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The Saratoga had returned to Pearl Harbor by the time the Japanese surrendered. The ship was to turn around and steam toward Alaska. The Langdells ended up honeymooning in Monterey and Carmel on the central California coast. 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". He remembers all the details and most of what happened later. "I went back and told my mother I wasn't going up there anymore," he said. He made bargemaster on a huge drilling rig, but yearned for something more interesting, so he got a job as a tender with a commercial deep sea diving business. A few years later, a new station owner showed Anderson his plans to start a TV station. The band had won a trophy in one of the competitions during their stay in Honolulu. He and a buddy had been talking about their future in the Navy. The face plate is glass and around the bottom are screws that would secure it to the diving suit. He got to know Alan Ladd, who had starred in a series of war movies. (See Pearl Harbor Attack.) That summer, the ship joined others for the invasion at Guadalcanal, in the Solomon Islands, one of the first major assaults against Japan by the Americans. They catch up. When was the shark attack on the Jersey Shore? Stories of survival. A second telegram, dated Jan. 6 reported that Conter was alive and would contact his family. He has told her about his escape from the Arizona. In World War II, he fought at Guadalcanal, in the battle of the Coral Sea, at Okinawa and Iwo Jima. By 1991, the 50thanniversary of the attack, the number of living Arizona crewmen had shrunk. He liked teaching and liked the chance to instill discipline. Sometimes he can't control his emotions, so he declines speaking requests. That led to a job in Roswell, the Sagebrush Serenade and Elvis Presley. He likes to wear a cap that identifies him as a veteran of the Arizona. John was sent from training camp in Illinois to Bremerton, Wash. That was the end of it.". He is one of nine living survivors of the Arizona and, at 97, he has amassed a lifetime of unforgettable days. He helped rescue some of his shipmates. "I'd never seen so many guys with so much guts," he said. Conter attended the same event and was seated next to Valerie. What they didn't count on was the side-street parking. And he was allowed to visit a part of the Arizona few people ever see. They are the marks of a survivor, 73 years on. They hopped in a Jeep and head up the hill toward one of the Quonset huts, the one where liquor for the officers' clubs was stored. Anderson smiled. He met up with some of the guys from the turret crew and they hopped a boat to shore, where there was a call for volunteers to join the Navy's destroyers. We got into a run-and-gun battle. "We lit into them, started firing on them," Bruner said. That didn't last long and he headed back to Morris, where he met Marietta. You don't fire guns in port, so I ran out real quick to see what was happening. "He was very military by then, very disciplined.". This list and the accompanying graphics do not include encounters in which a shark does not actually bite a person or board (e.g. It turned out most of the regular stuntmen were still in the military. But he didn't want to start his civilian life in the brig, so he left it in Honolulu. I think it was one of the proudest days of my father's life.". At dawn on December 7, 1941, more than half of the United States Pacific Fleet, approximately 150 vessels and service craft, lay at anchor or alongside piers in Pearl Harbor. He settled in Palm Springs and built a career as a real estate developer, buying up land for commercial and residential projects. A sign over the arched door marks the room as "Captain's Quarters.". Then we got hit.". He first visited the Arizona memorial in Pearl Harbor on the 50thanniversary of the attack and has returned since. He and Evelyn had their first son, Ray, Jr., in 1947. "They were very good days before the war. He was able to visit the national cemetery at an area called the Punch Bowl. "I didn't have the slightest idea what would happen when I signed up," he said. "We didn't hear much from the outside at first," Hetrick said. June 12, 2022 June 12, 2022 0 Comments June 12, 2022 0 Comments "I said, 'Well, come on, then,'" Marietta says, and in 1950, they wed. That's where the cross-country adventures begin. That's why the FBI was nosing around me, Potts thought. He wasn't ready to see it all again, to sharpen the memories he'd tried to dull. The ships encountered a Japanese fleet, two big cruisers, six destroyers, some troop ships, and engaged. He worked his way up to crew chief on a squadron of B-26 bombers, After 18 months overseas, he returned to Langley Field in Virginia. He got the west coast and I got the east coast. A moment passes. Maybe next time. Some even extend their consumption to seabirds. Soon, he became one of the earliest TV weathermen and an evening fixture in Roswell homes, or at least those with televisions. 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. Sight-setters and pointers would locate targets visually and determine their distance and range. A platform marked the wreckage of the USS Arizona. Hetrick earned a Purple Heart for wounds during one of the bombing raids. He tried not to remember the days after the attack. After Pearl Harbor, Langdell asked for a posting on one of the new destroyers the Navy was set to launch. Cook was the gun captain on the Pringle at the battle of Iwo Jima in 1945. Nobody was expecting anything like that.". "We'd send two guys out to knock the icicles off the guns, then they'd high-tail it back in. And that's what he told every soldier and airman who took his courses.*. If they found anything that belonged to the Navy or hadn't been approved, they'd take it. The treaty also gave the US Navy exclusive access to use Pearl Harbor as a coaling and repair station. Potts was based out of the port director's office there were two, one at the harbor, one on the ninth floor of the Aloha Tower in downtown Honolulu but he logged most of his hours at the controls of the motor boat, a Jeep or a station wagon. "That lumber was so damn green then, we used to kid we had to shoot the squirrels out of it.". When they said, 'grab your sea bags and let's go,' I did.". "They played country music because the people here loved that," Anderson says. They traveled around the country, meeting up with other USS Arizona survivors, with shipmates from the Frazier. He doesn't like to talk about the attack. Almost imperceptibly, he sways. The ship steamed toward the Asiatic Pacific and soon Anderson was chasing Japanese forces again, only this time the United States was at war. It's the same place where the oil is leaking" oil stores aboard the ship that, even today, still seep to the surface "that's where I got out from below.". '", "Some things," he says, "you don't know about what they'll mean until years later.". Cook was assigned to the USS Patterson, then two months later, transferred to the Aylwin, a destroyer that had been moored at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7 and engaged the bombers as the attack began. Photographs. He was treated there for four months. He had a ticket home to Minnesota, but decided to find a place to stay and come up with a plan. Aviators most often arose from left-arm rates. And it holds deep meaning for Potts, even though he did nothing to win it. The studios needed tough men who could handle dangerous situations. But the war was over. 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. Nightmares invade his sleep when he remembers those final moments. The Macdonough pulled picket patrol often, protecting other troops and guarding against kamikaze attacks by Japanese planes. After the war, he worked as a stuntman for Orson Welles and John Wayne and helped build Alan Ladd's house in the hills outside Hollywood. Without them, Riel said, who knows where we'd be today. Her father was an engineer and a top executive for a dredging company with a big Navy contract. On the same bookshelf sit mementos from his time on the Arizona. From the Vestal, Bruner was taken to the USS Solace, a hospital ship in the harbor. The Solace dispatched motor boats to the Arizona to rescue wounded sailors and her crew pulled others from the water. The first couple of trips back to Hawaii were difficult. He decided to head back to the water. The buddy wasn't home, but his son-in-law answered. Yes, he'll say, he was on the Arizona and he survived. They found a way to take prints from the edges of his fingers, enough to satisfy the law. 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. They would be married in San Francisco, before the Frazier set sail. "There's the battleships there's the Nevada, the Arizona, the Tennessee, the West Virginia, Maryland, the Oklahoma. The job wasn't what he expected in September, when he was discharged from the Navy. "Why do you like the hat, dad?" He introduced him to other officers. He clashed with the station manager of the radio station and finally quit. The fireball from the explosion engulfed the six men in the box and trapped them. From Virginia, he went to Utah, to France and then to Albuquerque, where he retired in November 1961. Once, I made a dive in a two-man submarine, down in over 1,200 feet of water off Santa Barbara coast. He catalogs the scars and their origin. The exhausted crew dragged ashore an hour later and hid in the jungle, fearful they would be captured by Japanese soldiers. Minutes later, the Japanese attacked and the Arizona was on fire, sinking beneath the surface. "Hi," he said, introducing himself. The Edsall sailed farther north, then headed to the Philippines, where they played baseball with a group of indigenous Moros, who had fought the United States more than 20 years earlier. One of the first people to do that.". Photographs hang on the walls of his room. He had held on to it through the war. The Japanese military had established strategic outposts in the Aleutian Islands and had its eye on Alaska. At 93, he is one of the last survivors ofthe attack on the Arizona. "I've gotten letters from some of the officer candidates who had my father as an instructor," Ray Jr. says. Conter and others in his group boarded a boat to go out to the platform and see his old ship. 2023 www.azcentral.com. "Lots of big band songs," Randy says, as the first bars of a brass line pour from the speakers. "I got the lay a wreath in front of the names of the fallen," he says quietly. Among his responsibilities was overseeing the naval officers' clubs in the area. He signed up for a Navy program that allowed college graduates to attend officer candidate school and emerge as ensigns within three months. The Lexington sailed out of Pearl Harbor not long after. Bruner keeps mementos of his time on the Arizona in the sitting room. The story of the USS Indianapolis has become legendary with regards to shark attacks, and is known as the worst shark attack in recorded history. ", "You will go to the Arizona and you will take off all the bodies and body parts above the water line," the man said. We had survival training on the job. Haerry felt the entire ship life out of the water. The unprovoked attack on Pearl Harbor killed more than 2,400 Americans and struck a blow to the Navy's Pacific fleet, which had been based at Pearl Harbor. And he has watched with dismay the changes in survival training. How could he say no? The Navy loaded 5,000 bunks on board, along with a row of portable latrines, and the Saratoga sailed to San Francisco, passing under the Golden Gate Bridge with toilet paper streamers and thousands of sailors who needed something to do. He worked on board as a mechanic for a torpedo squadron and ended up in charge of the hydraulic shop. He keeps a folder of newspaper clippings, magazine stories and copies of a telegram. One day in May, crewmen spotted two periscopes in the water and the Frazier opened fire. "We got into San Francisco," he says, "and they never even opened my bags. When the regular stuntmen returned and the studio cut loose the subs, Ladd hired some of them to work on his house in the Holmby Hills above Los Angeles. We were going to have a date the next day. By the end of the day, had persuaded Anderson to sign up for the Navy Reserve. Pearl Harbor was a United States Naval base on the island of Oahu, located west of Honolulu. "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. Bruner thought it an odd request. More than 20 years earlier, he had earned his real estate license in California and had maintained it. On the 70thanniversary of the attack, the men had been brought to the state capitol to receive new honors. We can't let it happen again.". When he reaches that part of his story, he stops. As anniversaries of the attack passed, Ray Jr. would asked his dad if he wanted to visit the USS Arizona memorial at Pearl Harbor. 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. She tracked him to the Los Angeles area, then started a phone search. 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. Anderson has returned to the Arizona memorial often and has taken his family there. He went out to the floating memorial. He wanted one last unforgettable day. 5 Jun. You need the exercise. As the war with Japan intensified, the Navy was building new warships as fast as it could. The telegram, which misspelled Conter's last name, promises further information and asks his family not to divulge Conter's posting. He jumped into the harbor, even though he had never passed his swimming test. "When somebody says get out of here and you're on a hundred tons of ammunition, well, you don't question it," he says. Toward the end the war, Langdell was stationed in the Philippines, at a base in Manila. He was cut loose in San Francisco and returned to Los Angeles, where he had married a girl back in late 1942. So reads the telegram sent to the Mattituck home of Anna and Clifford Penny on Dec. 10, 1941. 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. The two men not only met, they took a boat to the USS Arizona memorial and laid a wreath in front of the wall with the names of the crewmen who died on the ship. He grew up in New Jersey and after high school, enrolled at MIT in Boston. The war's over.". "I had to start training the new recruits on every machine," Bruner said. Sometimes we never landed, but we kept the line, always watching out for kamikazes.". "Sometimes, we'd come back, eat, then sleep on the beach.". Fire had blackened much of the structure still visible. Their ordeal . Cook is invited to such events occasionally and sometimes introduced as an Arizona survivor. "Are you in the Navy? At dawn on December 7, 1941, more than half of the United States Pacific Fleet, approximately 150 vessels and service craft, lay at anchor or alongside piers in Pearl Harbor. "The Japanese were only a mile away. Now, Bruner prepares for his next trip in the Captain's Quarters. Cook worked in California, mostly welding jobs, until the union he belonged to called a strike. The offshore diving business could leave its own kind of scars. Bruner was the second-to-last man to leave the sinking ship. High winds could slam one ship into the other and sink one or both of the vessels. Lonnie had taken up trap shooting and hoped to do a little hunting back home. In the late 1930s, American foreign policy in the Pacific hinged on support for China, and . No one knew much about Bruner's years in the Navy, not the early years anyway. He weighed 92 pounds by the time he was sent to rehabilitation in Corona, Calif. Conter had made friends with a young lady in Honolulu. She nods and smiles. An aerial view of "Battleship Row" at Pearl Harbor, photographed from a Japanese aircraft during the the bombing. The Tennessee took hits in the attack, but two of the armor piercing bombs, the kind that sunk the Arizona, failed to detonate. "I thought you'd be in flight school," he said. I even had a couple of dates with girls.". Cha c sn phm trong gi hng. He started chatting up a regular customer, a contractor, and got a job building houses. He motions toward his gnarled ear. "When we got up into the Aleutians, we started banging on the Japanese that had already landed," Bruner said. UPDATE: Bruner died in 2019. He gave Anderson the name of a contact there. He resumed one of his old jobs from the Arizona, piloting motor launches from the receiving station out to the Navy ships. He knew his brother hadn't made it off the Arizona alive, but he didn't know much else. "It's just not going to happen. On the other end of the line is an old shipmate from the USS Saratoga, the aircraft carrier where Hetrick worked as a mechanic through most of World War II. Anderson's road to the radio booth started in Hollywood, with a screen test at a studio where he had worked. 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. He's more like family than just a friend.". "Sure, let's see it." Libby had arranged stays north of the city. The guns used the same type of control mechanisms Bruner had mastered on the Arizona. Servicemembers stationed in Hawaii took care of the memorial during the 2013 government shutdown: Servicemembers stationed in Hawaii treat Pearl Harbor as a living . All but one of the Pacific fleet's battleships were in port that morning, most of them moored to quays flanking Ford Island. Potts picked up the Colt 45 he'd found on Ford Island on Dec. 7, 1941. Other crewmen would roll out the shell, use a mechanical device to ram it in, then load four bags of powder behind it. He bought another gun in the states and he is never far from it. 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. She was attending an art academy to learn dress designing. But one day and one place in Cook's 94 years seem to embody all the rest, the day in December 1941 when the young sailor from Oklahoma escaped the ship that sent America to war. It sits a little higher than most items, but not necessarily on a platform. The lead-up to the Pearl Harbor attack. A framed painting of the Arizona, the repair ship Vestal next to it. He touches the diving helmet. Kuwait. The Stratton men have taken up a more personal cause. 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. And the ships needed experienced sailors. Their orders were lost on the Arizonawhen the battleship sankon Dec. 7. For years, Stratton wore the scars from the Arizona without talking about them much. The men helped one another, holding up anyone who weakened. Anderson would serve another 23 years before finally retiring once more. He acknowledged the wreath. Whether they're a spiny dogfish all the way to great whites, sharks love eating fish. They were married in an Episcopal Church on Van Ness Avenue. But he kept most of it to himself until he started meeting up with other survivors, years after he retired from the military. Why is the FBI checking up on you, she wanted to know. As the ships turned around, a squadron of enemy bombers appeared. Colombia. A stunt coordinator helped pull Anderson from the pile of cigarette crates that had broken his fall. As he recounts the experience, he rubs his hands together, then holds them out, turning them over. His work turned toward survival training in a new military program called SERE, for Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape. "It acknowledges to people that I'm a survivor," Joe replies, his voice soft. He was nervous about volunteering for anything, but he raised his hand. The Coghlan supported Army landings and Navy bombing runs. Langdell lives now in a skilled nursing center. Today, the population can almost reach 1,500 when everyone is home. Potts stayed in Honolulu until the end of the war. He asked if Jeanne could come with him. Sharks in turn were revered because they . When he left Morris the first time in 1939 after high school, Cook wasn't sure where he'd end up. USS Indianapolis was a Portland class heavy cruiser of the United States Navy. "We made friends. "To go through that to me is incomprehensible. In 2006, Langdell walked along the steep shoreline of Ford Island, the Arizona memorial in the background. A carnivorous shark diet usually includes fish, mollusks, and crustaceans. He brought all of his family: his wife Jeanne, his three sons and their families. But he became restless. Abe offered condolences and said he prayed that all their souls were at peace. He is one of nine living survivors from the attack on the USS Arizona, the battleship he boarded in 1941 when he was 17. He wanted men with eyes set in the right place on their face. Did he ever. The band would cover all expenses for him and Doris. "I ran the decompression chamber on jobs. He climbed aboard the ship, ducking to avoid bullets from the gunner planes. They would serve together for a little over a year. The band members had decided they wanted to honor survivors from that day. 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. Langdell knew Libby was friends with a skater in the Ice Follies, which was summering in San Francisco. No sharks did not eat Titanic passengers. Pearl Harbor became one of the major reason for the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy (in 1893) and the kingdoms annexation (in 1898) by the US government.The Spanish American war began that same year in the Philippines and Cuba which ended with the US winning both territories from the Spanish. 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. CARNIVOROUS SHARKS. His service on the Arizona also seemed to give him added credibility among the young sailors. They spoil their granddaughters and can now move on to a new great-granddaughter. He did not reach a hospital for several days, but doctors still saved his hand. 1914-1941:The mightiest ship at sea | Dec. 7, 1941: The attack that changed the world| Documentary: 'Witness to Infamy' | 2014: The final toast. Conter got his wings in November 1942. Three days later, he and his buddy were on a ship to San Francisco and then a train to Pensacola. did sharks attack titanic survivors. After that, he started teaching U.S. troops the skills of survival, evasion, resistance and escape. Whale Shark (Rhincodon typus) The whale shark is the largest shark species, and also the biggest fish species in the world. By the time the woman from Illinois found him, he was ready to face his past. Whale sharks are found in warm waters in the Pacific . After he returned from Korea, Haerry was promoted to master chief petty officer, signifying his experience and level of service. "A brush painter.". "So that's what we did," he says, staring out at the harbor nearly seven decades later. "We wouldn't get much fire back and by the time they sounded general quarters, we were on our way," Conter said. Wherever he goes on the pickup, people ask him about his experience. Here is a story he will tell, a memory he will keep. The ship provided fire support for the Marines going ashore. He eases the truck out of the carport, far enough to show it off. His job was to put the primer in the big 14-inch gun. The crew was evacuated and another U.S. destroyer scuttled the Lexington to keep the Japanese from capturing her. A pistol sits on top of his television at home. 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. The easy stories he'd tell. He and Libby moved west to Walnut Creek east of San Francisco. 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. Why not try radio? At this one, he was looking around the room and he saw a picture of a sailor way back in the back, in a setting arranged like a memorial. Conter was talking about survival, about coming back alive. The report said most of the guys in the anti-aircraft batteries, where Jake fought, were shot down early in the assault. We left and never fired a shot at them.". With Ben Affleck, Josh Hartnett, Kate Beckinsale, William Lee Scott. he said. But John Anderson, the Navy chief petty officer who called himself Cactus Jack on the air, had a good head start already. Potts returned to Illinois in late 1945 to await his formal discharge, hanging out in Chicago. It identifies Stratton as a survivor of the attack that sank the ship. The man walked over and looked at Langdell's name tag. I wanted to know if you could do it for a couple of weeks.". There's a little air bubble. a director yelled. I couldn't.". They will celebrate 65 years of marriage in April. Japanese torpedo bombers hit the Lexington and crippled the big ship. Pictures of past parades. He told his story as his son, Ted, recorded it on video.