Survivor returns to sea
Mack Dewey Miller
“I got up early, showered and … joined a bull session with shipmates while waiting for the first liberty boat to be called away,” Miller said.
“We heard planes and started scanning the sky and making joking remarks about the fly boys practicing on Sunday. We spotted the planes diving on Ford Island, and, just about the time the first bomb exploded, we recognized the rising-sun insignia on the wings of the planes. I immediately proceeded to my battle station on the third deck.”
Miller continued, “A torpedo or bomb exploded just forward of us and blew one of the watertight doors partially open.” Because the lights were out, “we used battle lanterns and attempted to shore up the door. … It was impossible to seal the door and keep water out. When the water got to a depth of approximately 4 feet, we abandoned the compartment and proceeded aft.”
“We went up to topside, through a cargo hatch to the fantail. Just as I stood up on the fantail on topside, I looked around at the havoc and destruction and was looking at the Arizona when she blew sky high.”
“The force of the explosion blew me against the door of the bulkhead just behind me. I was knocked out for a couple of minutes. The next thing I knew, someone was picking me up. There were only a few men still onboard. Everyone was abandoning ship. I went to the forecastle, jumped into the water and swam to Ford Island.”
Early that afternoon, Miller said, “an officer made me get on a boat to the sub base, due to slight shrapnel wounds, cuts and etc. … That night at about midnight there was a call issued for volunteer seamen to go to sea on destroyers. I immediately proceeded to the boat landing and went aboard the USS Phelps DD 360‚ and was on the Phelps until spring of 1945.”
Blown out of his clothes
William Robert Lefabvre
Lefabvre, a printer apprentice, was in the print shop, waiting for coffee to brew, when the ship “thumped and shook, and started to list.”
When the call to abandon ship quickly followed, “I rushed up the ladder with the rest of the printers — not knowing what was going on. Reaching the topside, I finally knew we were under attack, but by whom and why? I was making my way toward the port side when the Arizona took a bomb directly down one of her stacks.”
“I was literally blown off the deck of the ‘Wee Vee,’ right into the harbor, which was already loaded with oil and debris.”
He continued, “I climbed into a motor launch floating in the harbor and helped pull in other survivors before we headed for the sub base. It was then that I discovered for the first time I had lost all my clothes” except for two shirt cuffs.
Oil, not burns
Oscar W. Norr
“I was taking a shower on board the ‘Wee Vee’ when the attack started,” Norr said. He then ran from the washroom and met the ship’s captain running up the passageway.
“He yelled to me to follow him up to the bridge.” Norr said he yelled back that he was going back to the washroom to put his shorts on. “By the time I started to the bridge, I heard the captain was killed as soon as he arrived on the bridge and that it was aflame.”
Later, “upon hearing the word to abandon ship, I jumped into the water between the Wee Vee and Tennessee. About that time the Arizona blew up. I dove under to escape the red-hot metal from the Arizona and the bullets from the (Japanese) plane strafing us.”
After climbing aboard the Tennessee, Norr met a medical officer who “thought I had been burned over my entire body. I quickly assured him I was not burned — all the black was fuel oil.”
