in Palm Springs and built a career as a real estate developer, buying up land for commercial and residential projects. He had turned 90 and was starting over again. He brought all of his family: his wife Jeanne, his three sons and their families. "We got halfway there and I told them to turn around," Conter said. When Anderson said he was, his old friend was incredulous. Potts was working aboard an oil tanker, making short runs out of the harbor to refuel ships anchored off the coast. The ships sent up their own planes and turned back the assault. 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. He wants to secure a proper medal for Joe George, the sailor from the Vestal who helped rescue the six men from the gunner's control tower. 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. One day in May, crewmen spotted two periscopes in the water and the Frazier opened fire. ages 2, 3 and 8, together with a 14-year-old cousin . He doesn't want to answer questions about his war service, shrugging them off or insisting he can't remember the details anymore. Her father was an engineer and a top executive for a dredging company with a big Navy contract. She tracked him to the Los Angeles area, then started a phone search. His son reaches in the cab and queues up one of the hundreds of songs he and his daughter downloaded onto the new MP3 player. Conter told him about the lost orders. "He said, 'I had survival training in the ocean. He fought cold and hunger on a ship nearly dead in the ocean off Alaska. "Mr. Langdell, Mr. Langdell, you've got to come here quick," he said. They found a way to take prints from the edges of his fingers, enough to satisfy the law. A smile spreads across his face as Dean Martin's voice fills the cab. But John Anderson, the Navy chief petty officer who called himself Cactus Jack on the air, had a good head start already. He eases the truck out of the carport, far enough to show it off. The crews were based on tender ships moored in secluded harbors. Alcohol. The offshore diving business could leave its own kind of scars. Ke awa lau o Puuloa, the bay and lochs that make up the complex most people know simply as Pearl Harbor, was once the home of the guardian sharks, Kaahuphau and her brother Kahiuk. Fires still burned on the broken USS Arizona the morning after the Japanese ambush. In late 1943, Conter flew a mission to rescue more than 200 coast watchers in New Guinea. His own battle station was beneath the gun turret shattered by the last bomb to hit the Arizona. Langdell returned to Pearl Harbor in 1976. He had a record, a new song he was trying out. He started chatting up a regular customer, a contractor, and got a job building houses. Almost three decades later, he was the plant manager, second-in-command. He was the opening act for country superstar Hank Snow that night at the North High School auditorium. striking a number of people in the water. He liked the idea of working as an aircraft mechanic, so he volunteered. "In the service, if you didn't use nasty words, you weren't a good sailor.". 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. We got as close as 5,000 yards, which was point-blank for those ships. So you see how that works."). Colombia. Once a month or so, Clarendon Hetrick's phone rings with a call from Utah. Cook worked in California, mostly welding jobs, until the union he belonged to called a strike. The crew unloaded anything they could do without, to keep the damaged hull above the water line. Pearl Harbor was the most important American . He asked if Jeanne could come with him. For Hetrick, the section of mooring line links him to those final moments of the Arizona. The band would cover all expenses for him and Doris. Never would've found it.". "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. They catch up. He would become the final survivor to be interred in the ship. "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. Doctors and nurses wove among gurneys, administering morphine shots and looking for the victims most in need. As he talks about Pearl Harbor again, other memories surface. "I witnessed your attack from Ford Island. "Knock it off. Only 35 dead were . "I'd never seen so many guys with so much guts," he said. I guess he'd do anything he could for me. "They told me the team was already picked," he said. Hetrick earned a Purple Heart for wounds during one of the bombing raids. 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 had escaped the USS Arizona, the battleship whose losses surpassed any other. Lonnie had taken up trap shooting and hoped to do a little hunting back home. One of our cruisers, the heavy cruiser, got hit and water got into the oil. We cut the torpedoes loose.". Bruner was put in charge of the gun batteries. He was promoted to Lieutenant Commander in February 1954, the rank he held until he retired. 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 hadn't told him he was going to be individually honored that day," he says. We had survival training on the job. The burn ward filled with the injured. In early January, Conter visited his young lady friend again and again, Admiral Calhoun was there. 4. A second telegram, dated Jan. 6 reported that Conter was alive and would contact his family. As he recounts the experience, he rubs his hands together, then holds them out, turning them over. the young man asked. From Virginia, he went to Utah, to France and then to Albuquerque, where he retired in November 1961. After he returned from Korea, Haerry was promoted to master chief petty officer, signifying his experience and level of service. "He remembers body parts in the water, charred burned bodies that he swam by," his son Ray, Jr., says. Civilian Casualties. "So that's what we did," he says, staring out at the harbor nearly seven decades later. Joe proposed and Libby accepted. Golfers play through 50 yards from Conter's driveway. "It sounded like someone shooting guns. They bought a small ranch and, while Lonnie continued to work welding jobs, they grew walnuts, almonds, peaches, apples, nectarines, cherries and grapes. "We'd send two guys out to knock the icicles off the guns, then they'd high-tail it back in. He struggles to speak at times (though when he's feeling good, he likes to flirt with the nurses). Finally, she located some of Bruner's tax records and found his address and telephone number. Cook was a gunner's mate on the Arizona. Libby got the message. This time the objective was clear. The crew was evacuated and another U.S. destroyer scuttled the Lexington to keep the Japanese from capturing her. I still had to wait 29 years for that guy to come back and take his brush back.". 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. The man told him later he had broken both his hips in one of the explosions and had survived only because Hetrick was there to urge him on. Photographs. "It's easier if you come see it," the sailor said. Langdell is one of the last nine survivors from the Arizona. Hetrick, who is 91, has outlived most of the men he knew on the Saratoga. But he became restless. Be immersed in the details of the infamous attack on Pearl Harbor and . Pearl Harbor, naval base and headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, Honolulu county, southern Oahu Island, Hawaii, U.S. On one mission, Haerry's tender was tied to a larger ship as the crew delivered supplies and completed maintenance tasks. "They gave me 30 minutes to get off the ship and catch a transport to San Diego for training," he said. Other crewmen would roll out the shell, use a mechanical device to ram it in, then load four bags of powder behind it. "Andy, you had 12 years of the damnedest fighting I ever saw. By 1991, the 50th . Debris from the Arizona showered the Tennessee's stern and started fires, but the vessel stayed afloat. Uncle Ray was nearing the end of his career in 1937 when John and Jake both decided to enlist. did sharks attack titanic survivors. But Hetrick couldn't find work, so inside of six months, he signed up for the Navy Reserve. Before the end of the war, he went to San Diego for gunner's mate school. You're the bravest man I ever know. Trains run close enough to hear the horns during the day, but not close enough to make them a nuisance. Bruner keeps mementos of his time on the Arizona in the sitting room. When he reaches that part of his story, he stops. He wrote Libby a letter and suggested it would be a good idea if Libby visited her friend on or about a particular date. In his dining room in Colorado Springs, he keeps a replica of a hard diving helmet, the kind his divers used. The marching band had been invited to fly to Pearl Harbor and perform at activities commemorating the 70thanniversary of the attack. 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. For years, Stratton wore the scars from the Arizona without talking about them much. Stratton and other men climbed into a small boat that took them ashore. The Lexington sailed out of Pearl Harbor not long after. "We took off," Bruner said, "firing just as fast as we could. 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. In January, another ship took him to San Francisco to the Navy hospital on Treasure Island. In 1966, 25 years after the attack, Stratton returned to Pearl Harbor with his family. "I told another kid if they come back again tonight, I'm leaving.". 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. 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. He clears his throat. The paneled room behind the door in the living room of the Provo house is filled with trophies of almost any imaginable sort. Answer: Yes- in 1945, after the USS Indianapolis was sunk by a Japanese torpedo. 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 wanted men with eyes set in the right place on their face. He keeps the mementos from his experience the maps, the photos, the clippings, the medals, the painting in a room behind a door on the side wall of the living room in the house where he has lived for 54 years. "If somebody in authority said do something back then, you didn't question it. The only question was how Langdell would send Libby word about his arrival from Pearl Harbor. Their skin charred and falling off, the men crawled down the line to the Vestal. Haerry says he wants lunch delivered to his room, but the nurse says no. He remembers when the order was given to abandon ship. 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. And he keeps it loaded. "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.". Conter got his wings in November 1942. "If you can stand up and stay up while we change the linen on this bed, we'll see about it.". Langdell had borrowed a car, a Dusenburg, for the honeymoon. No sharks did not eat Titanic passengers. "When I got back home, my doctors here wanted to know about my medical background," Bruner said. A storm was approaching, a big one by the looks of it. He says that decision was the best thing he could have done. The band had won a trophy in one of the competitions during their stay in Honolulu. USS Indianapolis at Mare Island. The strike climaxed a decade of worsening relations between the United States and Japan. As he waited, he had a feeling he knew what would happen, but he didn't say anything. That fateful day led the United States . He stood strong and tall right in front of this general. "I just didn't want to. A platform marked the wreckage of the USS Arizona. "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. They stayed composed as their stories were told, stories of bravery, of quick thinking. Just stay together, hold hands and kick slowly 'cause there'll be sharks around. Bruner lives alone, in a post-war neighborhood in the far northern edges of Orange County. Before the trip, Langdell hadn't talked much about his years in the war, about his time on the Arizona. But he doesn't tell his story anymore, not on his own. "That's what I want to remember. The Coghlan turned back, almost spent. 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. He . "It was rough weather, foggy, raining cold," Anderson said. He will tell his story if he's asked and he will remember details along the way. He stayed on the 17thfloor of a hotel on Waikiki Beach. "I do as much as I can to keep his story alive," his son says. Conter attended the same event and was seated next to Valerie. We left and never fired a shot at them.". Hetrick recovered. "I knew everything that was going on.". He liked teaching and liked the chance to instill discipline. One of the men started yelling. He decided to head back to the water. The United States declared war on Japan on December 8, 1941, the day following the attack on Pearl Harbor.

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