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. Wherever he goes on the pickup, people ask him about his experience. "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.". Nicaragua. They covered the growing seasons: cherries, peaches, nectarines, apricots, grapes. By winter, temperatures plunged below zero. "It acknowledges to people that I'm a survivor," Joe replies, his voice soft. He doesn't want to answer questions about his war service, shrugging them off or insisting he can't remember the details anymore. He told his story as his son, Ted, recorded it on video. He wanted to interview Langdell for his project. In his dining room in Colorado Springs, he keeps a replica of a hard diving helmet, the kind his divers used. He was on his own once again, he and his young family. The Coghlan supported Army landings and Navy bombing runs. He was sent to the Los Alamitos Naval Air Station up the coast in Orange County. On the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, Cook was changing clothes at his locker, savoring the thought of a day in Honolulu with the $60 he'd won in a craps game the night before. I had to take them to the parties and sit there until it was over.". Jack shrugged. Pictures of past parades. "Once after we crossed the equator, one of the planes came back," he says. Years later, at a reunion in Tucson, Cook learned that one of his buddies from the Arizona had been sent to the Lexington and was in the Coral Sea when the carrier was attacked. "But it was a lot better than being shot at.". For a while, the young family lived in Puerto Rico as Haerry, now a chief boatswain's mate, drew new assignments aboard his tender. He had stopped at Pearl Harbor more than a decade earlier, on his way to a posting in Korea. What do Sharks Eat? - Shark Facts and Information He will meet three other survivors in Hawaii for their last reunion. A stunt coordinator helped pull Anderson from the pile of cigarette crates that had broken his fall. He had turned down a promotion to ensign, preferring the camaraderie of the enlisted ranks. Pearl Harbor was a United States Naval base on the island of Oahu, located west of Honolulu. Joe Langdell found a table in the wardroom of one of the ships moored in Pearl Harbor and sat down with his breakfast. He will tell his story to people he knows well and trusts, but he is 93 and the details are fading from his memory. Peeling potatoes. He left home at 5 every morning and took a ferry from Jamestown to the Navy base. Most sharks are carnivores, meaning their diets consist of live prey, including fish, crustaceans, and mollusks. Now, some courses require less than a week of field time. He could see the band was sincere. We hauled it all back in.". "When somebody says get out of here and you're on a hundred tons of ammunition, well, you don't question it," he says. war. "I didn't have any speaking parts, but I was working for the studio and they paid me.". As the 50thanniversary of the attack neared, Langdell got a call from a documentary filmmaker. If the shark feels like a dead fish isn't worth its time, it will leave without wasting more energy. Potts says, shaking his head. 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. He wrote Libby a letter and suggested it would be a good idea if Libby visited her friend on or about a particular date. Toward the end the war, Langdell was stationed in the Philippines, at a base in Manila. A carnivorous shark diet usually includes fish, mollusks, and crustaceans. And the ships needed experienced sailors. And he has watched with dismay the changes in survival training. A platform marked the wreckage of the USS Arizona. He finished his training and was discharged in December 1945. He would work in the port director's office, delivering sealed packets to the captains of Navy ships. So he did. Their habitats include saltwater and freshwater alike. The steeple clock chimed and a statue of an angel wielding a sword emerged from an alcove and knocked Anderson off the steeple. I still get to the point when I'm talking about it, first thing you know, I go to bed at night, wake up and can't sleep for a week.". He said he wanted Anderson to join the on-air staff. Stratton climbed to his feet and, biting back the pain, he stood and when his bed was ready, he collapsed back into it. He then spent 14 months recovering in Great . The primer went in last, before the end of the gun was sealed shut. Occasionally, they head into Okmulgee for an evening out at the One Fire, a casino operated by the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. "We wouldn't get much fire back and by the time they sounded general quarters, we were on our way," Conter said. During WW2, did sailors get eaten by sharks? - Quora From Virginia, he went to Utah, to France and then to Albuquerque, where he retired in November 1961. Lonnie finally retired from welding in 1982 and in 1994, the Cooks moved back to Morris. Joe had met Elizabeth McGauhy in Chicago half a decade earlier. Explosions rocked the vessel and fires burned into the evening. "We'd patrol at night. The USS Shaw explodes after being hit by bombs during the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in this December 7, 1941 photo. He had settled in New Mexico with his family. Uncle Ray was nearing the end of his career in 1937 when John and Jake both decided to enlist. Anything you choose is fine. They generally prefer the shallows in temperate, tropical regions, which is usually where divers and surfers come into contact with them and potentially become the victims of shark trauma. I saw one airplane, with a big red meatball on the side. "I said, 'sure, I'll take it.' Guns. The buddy wasn't home, but his son-in-law answered. "What are you looking at?" "That lumber was so damn green then, we used to kid we had to shoot the squirrels out of it.". "It's always a great thing for me to see them," he says. He was attending midshipman's school at Northwestern University. Civilian Casualties - Pearl Harbor National Memorial (U.S. National World War II veterans are a special breed, Lt. Col. Denis Riel said as the men accepted the medals. A month after the Coral Sea battle, Cook's ship was part of the American forces in the critical Battle of Midway. Anderson always talks about his brother, Delbert "Jake" Anderson, when he tells the story of his own escape from the burning ship. When Anderson said he was, his old friend was incredulous. "I didn't have the slightest idea what would happen when I signed up," he said. Song's got some zip to it, he said. But John Anderson, the Navy chief petty officer who called himself Cactus Jack on the air, had a good head start already. He settled in Palm Springs and built a career as a real estate developer, buying up land for commercial and residential projects. On one mission, Haerry's tender was tied to a larger ship as the crew delivered supplies and completed maintenance tasks. "Sometimes they'd get shooting at you and you'd look at the shells and they looked like they were going to hit you. Schenkelberg was no stranger to hardships . medge. "One of the last ones" He talks about going aboard the Frazier. He grew up in New Jersey and after high school, enrolled at MIT in Boston. Bruner, who turned 94 in November, is now one of nine living USS Arizona crewmen who survived the ship's sinking. "When they dropped that bomb that made our ammunition explode, it dang near broke the ship in two, so we couldn't go anywhere forward of that," he says. In May 1942, the Aylwin joined a task force in the Coral Sea with the USS Lexington, one of the Navy's early aircraft carriers. "I came back to the pier one morning and my name was on the list to do KP work," he says. One morning, he was at his desk, catching up on paperwork, when he heard a vehicle screech to a halt outside. They moved to Santa Maria, not far from Santa Barbara, to be near their oldest son, then to Colorado Springs to be near Randy. She returned, puzzled. Crippled ships still floated around the mooring posts along Ford Island. Farther down the paneled wall hangs a painting of the USS Arizona, the battleship Navy recruit Potts boarded in December 1939. "We can't forget what happened there that day. 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. Pentagon ends program to identify Pearl Harbor victims - The Washington Among his responsibilities was overseeing the naval officers' clubs in the area. world war ii. LaRocque took Anderson to San Pedro, where his current ship was anchored. The band members had decided they wanted to honor survivors from that day. "We said we'd volunteer if they'd put two or three of us together on the same ship," he said. 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. That's why the FBI was nosing around me, Potts thought. "I had to start training the new recruits on every machine," Bruner said. This time the objective was clear. Just stories, the kind buddies tell each other. "It's just not going to happen. During the conference, the Pringle sailed into the Mediterranean Sea and anchored in a river. "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. He built a reputation as a guy who could bring in the harvest on time. He wanted one last unforgettable day. He moved to Provo and sold cars until 1990. At Kulangsu, an international settlement on an island off the southern Chinese coast, Anderson's unit ran into the French Foreign Legion, who had been cornered by Japanese soldiers on a high ridge. But he is proud of his service, of the other sailors on the Arizona. I still had to wait 29 years for that guy to come back and take his brush back.". Yes, he'll say, he was on the Arizona and he survived. Finally, the Navy gave him a medical discharge. Another five minutes, Bruner figured, and they'd have run out of ammunition. Her sister knew Jack Warner, the film studio mogul, and invited Valerie to a movie premiere party Warner was hosting in Palm Springs for his latest project, "Camelot". I said, 'You send her over, I'll re-enlist.' 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. 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. 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. His service on the Arizona also seemed to give him added credibility among the young sailors. For years, Stratton wore the scars from the Arizona without talking about them much. After he returned from Korea, Haerry was promoted to master chief petty officer, signifying his experience and level of service. A total of 2,403 Americans died in the tragic attack 80 years ago and for many families there was never closure as bodies remained unidentified or left amongst the wreckage. They had voted. In World War II, he fought at Guadalcanal, in the battle of the Coral Sea, at Okinawa and Iwo Jima. Born in 1914, seven months after the first bolts were tightened on a new battleship in Brooklyn, Langdell grew up wooded agricultural area along the Souhegan River in southern New Hampshire. "They said he was a tough bastard, but that's exactly what they needed.". And he still likes to talk about that other young fellow from Oklahoma, the one who didn't make it home. Bruner's neighbor, who has become a close friend and a source of transportation, picks the fruit to keep it from rotting on the ground. ", He stops in front of a newspaper, the front page of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin with the headline: "WAR! The best time for a bombing raid was after 1 a.m., when the ship was quiet. 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 next night, an American PT boat retrieved all 10 men. Potts picked up the Colt 45 he'd found on Ford Island on Dec. 7, 1941. "I don't think we'll ever be able to swim to shore. These Photos Of The Pearl Harbor Attack Are Still Shocking Decades Later "A day that will live in infamy." By . "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. When they sent me my discharge, I just stayed here.". You need the exercise. He resumed one of his old jobs from the Arizona, piloting motor launches from the receiving station out to the Navy ships. He didn't have to pay for dinner. He fought with other sailors in the Battle of Midway and watched the Marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima. 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. The Macdonough stayed until September, then sailed back on patrol in the Pacific. They went out for coffee afterward. As he walked past a bar, still in his Navy uniform, a fellow popped out the door and looked Anderson up and down, checking him out more closely someone would ordinarily. Once, I made a dive in a two-man submarine, down in over 1,200 feet of water off Santa Barbara coast. Many places around the world are named for a stand-out feature, and Pearl Harbor is no different. Not long after, a second plane dropped a life raft and all 10 of the crew made to shore and, the next night, back to the base. Sometimes, Japanese pilots attended memorial ceremonies and some of the other survivors would shake their hands. From the Vestal, Bruner was taken to the USS Solace, a hospital ship in the harbor. He keeps it with him when he travels. a director yelled. The six men stared straight ahead, almost as if they were back in line, at attention. 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. The bomb that shattered the Arizona's bow exploded as Cook and the others climbed out of the turret. The Navy occasionally cuts away small bits of the wreckage for memorials. "They played country music because the people here loved that," Anderson says. Haerry had made two runs to shore on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941. As the ships turned around, a squadron of enemy bombers appeared. 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. That didn't last long and he headed back to Morris, where he met Marietta. "This went on for four straight hours. Stratton's eyes brighten. "In three days, we rescued 219 coast watchers without losing anybody," Conter said. He was smart enough to excel, but started cutting classes not long after the start of his first semester. Hetrick recovered. It identifies Stratton as a survivor of the attack that sank the ship. But there are moments when he knows what he did meant something. At 100, he is the oldest. In March, the crew turned back Japanese forces in the Battle of Komandorski. Inside, he found broken bottles scattered in a soggy soup of booze and cardboard. Among those killed were over 1,700 aboard the USS Arizona, 103 . "Some of the ships I was on had guys who liked to play the guitar, so I knew something about it. In 1966, 25 years after the attack, Stratton returned to Pearl Harbor with his family. He hasn't hunted in a while, though he still reloads his own ammunition on a garage workbench. He stayed aboard the Solace about a month. All but one of the Pacific fleet's battleships were in port that morning, most of them moored to quays flanking Ford Island. Langdell says only this: "It took two days to take all the bodies. "I'd never seen so many guys with so much guts," he said. 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. He gazes at the picture. Pearl Harbor Victims | How Many Died at Pearl Harbor? - Popular Mechanics No one among the groups knew where he was or what he was doing, but the woman persisted. He finally received his orders to return to the states. There were: Cook and another crewman. 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 . She likes the story of how they tied the knot. "You," the fellow said. As far he was concerned he was saving lives.". Without them, Riel said, who knows where we'd be today. The job paid $700. That was the end of it.". They were dedicating it to Potts and wanted him to have it. he met his contact and not long after, he was standing in for Orson Welles in a scene from the movie "The Stranger.". 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. "I knew everything that was going on.". McBride reached the last man, Raymond Haerry, a 20-year-old coxswain on the day of the assault. He keeps up with what the military does, and some of it irritates him. The men helped one another, holding up anyone who weakened. One of our cruisers, the heavy cruiser, got hit and water got into the oil. Alcohol. "Why do you like the hat, dad?" on the Arizonawhen the battleship sankon Dec. 7. the final survivor to be interred in the ship. "You can't get a guy hungry in three or four days," Conter says. Usually, sharks will prioritize eating: Smaller fish. He's not so fond of the crowds around Honolulu and doesn't plan to go back. He had a ticket home to Minnesota, but decided to find a place to stay and come up with a plan. "I said goodbye and left.". On the actual night of the Titanic, were there actually sharks As he prepared for his new posting on the Frazier, Langdell decided to make a move. I wanted to know if you could do it for a couple of weeks.". It was one of the biggest rescues in World War II, but no one knew about it because everything was top secret in those days.". "It's hard to explain." By Michael E. Ruane. "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. "Are you out of the Navy, Andy?" He was cut loose in San Francisco and returned to Los Angeles, where he had married a girl back in late 1942. Finally, the tanker spotted the destroyer. Anderson would serve another 23 years before finally retiring once more. The family sold maple syrup distilled from the trees on their farm. "I'd do it a hundred times more," he says. With a gun, he could defend himself. Answer (1 of 23): Before I begin this answer I must confess to a surprising degree of ignorance, I once thought myself pretty well versed in maritime history and sea lore, until I began research for this answer. "It's always been my fear that people are going to forget that day, that people are going to forget the sacrifice that was made that day.". He visited the memorial and was relieved to see the builders got it right. Langdell returned to Pearl Harbor in 1976. ", "Baloney," Conter replied. Thickets of tangled shrubs and rows of trees are visible from his window. There's a little air bubble. No one seemed to be in charge on Ford Island, where Cook had spent the night. He finally found people who understood his experience. But he could not be prepared for what he found on the charred hulk of the battleship. You have a great voice, he was told. "The Arizona was a fighting battleship," Joe says. His own battle station was beneath the gun turret shattered by the last bomb to hit the Arizona. His mother had moved to Decatur, Ill., by then, so he followed and took a job at a hardware store. noah brown columbus ohio Did he know anything about meteorology? Langdell lives now in a skilled nursing center. The job wasn't what he expected in September, when he was discharged from the Navy. His old co-pilot in the New Guinea days was asked once if he'd had survival training for the war. (See Pearl Harbor Attack.) Just another site did sharks eat pearl harbor victims Three years ago, Ray Jr. received a call from a lieutenant colonel in the Rhode Island National Guard. The first couple of trips back to Hawaii were difficult. The mast and towers near the bow tilted at a sickening angle. It had been shortly after midnight when their ship, the USS Indianapolis, was torpedoed and sunk by a Japanese submarine in the deepest part of the Pacific Ocean, some 500 miles east of the . The ships sent up their own planes and turned back the assault. "I got another ship for you," the officer said at last. A second telegram, dated Jan. 6 reported that Conter was alive and would contact his family. "It is only by the grace of God that I stand here today," he said. As the boat heaved, the man with the ax missed and hit Haerry's hand, nearly severing it from his wrist. Five years later, in 2011, he got a call from the band director at Timpview High School in Provo. The worst shark attack in recorded history also happened to be a disaster for the US Navy. He stood strong and tall right in front of this general. The men, their charred skin peeling away, climbed hand-over-hand across the line to safety. Anderson grew up in the Red River Valley of northern Minnesota, the son of a prominent local judge. Haerry nods and like a good sailor taking orders from the chief, he pulls himself up with a walker and shuffles off to lunch. Debris from the Arizona showered the Tennessee's stern and started fires, but the vessel stayed afloat. A while back, Stratton and his wife Velma retired to Yuma and lived there about 15 years. "He saved six people's lives. did sharks eat pearl harbor victims. The Navy captain who lived on Waikiki Beach gave a lot of parties and invited these guys. 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. Donald Stratton completed the paperwork for a concealed weapons permit at the El Paso County Sheriff's Office and approached the counter to submit fingerprints. How the attack on Pearl Harbor changed history They still had to climb onto the dock and then into a truck for a short ride to a Navy hospital. One day, a young fellow knocked on his door. "That's what I want to remember. "What's up with this one? The USS Arizona ballcap that almost every survivor owns and wears. Part of his shoulder was blown off. As Conter told it, the story wasn't about punching sharks, or skulking in the jungle or chasing shadows to the waiting rescue boat. The clerks decided they could not send Stratton away without his permit. Conter served on the San Pablo and Half Moon. 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 day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Anderson volunteered for duty on the Macdonough, a destroyer that downed at least one of the Japanese attack planes on Dec. 7. In order to produce enough energy to hunt and keep their body temperatures up, they have to feed on high-fat animals like seals and large tuna.The sharks have good eyesight, and they have electromagnetic sensors on their snout where they can tell the difference between a seal and a human from over 100 yards away. He stepped off the deck into a motor launch as the ship was sinking. He liked the idea of working as an aircraft mechanic, so he volunteered. On December 7, 1941, the Imperial Japanese Navy bombed the Pearl Harbor Naval base in a surprise attack. Lonnie had taken up trap shooting and hoped to do a little hunting back home. Hetrick took a motor launch to the receiving station on shore, where he and other survivors were allowed to shower and given a change of clothes. A few years ago, the Cooks attended a fund-raising dinner at a local American Legion post. It wasn't, but the flash was a reminder, as if he needed anything more. By the time they were back, the icicles were forming again and two more guys would go out.".
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