The pieces the largest is about as long as a bus sit in a salvage yard on the Waipi'o Peninsula on Oahu. He asked for volunteers. He liked the idea of working as an aircraft mechanic, so he volunteered. "The stuff he likes.". "OK," Bruner said. But he didn't want to start his civilian life in the brig, so he left it in Honolulu. The Macdonough had collided with another destroyer, the Sicard. He would sail to San Francisco on one of the cruise ships refitted to move troops, the Lurline, or maybe the Matsonia. Crustaceans. "I put on two life jackets," Hetrick said. Posted on . He describes the store of booze they pulled out of safe and the money. 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 catalogs the scars and their origin. On Veteran's Day, he participated once more in a parade through Marysville, the next town over from Yuba City. 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. "A brush painter.". Bruner lives alone, in a post-war neighborhood in the far northern edges of Orange County. The tanker towed them to Adak, Alaska, and from there, another ship took the crippled destroyer to San Francisco for repairs. Rays. "These guys were the first heroes of the war, even though the war hasn't been declared," Ray Jr. says. "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. "We would go in with a landing party or we furnished artillery for the landing force. His job was to put the primer in the big 14-inch gun. He pushes his shirtsleeves up to show his arms. "I ain't seen 'em since.". "Next thing you know, I'm in a movie with John Wayne," Anderson says years later. He likes to wear a cap that identifies him as a veteran of the Arizona. "I came back to the pier one morning and my name was on the list to do KP work," he says. The Coghlan approached the Aleutians in October, as winter was pushing fall aside. UPDATE: Bruner died in 2019. Stratton climbed to his feet and, biting back the pain, he stood and when his bed was ready, he collapsed back into it. Anderson grew up in the Red River Valley of northern Minnesota, the son of a prominent local judge. He half-swam, half-walked the 70 yards to Ford Island and manned a mounted machine gun. As he talks about Pearl Harbor again, other memories surface. "He told you the story?" "These captains of the ships, when they left the states, they had no idea where they were going, just that they're going via Pearl Harbor," Potts said. 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. For a long time, Haerry never talked about his experiences at Pearl Harbor. did sharks eat pearl harbor victimssig sauer minimalist folding stock. did sharks eat pearl harbor victims. amc gremlin for sale washington state did sharks attack titanic survivors. Friends told them when the left the church, keep the water on their left. Ted asks. One day, a young fellow knocked on his door. 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 . "We were told to watch out for them, these guys were assassins," Anderson said. He was still adjusting to his new life in Colorado, hundreds of miles inland from his old home in coastal California and more than a mile higher in elevation. "I ran the decompression chamber on jobs. They stayed composed as their stories were told, stories of bravery, of quick thinking. He cleaned and painted day after day, but he also operated the motor boats used to ferry crew members to shore, a job that let him leave the ship periodically. For a long time, he didn't think he would ever return to Pearl Harbor. When, on July 30, 1945, USS Indianapolis was sunk by a Japanese submarine, the Navy didn't realize the ship had been lost until four days later - after which hundreds of men floating in the ocean for days had been eaten by sharks.. Toward the end of July 1945, the Portland-class heavy cruiser USS . He was active in those groups for many years, serving as president of one devoted to the Arizona. "I don't think I'll ever forget what I saw that day.". He still remembers the day he saw the Arizona in dry dock at Bremerton, Wash. "It was quite a sight for an old flatlander like me to see a 35,000-ton battleship out of the water," he says. "We didn't hear much from the outside at first," Hetrick said. Cook was the gun captain on the Pringle at the battle of Iwo Jima in 1945. As they walked toward it, Langdell reeled at an odor. His own battle station was beneath the gun turret shattered by the last bomb to hit the Arizona. 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. Stratton told her why: He had been aboard the USS Arizona when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec 7, 1941. And that's what he told every soldier and airman who took his courses.*. That fateful day led the United States . 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, Kaahupahau and her brother Kahiuka. He moved to Provo and sold cars until 1990. He heard the same stories from his grandmother and his aunts. 1914-1941:The mightiest ship at sea | Dec. 7, 1941: The attack that changed the world| Documentary: 'Witness to Infamy' | 2014: The final toast. He stopped in the small town of Payson, Utah. UPDATE:John Anderson diedin November 2015, less than a year after this report. The Langdells ended up honeymooning in Monterey and Carmel on the central California coast. "One of the last ones" He talks about going aboard the Frazier. "I decided I'd do whatever they told me to. John was sent from training camp in Illinois to Bremerton, Wash. "Lots of big band songs," Randy says, as the first bars of a brass line pour from the speakers. One day, a Navy officer came on board and asked if anyone wanted to volunteer for an assignment in the aviation section. 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. The exhausted crew dragged ashore an hour later and hid in the jungle, fearful they would be captured by Japanese soldiers. "In the service, if you didn't use nasty words, you weren't a good sailor.". Trains run close enough to hear the horns during the day, but not close enough to make them a nuisance. Seabirds. "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. "We lit into them, started firing on them," Bruner said. The Coghlan turned back, almost spent. But he is proud of his service, of the other sailors on the Arizona. The fireball from the explosion engulfed the six men in the box and trapped them. world war ii. Yes, he'll say, he was on the Arizona and he survived. He had a record, a new song he was trying out. "From down inside, it wasn't too bad when they fired it," Cook said. (See Pearl Harbor Attack.) He said he wanted Anderson to join the on-air staff. Sea turtles. As he recounts the experience, he rubs his hands together, then holds them out, turning them over. 4 gun turret, with the men who died there and survivors who had died since. That's why the FBI was nosing around me, Potts thought. 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. Long a bachelor again, Bruner has also entertained lady friends from time to time. Of the 1,196 men aboard, 900 made it into the water alive. The body parts we put in pillow cases. How could he say no? Cook was discharged in 1948 in San Diego and stuck around California, where he worked as a metal finisher at Van Nuys manufacturing plant. "We'd patrol at night. A few days later, the drove through the crumbling streets of Hiroshima. Except the cap. ", "Baloney," Conter replied. "They said he was a tough bastard, but that's exactly what they needed.". He tried not to remember the days after the attack. His old co-pilot in the New Guinea days was asked once if he'd had survival training for the war. "Once after we crossed the equator, one of the planes came back," he says. As far he was concerned he was saving lives.". "They paid everybody in two dollar bills back then. 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. An impressive collection of restaurant menus from 30 years of cross-country searches for used cars. He is one of nine living survivors from the attack on the USS Arizona, the battleship he boarded in 1941 when he was 17. 4. Sharks hunt fish by using sensory receptors located on their sides. 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. Potts was working aboard an oil tanker, making short runs out of the harbor to refuel ships anchored off the coast. Hetrick was sent to the USS Lexington, an aircraft carrier. did sharks eat pearl harbor victimshavelock wool australia. 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. What do great white sharks eat in Hawaii? By the time they were back, the icicles were forming again and two more guys would go out.". He displayed no pictures, kept no mementos that his family knew about. Anderson picked up and moved to New Mexico. But he clutches the cap and puts it on as he sits in an easy chair by the window. He stayed aboard the Solace about a month. He started chatting up a regular customer, a contractor, and got a job building houses. "Hi," he said, introducing himself. "When I got back home, my doctors here wanted to know about my medical background," Bruner said. Sight-setters and pointers would locate targets visually and determine their distance and range. Why Did Pearl Harbor Happen? They found a way to take prints from the edges of his fingers, enough to satisfy the law. The family visited the Arizona memorial and toured other sites near the harbor. He visited the memorial and was relieved to see the builders got it right. He eases the truck out of the carport, far enough to show it off. 3 gun turret. 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. "We don't think you'd make it. I'd been told things like that before. He touches the diving helmet. Anderson always talks about his brother, Delbert "Jake" Anderson, when he tells the story of his own escape from the burning ship. The attack was devastating for the Americans, though the Japanese . I had one pair of dungarees and that was it, that and a towel and shaving gear.". Almost three decades later, he was the plant manager, second-in-command. The USS Arizona ballcap that almost every survivor owns and wears. Langdell is one of the last nine survivors from the Arizona. He first visited the Arizona memorial in Pearl Harbor on the 50thanniversary of the attack and has returned since. His oldest son had joined the Navy and his first posting was aboard the USS Ouellet, a frigate. "I knew everything that was going on.". Kuwait. It scared him a little. He gazes at the picture. 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. "That's what I'm catching up now. "Not Navy ships, other ships. Doctors and nurses wove among gurneys, administering morphine shots and looking for the victims most in need. The ship remained anchored outside Pearl Harbor for most of a month as U.S. commanders planned their next move against the Japanese in the South Pacific. The six-year Pentagon project identified nearly 400 who died on the USS Oklahoma in 1941. Pearl Harbor was the site of the unprovoked aerial attack on the United States by Japan on December 7, 1941. 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. "We're were out and around. They would serve together for a little over a year. "They tried to jump off. Joe had met Elizabeth McGauhy in Chicago half a decade earlier. They could ride to the mainland then and leave for Florida. In early January, Conter visited his young lady friend again and again, Admiral Calhoun was there. Anderson's road to the radio booth started in Hollywood, with a screen test at a studio where he had worked. He built a reputation as a guy who could bring in the harvest on time. ", "I was," Anderson said. He was eating breakfast when he heard the first pops of the attack planes strafing Battleship Row. Bruner started as a painter, trained as a carpenter, then helped start a new sheet-metal department. He spent the rest of the day retrieving bodies from the harbor. He keeps a folder of newspaper clippings, magazine stories and copies of a telegram. "It just didn't appeal to me to bring it up," he says. "I told the men, 'If a shark comes close, hit it in the nose with your fist as hard as you can.'". As a youngster, Anderson heard stories about the Navy from his uncle, a man named Ray Stokes. Afterward, Langdell sought out other survivors who had formed reunion organizations. He was assigned a battle station in the No. Cook asked. Whale sharks are found in warm waters in the Pacific . "Mr. Langdell, Mr. Langdell, you've got to come here quick," he said. Or got fired. Then we had to go back.". Handout . It identifies Stratton as a survivor of the attack that sank the ship. The six men stared straight ahead, almost as if they were back in line, at attention. 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. His kids and grandkids. They will celebrate 65 years of marriage in April. He climbed aboard the ship, ducking to avoid bullets from the gunner planes. "We said we'd volunteer if they'd put two or three of us together on the same ship," he said. "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. Las Vegas seems to like Hetrick. 3 min read. Some even like to dine on smaller shark species! He went out to the floating memorial. "We had 10 or 12 sharks around us all the time," Conter says. He wanted to part of it. She tracked him to the Los Angeles area, then started a phone search. Potts had not returned to Honolulu in the decades since he left for San Francisco in 1945. Fires still burned on the broken USS Arizona the morning after the Japanese ambush. Large species also consume marine mammals such as dolphins, seals, sea lions, and porpoises, as well as large fish species such as tuna, mackerel, and even smaller shark species. The planes could fly at low altitudes, then buzz upward for a bombing run, confounding enemy gunners trying to calculate speed and distance. The sky began to darken and the wind grew. And he keeps it loaded. 5 Jun. 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 will return to the Arizona once more. "In three days, we rescued 219 coast watchers without losing anybody," Conter said. "I said, 'Well, come on, then,'" Marietta says, and in 1950, they wed. That's where the cross-country adventures begin. 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. His mother had moved to Decatur, Ill., by then, so he followed and took a job at a hardware store. For over an hour, in two waves, some 350 Japanese aircrafthaving taken off from six . He has told her about his escape from the Arizona. And the ships needed experienced sailors. "When we got up into the Aleutians, we started banging on the Japanese that had already landed," Bruner said. "I just got discharged. 12/28/2016. As they talked, Ray mentioned that his dad had been aboard the Arizona. He finished his stint in the Navy in Shanghai, working shore patrol the way he did back in Honolulu. The ship carried four 5-inch anti-aircraft guns and six half-inch machine guns, and, initially, five 21-inch torpedo tubes. That was the end of it.". On the Arizona, he worked on the deck crew. As he waited, he had a feeling he knew what would happen, but he didn't say anything. Early in the morning on Dec. 7, 1941, Japan's Imperial Navy launched a surprise airstrike on the US military base at Pearl Harbor on the island of Oahu . You need the exercise. "I'd already sent word, even before the first one got there," he says. Joe Langdell found a table in the wardroom of one of the ships moored in Pearl Harbor and sat down with his breakfast. They were married in an Episcopal Church on Van Ness Avenue. Were there sharks Pearl Harbor? He hired on with a farm labor contractor and within a year, he and a guy he worked with started their own business, contracting with the orchard owners to harvest crops. As it fell, he was thrown from the ship into the harbor. "It hadn't really sunk in what had happened.". ", "You will go to the Arizona and you will take off all the bodies and body parts above the water line," the man said. "The nights up there were already short, so I didn't get much sleep," Cook says. 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. He told Ray about the plans to honor Pearl Harbor survivors at the statehouse. After that, he started teaching U.S. troops the skills of survival, evasion, resistance and escape. Three years later, Ray Haerry Jr. holds the cross in his hand, fighting back tears. Their habitats include saltwater and freshwater alike. 11 Oldest Pearl Harbor Survivors (Updated 2021) December 7, 1941 is a date that everyone in America has committed to memory. "Some of the ships I was on had guys who liked to play the guitar, so I knew something about it. Bruner thought it an odd request. The ones that gave him nightmares, the stories from the day he nearly burned to death, he kept to himself. His service on the Arizona also seemed to give him added credibility among the young sailors. 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. "You know, you can see where I came out of, the hatchway. "I left them there and hoped to get them back," he says. 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 was very military by then, very disciplined.". "Are you in the Navy? The Americans stopped the Japanese ships and wiped out some of the top officers. He and his wife, Doris, have lived in the same house for 54 years. 2 gun turret. Potts was returning to the Arizona with fresh produce when the first Japanese bombers dove into Pearl Harbor. Langdell lives now in a skilled nursing center. 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. No sharks did not eat Titanic passengers. Toward the end the war, Langdell was stationed in the Philippines, at a base in Manila. The men, their charred skin peeling away, climbed hand-over-hand across the line to safety. 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. Sometimes, Japanese pilots attended memorial ceremonies and some of the other survivors would shake their hands. Libby got the message. The crews were based on tender ships moored in secluded harbors. Colombia. The Tennessee took hits in the attack, but two of the armor piercing bombs, the kind that sunk the Arizona, failed to detonate. By Christmas, he was in a hospital at Mare Island near San Francisco. 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. The ships encountered a Japanese fleet, two big cruisers, six destroyers, some troop ships, and engaged. The USS Shaw explodes after being hit by bombs during the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in this December 7, 1941 photo. In the documentary, "The Life and Death of a Lady," Langdell and Abe speak, side by side on the memorial. The day after the attack, President Franklin D . Afew weeks after the war started, sometime in early 1942, Potts opened a letter from his mother. They were trying to replenish submarines or send smaller ships in. I saw one airplane, with a big red meatball on the side. Calhoun quizzed Conter about his posting, his job on the ship. "It ain't worth a damn if it ain't loaded," he says. Cook got the buddy's telephone number and tried to call him. The bomb that shattered the Arizona's bow exploded as Cook and the others climbed out of the turret. For an hour or so, the two men talk. Bruner, who turned 94 in November, is now one of nine living USS Arizona crewmen who survived the ship's sinking. Three days since the war started. / Reuters. Mess hall duty. He clashed with the station manager of the radio station and finally quit. "We'd send two guys out to knock the icicles off the guns, then they'd high-tail it back in. They eventually bought a home-furnishings outlet farther inland and finally built their own store in Yuba City, north of Sacramento. One day, some smaller boats sailed past. Wherever he goes on the pickup, people ask him about his experience. We all have to remember that they did not die in vain.". Your California Privacy Rights / Privacy Policy. For Hetrick, the section of mooring line links him to those final moments of the Arizona. That led to a job in Roswell, the Sagebrush Serenade and Elvis Presley. He and a buddy would sneak off campus and hop freight trains to see how far they could get. Sharks in turn were revered because they . Pictures of past parades. "Listen, all those men down there on that ship, a thousand of them, they wouldn't do it and I don't think they'd want me to do it," he says. "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.". 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 fellow told him to report to the front gate of Sam Goldwyn's studio in Hollywood on Monday morning. He's not so fond of the crowds around Honolulu and doesn't plan to go back. There are over 470 species of sharks throughout the world. "We picked up a couple of girls and made the rounds. Aviators most often arose from left-arm rates. UPDATE:Joe Langdell diedin February 2015, months after this report. At the time, sailors wore patches designating their rates, the enlisted expression of rank, on the right or left sleeve, depending on their assignment. Langdell knew Libby was friends with a skater in the Ice Follies, which was summering in San Francisco. They were dedicating it to Potts and wanted him to have it. "Well, I'd brushed enough paint on that damn ship, I figured I could do it," he says. 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. With a gun, he could defend himself. In January, another ship took him to San Francisco to the Navy hospital on Treasure Island. 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. "Are there any officers from the Arizona here?" They struck up a conversation and, after a brief courtship, married. By Michael E. Ruane. Three days earlier, their 20-year-old son became the first Suffolk County casualty in World War II. "It was rough weather, foggy, raining cold," Anderson said. did sharks attack titanic survivors. He wanted to interview Langdell for his project. They moved to Modesto, Calif., where he got a job driving a produce truck in the fruit orchards. Discipline seems less important than it was in his day. @webtv.net wrote in message. Part of his shoulder was blown off. As soon as he turned 18, he enlisted in the Navy. 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 danced. Conter's doctor has sidelined him for now for health reasons, but he is certain he will return soon. Tall pines tower over the house. A storm was approaching, a big one by the looks of it. Bruner toured Nagasaki in a Jeep with other Navy officers and chief mates. But he kept most of it to himself until he started meeting up with other survivors, years after he retired from the military. "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.". He finished his training and was discharged in December 1945. On December 7, 1941, the Imperial Japanese Navy bombed the Pearl Harbor Naval base in a surprise attack. But Hetrick couldn't find work, so inside of six months, he signed up for the Navy Reserve. Someone had stacked the boxes too high and in the humid environment of the island, the cardboard had grown damp and weak. He could see the band was sincere. 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. Anderson has returned to the Arizona memorial often and has taken his family there. The parties sometimes dragged into the early morning hours. The only question was how Langdell would send Libby word about his arrival from Pearl Harbor. "Through all that, I never did lose consciousness," he says. 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. did sharks eat pearl harbor victims. He fought cold and hunger on a ship nearly dead in the ocean off Alaska. Stratton falls easily into the memories of his years on diving boats. Song's got some zip to it, he said. 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. A young sailor ran in, out of breath. He will tell his story to people he knows well and trusts, but he is 93 and the details are fading from his memory. December 7, 1941: Pearl Harbor Casualties. Or both. This list and the accompanying graphics do not include encounters in which a shark does not actually bite a person or board (e.g. By 1991, the 50thanniversary of the attack, the number of living Arizona crewmen had shrunk. He introduced him to other officers. "That's what I want to remember. "We won't get in," Conter said. The guns hit the periscope. It sits a little higher than most items, but not necessarily on a platform. Two deer racks (his wife shot one, his son the other). Hotline & WhatsApp : +971556212280 | Landline : +97143873596 , +97167499398 james reynolds obituary.