Finally, after a few weeks on the tanker, Potts was handed a new assignment. For an hour or so, the two men talk. The treaty also gave the US Navy exclusive access to use Pearl Harbor as a coaling and repair station. Bruner and the Coghlan returned to Honolulu and finished out the war in the South Pacific. "It's just not going to happen. Over the next year, Anderson would sail across the South Pacific, joining other ships in the American assault on the Marshall Islands, Parry Island and the Palau Islands. "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. The sky began to darken and the wind grew. He thinks back. He jumped into the harbor, even though he had never passed his swimming test. In 1940, Anderson reported to the Arizona once more, joining his brother for the first time since they had enlisted. 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. They had voted. He had chased Japanese soldiers along the coast of China three years before America declared war on Japan. Conter fought on through World War II, scraped past a lot of close calls, then went to Korea. We'd go out and blow them up.". "When I got back home, my doctors here wanted to know about my medical background," Bruner said. He wrote a training manual whose precepts the Navy still follows. The day when they assigned him and a crew of divers to a motor launch and sent them to the Arizona to remove bodies of dead sailors. "They said, 'If you re-enlist, we'll send her over.' They were dedicating it to Potts and wanted him to have it. Salmon. This list and the accompanying graphics do not include encounters in which a shark does not actually bite a person or board (e.g. With Ben Affleck, Josh Hartnett, Kate Beckinsale, William Lee Scott. 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. He will tell his story to people he knows well and trusts, but he is 93 and the details are fading from his memory. He hasn't hunted in a while, though he still reloads his own ammunition on a garage workbench. "I went back and told my mother I wasn't going up there anymore," he said. Nightmares invade his sleep when he remembers those final moments. "We lit into them, started firing on them," Bruner said. "What are you looking at?" Before the year was out, Cook was sent to gunnery school in Washington, D.C., and to the South Boston Navy Yard, where he joined the new destroyer Pringle on its shakedown cruise. From the Vestal, Bruner was taken to the USS Solace, a hospital ship in the harbor. Although he is 97, he decided he couldn't miss a final reunion this year and he bought his tickets early. He went out to the floating memorial. As the 50thanniversary of the attack neared, Langdell got a call from a documentary filmmaker. "I would tell them. "I had to start training the new recruits on every machine," Bruner said. No sharks did not eat Titanic passengers. I quit. "I came back to the pier one morning and my name was on the list to do KP work," he says. A framed painting of the Arizona, the repair ship Vestal next to it. "I knew everything that was going on.". Yes, a lot of brave men died. "They tried to jump off. All rights reserved. No one seemed to be in charge on Ford Island, where Cook had spent the night. Cook has returned to Pearl Harbor three times and he likes the Arizona memorial. "The stuff he likes.". About a month later, Japanese suicide bombers sunk the Pringle near Okinawa. "So that's what we did," he says, staring out at the harbor nearly seven decades later. The story follows two lifelong friends and a beautiful nurse who are caught up in the horror of an infamous Sunday morning in 1941. "They told me the team was already picked," he said. Explosions rocked the vessel and fires burned into the evening. "He told you the story?" "I never talked about it much then," he says. The Frazier patrolled the South Pacific at first, but in early 1943, steamed northward toward Alaska, where Japan was trying to secure positions in the Aleutian Islands. He's not so fond of the crowds around Honolulu and doesn't plan to go back. Each of the six men were at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, when Japanese planes swarmed the Navy fleet in an ambush that would provoke war. Now, stateside again, Hetrick reported to a Navy station in San Diego, where he met the woman who would become his wife, Jeanne. 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. One day in May, crewmen spotted two periscopes in the water and the Frazier opened fire. By April 1940, the Navy seemed like a good idea and by summer, he was on board the Arizona, stationed at Pearl Harbor on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. He eases the truck out of the carport, far enough to show it off. "You can't get a guy hungry in three or four days," Conter says. The Coghlan supported Army landings and Navy bombing runs. Some even extend their consumption to seabirds. Bruner, who turned 94 in November, is now one of nine living USS Arizona crewmen who survived the ship's sinking. "I can understand that," Ray Jr. says. 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. 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. "I bought it at the receiving station in Pearl Harbor. He grew up in New Jersey and after high school, enrolled at MIT in Boston. medge. "To see the people I knew back in those days," he says. On December 7, 1941, the Imperial Japanese Navy bombed the Pearl Harbor Naval base in a surprise attack. Coast watchers were military intelligence operatives who gathered information about enemy activities on islands across the South Pacific. Stratton could not. Anderson picked up and moved to New Mexico. Abe's Pearl Harbor speech has been well received in Japan, where most people expressed the opinion that it struck the right balance of regret that the Pacific war occurred, but offered . As a youngster, Anderson heard stories about the Navy from his uncle, a man named Ray Stokes. Some common species of fish sharks hunt include: Tuna. The family sold maple syrup distilled from the trees on their farm. "Are you out of the Navy, Andy?" We got into a run-and-gun battle. There, he lost his twin brother, "It was a bloody catastrophe, a bloody mess," he says. But there are moments when he knows what he did meant something. He was assigned a battle station in the No. Stories of survival. I saw one airplane, with a big red meatball on the side. "It was boring," Potts says. "It's where the war started.". He had taken a bullet to the back of his leg as he was climbing the tower, but the burns were far worse. Pearl Harbor was the most important American . In World War II, he fought at Guadalcanal, in the battle of the Coral Sea, at Okinawa and Iwo Jima. And that's what he told every soldier and airman who took his courses.*. They knew the oil tanker Tippecanoe was out there, but couldn't see her. A year later, he felt better, so he re-enlisted. The Lexington sailed out of Pearl Harbor not long after. The Navy captain who lived on Waikiki Beach gave a lot of parties and invited these guys. "I canned 500 quarts of fruit one year," Marietta says. They spoil their granddaughters and can now move on to a new great-granddaughter. On Oct. 12, Langdell celebrated his 100th birthday with with his older son, John, who flew in from Spearfish, S.D. And he was aboard on Dec. 7, 1941, when the Japanese bombed the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor, a pivotal moment in history, but one that struck Anderson to his core. He agreed to play it on his show. The body parts we put in pillow cases. He was able to visit the national cemetery at an area called the Punch Bowl. Pictures of past parades. After the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom, the United States opted to construct a naval base in 1899. He saw action across the South Pacific, patrolled areas where suicide bombers were attacking American destroyers. The crew unloaded anything they could do without, to keep the damaged hull above the water line. Fish, in general, are the most common prey for sharks. His new employer manufactured industrial refrigeration units. They were dead in the water.". "No one knew where the hell I was," Bruner says. After the war, Langdell returned to the family auction business in Massachusetts, but after all those years in Hawaii, the Philippines and in the tropical South Seas, he couldn't readjust to the cold. "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. It sits a little higher than most items, but not necessarily on a platform. You can't leave the Navy.". The burn ward filled with the injured. He returned after the war to his home along the railway in eastern Oklahoma. He signed up for a Navy program that allowed college graduates to attend officer candidate school and emerge as ensigns within three months. "It's easier if you come see it," the sailor said. The only question was how Langdell would send Libby word about his arrival from Pearl Harbor. Three years ago, Ray Jr. received a call from a lieutenant colonel in the Rhode Island National Guard. He had stopped at Pearl Harbor more than a decade earlier, on his way to a posting in Korea. "Well, I'd brushed enough paint on that damn ship, I figured I could do it," he says. The trophy sits on a small white base that raises it above other items on a shelf. 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. The ship accompanied General Douglas MacArthur to the Philippines and was anchored in the harbor off Nagasaki, Japan, when the second atomic bomb exploded. In 2006, Langdell walked along the steep shoreline of Ford Island, the Arizona memorial in the background. In Alaska, he helped set up platforms that could keep up with tides that rose and fell as much as 32 feet. He acknowledged the wreath. "Sure, let's see it." Haerry ran away from home to join the Navy. "We took off," Bruner said, "firing just as fast as we could. The ones that gave him nightmares, the stories from the day he nearly burned to death, he kept to himself. He had held on to it through the war. With eyes too close or two far apart, a crewman could deliver faulty readings. As Conter told it, the story wasn't about punching sharks, or skulking in the jungle or chasing shadows to the waiting rescue boat. Usually, sharks will prioritize eating: Smaller fish. 3 gun turret. "If you can stand up and stay up while we change the linen on this bed, we'll see about it.". On the Arizona, he worked on the deck crew. Hetrick thought about it. The ship was still a day away from Honolulu when the captain received new orders. Just another site did sharks eat pearl harbor victims It turned out little was the right word. Almost three decades later, he was the plant manager, second-in-command. Anderson always talks about his brother, Delbert "Jake" Anderson, when he tells the story of his own escape from the burning ship. LaRocque asked. Cook is invited to such events occasionally and sometimes introduced as an Arizona survivor. The job wasn't what he expected in September, when he was discharged from the Navy. "Would you like to listen to it?" Bruner was the second-to-last man to leave the sinking ship. "In three days, we rescued 219 coast watchers without losing anybody," Conter said. did sharks eat pearl harbor victims. He told his story as his son, Ted, recorded it on video. So he did. The men stayed afloat until another plane saw the burning wreckage and tossed out a life raft. "He's there anytime I call him," Hetrick says. He introduced him to other officers. I still had to wait 29 years for that guy to come back and take his brush back.". Another five minutes, Bruner figured, and they'd have run out of ammunition. Finally, she located some of Bruner's tax records and found his address and telephone number. If a plane crashed, crocodiles awaited in the river. "We got halfway there and I told them to turn around," Conter said. Schenkelberg was no stranger to hardships . "The Japanese were only a mile away. He had escaped the USS Arizona, the battleship whose losses surpassed any other. Conter was at the young lady's house one day when her father received an important visitor: Admiral William Calhoun, the commander of base force for the Pacific Fleet. "I got the lay a wreath in front of the names of the fallen," he says quietly. After so many years of travel, the Cooks have settled into a more tranquil pace. His mother suggested Hills Business College in Oklahoma City. "We picked up a couple of girls and made the rounds. evolution golf cart forum "We got into San Francisco," he says, "and they never even opened my bags. Lonnie Cook was born in this rural town south of Tulsa, not long after it was founded as a stop on the Ozark and Cherokee Central Railway. "He saved six people's lives. The United States declared war on Japan on December 8, 1941, the day following the attack on Pearl Harbor. His dad operated a livery stable and a small dairy and later earned money as an auctioneer. Civilian Casualties. 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 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. About a year after he boarded the ship, he ran into a young recruit named Clyde Williams, a fellow from Okmulgee, Okla., a few miles down the road from Morris. "The sea was real rough when it came in and the sharks started gathering around. 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. We left and never fired a shot at them.". He ran to the anti-aircraft battery, his battle station, but there was no ammunition ready. 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. He's never been back. Whale sharks can grow to 65 feet in length and weigh up to 75,000 pounds. He doesn't need to say which Saturday night by now. He keeps it with him when he travels. Posted on December 7, 2021, 5:08 pm. Cha c sn phm trong gi hng. He heard the same stories from his grandmother and his aunts. "We made so many landings," Anderson said. He remembers when the order was given to abandon ship. 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. Nobody was expecting anything like that.". Put in eight years at least and you'll have a pension, he promised. The Langdells ended up honeymooning in Monterey and Carmel on the central California coast. Only a few hundred people lived there then. "We said we'd volunteer if they'd put two or three of us together on the same ship," he said. 1914-1941:The mightiest ship at sea | Dec. 7, 1941: The attack that changed the world| Documentary: 'Witness to Infamy' | 2014: The final toast. The ship was dead in the water. "They gave me 30 minutes to get off the ship and catch a transport to San Diego for training," he said. In late 1943, Conter flew a mission to rescue more than 200 coast watchers in New Guinea. "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 looks forward to his time with the guys from his years in the Navy. did sharks eat pearl harbor victimshavelock wool australia. But he could not be prepared for what he found on the charred hulk of the battleship. All but one of the Pacific fleet's battleships were in port that morning, most of them moored to quays flanking Ford Island. Stratton climbed to his feet and, biting back the pain, he stood and when his bed was ready, he collapsed back into it. 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. The Navy occasionally cuts away small bits of the wreckage for memorials. "He said, 'I had survival training in the ocean. The band had won a trophy in one of the competitions during their stay in Honolulu. As the ships turned around, a squadron of enemy bombers appeared. "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 keeps the mementos from his experience the maps, the photos, the clippings, the medals, the painting in a room behind a door on the side wall of the living room in the house where he has lived for 54 years. He left home at 5 every morning and took a ferry from Jamestown to the Navy base. He tried not to remember the days after the attack. 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. He was nervous about volunteering for anything, but he raised his hand. amc gremlin for sale washington state did sharks attack titanic survivors. It is respectful. Pearl Harbor attack, (December 7, 1941), surprise aerial attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor on Oahu Island, Hawaii, by the Japanese that precipitated the entry of the United States into World War II. "Through all that, I never did lose consciousness," he says. For years, Stratton wore the scars from the Arizona without talking about them much. It never returned, crippled in the Battle of the Coral Sea and scuttled by the Navy to keep the enemy from salvaging her. Did he know anything about meteorology? From Virginia, he went to Utah, to France and then to Albuquerque, where he retired in November 1961. It was Sunday and some of the crewmen with liberty wanted an early start. He finished his stint in the Navy in Shanghai, working shore patrol the way he did back in Honolulu. He remembers all the details and most of what happened later. This all changed when the United States declared war on Japan, bringing the country into World War II. And my co-pilot, Lou Conter, saved my life. 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. Haerry held the rope that connected the ships as another crewman swung an ax to cut it. "We didn't hear much from the outside at first," Hetrick said. LaRocque took Anderson to San Pedro, where his current ship was anchored. Anything you choose is fine. The woman helped connect Bruner with other survivors from the Arizona and Pearl Harbor. 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. Lonnie finally retired from welding in 1982 and in 1994, the Cooks moved back to Morris. When the fourth bomb detonated in the powder magazine, anyone left was blown over the side. He stopped in the small town of Payson, Utah. "This shows where all the ships were," he says, pointing at a map depicting Pearl Harbor on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941. 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 . At the time, sailors wore patches designating their rates, the enlisted expression of rank, on the right or left sleeve, depending on their assignment. In 1971, Stratton was working long hours with a diving outfit on a nuclear power plant project not far from Santa Barbara. Conter told the admiral he was interested in flight school, but doubted he would earn admission. Afterward, Langdell sought out other survivors who had formed reunion organizations. Redfish. After his second discharge, he knocked around Nebraska again, working in his dad's tavern, then on a beer truck, but he grew bored. Langdell was discharged at the war's end and returned to Massachusetts, where his wife, Libby, waited. Hetrick was still just 21 by then, but a seasoned sailor who shared little in common with the 17-year-old kid who left high school and joined the Navy on his parents' signature. They traveled around the country, meeting up with other USS Arizona survivors, with shipmates from the Frazier. "If somebody in authority said do something back then, you didn't question it. 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. The strike climaxed a decade of worsening relations between the United States and Japan. He clashed with the station manager of the radio station and finally quit. did sharks attack titanic survivors. "I appreciate your thoughtfulness. A second telegram, dated Jan. 6 reported that Conter was alive and would contact his family. Doctors and nurses wove among gurneys, administering morphine shots and looking for the victims most in need. "We'd leave at 5:30 in the evening and stay out 12 or 14 hours, then return in the morning," Conter said. "When somebody says get out of here and you're on a hundred tons of ammunition, well, you don't question it," he says. Deer and rabbits wander the hillside. "We can't forget what happened there that day. 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. That same year, he met his wife, Valerie, in Palm Springs. Oceanic whitetip sharks killed many of the surviving crew in the biggest attack on humans ever recorded Credit: Getty - Contributor. It is about three feet tall, with a carved island figure on top and the silhouette of a Hawaiian warrior on a plaque. Yes, some of them were his friends. "When we got up into the Aleutians, we started banging on the Japanese that had already landed," Bruner said. He fought cold and hunger on a ship nearly dead in the ocean off Alaska. By the end of the day, had persuaded Anderson to sign up for the Navy Reserve. ", "You will go to the Arizona and you will take off all the bodies and body parts above the water line," the man said. UPDATE:Joe Langdell diedin February 2015, months after this report. Only 35 dead were . Eighty years later, many of those killed are finally returning home and being laid to rest. "I don't think we'll ever be able to swim to shore. "You," the fellow said. 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.