California (BB 44) - Naval Cruise Book

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Sunday, December 8, 1991 lrmpla- lhulx la-lo I I Pearl arbor Survivors Gather T J R ' ' FREDRICKSBURG CAP? - Pearl Harbor sur- vivors, their families and friends gathered Satur- day to remember the Japanese sneak attack 50 years ago that plunged their lives into chaos and the nation into war. It was Pearl Harbor that catapulted the nation into war and changed history forever. said U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio. Smith handed out commemorative medals to the survivors in a ceremony at the only museum in the nation dedicated toward chronicling the Pacific theater during World War II. Several hundred people attended the ceremony in the Garden of Peace at the Admiral Nimitz Museum. Chester William Nimitz was named commander-in-chief of the Pacific after the Japa- nese attack that killed more than 2,400 service- men and crippled the U.S. Navy. A World War II vintage training plane flew over the ceremony as the crowd paused silently at the exact moment of the attack. Fifty-four survivors, or their family members, received the medals. They lined up beside a Japanese midget submarine that ran aground 50 miles from Pearl Harbor during the attack. The submarine was later sent stateside to drum up sales of national war bonds. The survivors displayed mixed emotions about the anniversary and the nation's current relation- ship with Japan. Fifty years have passed and we should forgive and forget, said Joseph Berry, who lives near Lake Buchanan. Berry was on the USS Helena. But George Grobe, another survivor who lives in Blanco, said he keeps remembering what they did to us. I don't forgive to easily, he said. Grobe was aboard the USS Maryland drinking coffee when the bombs started falling. The battleship was tied to the USS Okla- homa, he said. She took all the fish ttorpedoesl that were intended for us. F , n Sneak Attack 'U . . 1 -if . E-if eff' 4 1' V E i WM , iii!! X vi ' Jflgk, C iilii. l I 1 , T iffilililis.. ' ' . ' . ifiuiisiw iif' 'Lili -llli ' ' ..i+Q1W'l'l'. 1Afl fw+Wl J . + . ii, J tiiil liii, M J l'J fiilll'i m lii'irs.ii illiil 'llili.,ilM . AP Laserphoto Elmer Childress Wipes Away Tears Sue Thornton of Kingsland attended the eer- emony to receive a medal for her husband. George Lee Thornton, who died in 1982, Thorn- ton had served on the USS California, We should never forget Pearl Harbor and what they did to us, she said. Elmer Childress of Kerrville said he doesn't hold a grudge against the Japanese, but disagrees with people who believe the U.S. should apolo- gize for dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. - --

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-X . fn Yi AUC uf wr,- r fr SE' tiilw E iii: ,wg . eff ,,. .r j ,:AA are Q W. if and superstructure rose above the waves. As observers noted Thursday rnoming, the sea had closed over the port side forward and over Turret IV on the quarter-deck. Of the 120 of- ficers and 1.546 crewmen aboard on Decern- ber 7th. six officers and 92 men were killed or missing in action with another three officers and 58 crewmen wounded. It was a devastat- ing loss. After two happy decades of smooth sailing. Pearl Harbor marked a sudden and bitter end for the Golden State Battlewagon. Veteran Chuck Sharman recounted his experience at Pearl Harbor in his eye-witness account: My buddy, Bob Mitchell, and I had some good luck in the summer of 1940 and again in December of 1941. A week or two before we were to report aboard ship for duty in July of 1940. our orders were changed from the USS Arizona to the USS Calnfornia. We became signalmen on the USS Calnfornia CBB-445. On the morning of December 7, 1941, I was relieving the watch on the signal bridge shortly before 8:00 a.m. I heard the engines of several planes, looked up, and saw three planes wing over and start to dive just forward of our bow. Even as I saw their bombs fall, I thought they must be our own planes. Not until the explosions of the patrol plane hangers on Ford Island, and I saw the red meatballs on the wings, did I realize that the planes were Japa- nese aircraft. My buddy and I made it through the at- tack. However, our families in Tacoma, Wash- ington, were notified that we had been killed- in-action and they proceeded to have memo- rial services for us at our church and at the VFW. where a year or two before we had played in the marching band. In a few weeks' time they learned we were alive after all, and removed our names from the Memorial Pylon in town. About a week after the Japanese attack, word was passed that most of the USS Cali- fornia si gnalmen were to be transferred to four heavy cruisers. They were the USS Vincennes, the USS Chicago, the USS Astoria, and the USS Portland. We were allowed our choice of ship. Mitch and 1 decided we wanted to be on a ship named for a city close to our home town, so the Chicago and Wncennes were im- mediately eliminated. That left the Portland and Astoria. Both were cities in Oregon, but we thought that Portland was closer to Tacoma than Astoria was, so we went aboard the Port- land, the only one of the four cruisers to sur- vive the war. Only afterjoining her crew did we discover she was named for Portland, Maine, Q Portland, Oregon! Following the battle of Midway, Bob Mitchell was transferred to the USS Atlanta, where he was wounded when she was sunk off Guadalcanal in November, 1942. Later he served on the destroyer USS Hahford, finish- ing the war as chief quartermaster. 'fln January, 1943, I left the Portland and went to the USS Crescent City, an APA. Sev- eral months later I was on the Lunga Point Tower on Guadalcanal. During that time the Hahfora' came out from the United States and took station off Lunga Point, making runs north through the Solomon Islands. I had not seen Mitch for many months and finagled my way on board for a good visit of several days. 'fLater in the year of 1943, I went back to the United States and was part of the commis- sioning crew of the USS Van Valkenberg. When the war ended, I was teaching NAN Sig- naling School in Pearl Harbor where it all be- gan on that unforgettable day aboard the Cali- forniaf' And then Veteran Frank M. Murphy re- counted his personal encounters at Pearl Har- bor on uthe day of infamy : Y sf if 4 . Q 21, f'No,, Wx 4 , , . , 1 1 ea 1 I r W s 5 Q39 ia s . 'Url' -snug. 7 f , 'f f 'M , ' t... A 1 7 4 rm.. -P ,-- :ur -. .ts ,r ., ff t - ' f . , We r.. -- e ' 7 A z sv-'Q -Q-f-f ... 7 f , 2' H 'S' M' W , of A-gig, f ass' dn- Q 'Te 1... 'f f , W 'WW f M1-'1 ' ' r 0 Al anchor in Long Beach CA., during a Santa Anna high wind storm, weathering it out. lCourtesy of Robert Gardner J f'Nearing the end of my enlistment, I had orders in hand to proceed to the nearest port in the Continental United States for discharge. I could practically smell the creosote and sage in Arizona. I planned on one more liberty in Honolulu, so Clinton Zachary and I went ashore from the USS Phelps about 0730 hours to hang one on for the last time. The calendar affirmed the date to be Sunday, December 7, 1941. Hlmpatiently we waited at the liberty land- ing for a bus into Honolulu, and idly glanced at a group of planes flying in unusually low. We joked, 'Sunday is a hell of a day to prac- tice, but that's the Navy for you.' We noticed some of the planes carried torpedoes and saw them dropped on battleship row. Laughingly we joked that the torpedomen would have to work to overhaul them. Natu- rally, we thought they were exercise heads. All at once it struck us the USS California CBB- 44J listed unnaturally and its boats were fall- ing off the boat deck. Smoke began to fill the sky, too. 'fAs the first planes passed overhead, we had waved at the pilots and they waved back. Suddenly, one plane dipped our way and ma- chine-gunned the dock. This wasn't an exer- cise, something terribly was wrong! f'Now we noticed various ships in the har- bor began firing anti-aircraft and machine guns, and we noticed the planes coming in had a big red ball on the wings. Zack and I started to run to the half completed receiving station, but three machine gun bullets tore into my right lower leg. It seemed inconceivable how they hit me when my skinny legs moved faster than light! We found the medics at the receiving station and they bandaged my leg. The firing had slacked off some, so Zack and I liberated an empty whale boat and mo- tored out to see what had happened. We picked up an engineer on the dock. I was the boat cox'un and Zack was the bow hook. Out on the water, we noticed several men swimming between the USS Arizona and Ford Island, so we headed for them. The planes roared over us and one made a direct hit on the USS Arizona. She exploded with a hell of a roar and with a huge fireball. I had my hat tipped back and it burned my hair, eyebrows and eyelashes off. The force of the explosion pushed me against the tiller, a two-inch piece of polished brass pipe. Unbelievably, I bent it with my hip. We retrieved a boat load of swim- mers and took them to the landing. Many Japanese planes filled the sky with firing from them, and from our ships, too. Zack and I made numerous trips, picking up as many men as we could find. The water, black and murky with oil and debris from the damaged ships, and the sky filled with black, choking smoke from the fires, made it seem like Hell, only we were still alive. We saw the bomb that got the USS Penn- sylvania, and the USS Cassin, and the USS Downes, which were all in dry dock. The USS Oglala, the oldest mine layer in the U.S. Navy, had tied up at the dock and was sunk. Because of its age, we always said it sank from fright and wouldn't credit the Japanese with it.

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By this time. the USS Nevada, although damaged. got underway along with several destroyers. Almost all the battlewagons were burning and sinking. With screws chuming slowly. the USS Nevada made its way toward the harbor entrance. They realized they couldn't make it. would sink and block the channel. so they backed it up, under full power, into a cane field opposite the Hospital Point. Our ship. the USS Phelps, with a skeleton crew, managed to get underway and out to sea, which left Zack and me, at the moment, without a ship. We continued fishing sailors from the oily water. mainly survivors back of the USS Ari- gona after it had been hit. ln the murky water, all we could see was part of some sailor float- ing, and would grab an arm or leg or uniform and haul him into our boat. One time, Zack leaned over and grabbed a sailor's head and lifted it up. There was no body. After we pulled as many men as could be found from the water, we put ourselves un- der the command of the senior shore patrol officer who had us carry dispatch to the ships and various other craft still afloat. We were darned scared after dark because everyone was frightened and trigger happy. We flashed our running lights and hollered our identifications: then came alongside looking into an arsenal of rifle muzzles. How we slept, or whether we slept that night escapes my mind entirely, I can't recall. The next day, December 8th, we carried more messages around the harbor, including offic- ers so they could assess the damage and make preparation for repairs. How long the USS Phelps stayed out on sea escapes my memory, too. Time seemed to stand still after the awful event of December 7th. We kept on working and stayed in the Receiving Station until the USS Phelps returned, but my mind blocked out just about everything that we did. 'fOf course, with our country at war, dis- charge from the U.S. Navy was just a memory. The Battle of the Coral Sea followed as did Midway and on and on .... UNITED STATES PACIFIC FLEET BATTLE FORCE, BATTLESHIPS USS CALIFORNIA IBB-441 PEARL HARBOR, TH. DECEMBER 22, 1941 'fFrom: Commanding Officer To: Commander-in-Chief, United States Pacific Fleet HSubject: Report of Raid CRevisedJ, De- cember 7, 1941. Reference: tal CinCPac Despatch 102131 of December, 1941. tbl C.O. California Serial Number 1002 of December 13, 1941. 1. Since submitting reference tbl, addi- tional infomiation has become available from a study of individual reports received from personnel of this ship and therefore makes de- sirable the submission of this revision of ref- erence tbl. 2. A complete report of damage is in the process of preparation as exact information in the premise becomes available. HAIR RAID ENGAGEMENT, DECEMBER 7, 1941 NARRATIVE Prior to the air raid by the Japanese Air Forces on December 7, 1941, the USS Cali- fOrnia CBB-445 was berthed at Fox-Three, star- board side to with boiler number one in use for auxiliary purposes. The Material Condi- tion ofthe ship was X-ray except voids A- 146- V, A-148-V, A-184-V, A-186-V, A-188-V, A- 137-V, A-139-V, B-119-V, B-123-V, and B- 109-V, which were open preparatory to com- plete necessary maintenance work. The ship was fueled to 95 per cent capacity. Four hun- dred rounds of fifty calibre ammunition were at machine guns number one and number two. Fifty rounds of five inch anti-aircraft CA.A.J ammunition were in the ready boxes. All other ammunition was in the magazines. Guns num- ber one and number tow had been designated as the ready guns. All five inch!25, three inch! 50 and anti-aircraft CA.A.J fifty calibre machine guns wee completely ready for use and ready to load in all respects. The battery was not manned except machine guns number one and number two. The ship's senior line officer aboard was Lieutenant Commander M.N. Little, U.S. Navy, Lieutenant H.E. Bernstein, U.S. Navy, was the officer with the Head of Department duty. The attack was marked initially by the bombing of facilities of the Naval Air Station, Ford Island, and a strafing of the ship at 0735 hours. The General Alarm was sounded and General Quarters was ordered. Main Control was ordered to make all preparations for get- ting underway and by 0800 hours the main and auxiliary steam lines were warmed. f'The ship's company went promptly to their battle stations, with the stations above deck under a strafing attack. Condition Zed was ordered set. Communications wee estab- lished between Conn, Fire Control, Central Station, and Main Control, and their subsid- iary stations. Before the strafing attack was over the torpedo planes commenced their at- tack on the battleships moored at the inter- ruptedquays. By 0803 hours, fifty calibre machine guns number one and number two opened fire and were shortly followed by number two and num- ber four five inch anti-aircraft CA.A.J guns. The shortage of ammunition immediately available at the guns was acute, and orders were issued to ammunition parties to expedite the service of it to the guns. Before the foregoing order could be ex- ecuted the ship was struck at 0805 hours with three torpedoes, two at about frame 110 on the port side, the other at about frame 47 on the port side. These torpedoes struck almost si- multaneously and their effect due to the incom- plete setting of Condition Yoke and Zed proved far reaching and disastrous. The ship com- menced listing to port and the Commanding Officer ordered counter-flooding to limit list to four degrees. Forward in the vicinity of Forward Ord- nance Repair, by the rupture of fuel tanks, the third deck commenced flooding with fuel. The strength of the fumes were such as to overcome the ammunition party attempting to expedite the delivery of ammunition. The rupture of fuel oil tanks forward introduced water into the fuel system and before it was cleared, light and power were lost on the ship at a critical time. The flooding of compartments in closeprox- imity to the torpedo hits prevented the neces- sary access to make possible some control of damage. The instantaneous flooding of compart- ments on the third deck directly inboard of the forward torpedo hit was probably due to the fact that the man-holes to five C51 voids in that area were open. The voids noted in paragraph one were opened in order to inspect for pos- sible leakage from fuel tanks, which had been filled when the ship fueled to 95 per cent ca- pacity. The five C57 voids, however, on the star- board side were closed by repair parties, the five C55 voids, however, on the port side were still open when the torpedo striick. The fuel oil tanks between the inner and outer voids were probably ruptured by the explosion and the oil probably driven up through the open men-holes of the voids into the spaces directly above them. The Port Thrust Block Room C-106-E flooded rather rapidly after the torpedo hit at frame number 110, due to either a ruptured deck or bulkhead, or both. The compartment was evacuated and a hatch in the trunk leading to it was dogged down. The pressure under this hatch was such, however, that the hatch was bulging and it is very probable that it car- ried away, flooding the Engineeris store room and gyro compass room C-304-A, which is im- mediately above the port thrust block room. No other main machinery spaces were flooded immediately subsequent to the torpedo hits. The Center Motor Room was eventually flooded by the ventilation duct carrying away. The cause, therefore, of the flooding of the compartments in line with the after torpedo hit is not clearly established. There appears good reason to believe that either the tank tops of the fuel oil tanks in that area were ruptured or that the man-hole covers were blown off or buckled and that again the longitudinal bulk- head between the third deck spaces directly over the fuel tanks and the living spaces in- board on the third deck were either ruptured or severely strained and leaking. The preva- lent opinion among the men stationed on the third deck during the engagement, all of whom were driven out by the flooding and oil fumes, seems to be that flooding subsequent to the torpedo hit was probably through ventilation systems, few of which were secured. The time available between the sounding of the General Alarm and the time the repair party personnel in the third deck areas were forced to evacuate their stations was totally inadequate for any- thing like complete setting of Conditions Yoke