Framed medals. Did sharks eat Titanic passengers - Google Groups During WW2, did sailors get eaten by sharks? - Quora Once a shark finds its prey, it needs to decide on whether to eat or not based on smell and appearance. Langdell was discharged at the war's end and returned to Massachusetts, where his wife, Libby, waited. "They gave me 30 minutes to get off the ship and catch a transport to San Diego for training," he said. Today, he is one of nine remaining survivors from the mighty battleship. Russell Penny, killed at Pearl Harbor, was Suffolk's first WWII Nobody could debate what that was, no question about it.". did sharks eat pearl harbor victims It was as if he had none. He bought another gun in the states and he is never far from it. Joe proposed and Libby accepted. "The new ones, they didn't know beans.". "We were told to watch out for them, these guys were assassins," Anderson said. There were: Cook and another crewman. When she says anything, I tell her I'm catching up from the war.". Clayton Schenkelberg, who was born in 1917 in Iowa and joined the U.S. Navy in 1937, died in a senior care facility April 14 in San Diego. The attack was devastating for the Americans, though the Japanese . Knives. A month after the Coral Sea battle, Cook's ship was part of the American forces in the critical Battle of Midway. They traveled around the country, meeting up with other USS Arizona survivors, with shipmates from the Frazier. For a while, the young family lived in Puerto Rico as Haerry, now a chief boatswain's mate, drew new assignments aboard his tender. The fellow told him to report to the front gate of Sam Goldwyn's studio in Hollywood on Monday morning. The men stayed afloat until another plane saw the burning wreckage and tossed out a life raft. She nods and smiles. Pearl Harbor centres on a cloverleaf-shaped, artificially . On the Arizona, he worked on the deck crew. One day, he stopped for coffee at the Brown Derby restaurant in Hollywood. USS Indianapolis saw the worst shark attack in history When Anderson said he was, his old friend was incredulous. "I canned 500 quarts of fruit one year," Marietta says. With a total of 1,195 men aboard, about 300 went down with the ship. Just stay together, hold hands and kick slowly 'cause there'll be sharks around. How the attack on Pearl Harbor changed history The ship remained anchored outside Pearl Harbor for most of a month as U.S. commanders planned their next move against the Japanese in the South Pacific. The Stratton men have taken up a more personal cause. Kitchen patrol. It is about three feet tall, with a carved island figure on top and the silhouette of a Hawaiian warrior on a plaque. Williams was in the Arizona's band. It turned out little was the right word. Anderson picked up and moved to New Mexico. He started chatting up a regular customer, a contractor, and got a job building houses. Shark Trauma - StatPearls - NCBI Bookshelf His old co-pilot in the New Guinea days was asked once if he'd had survival training for the war. Discipline seems less important than it was in his day. As he recounts the experience, he rubs his hands together, then holds them out, turning them over. "So that's what we did," he says, staring out at the harbor nearly seven decades later. His work turned toward survival training in a new military program called SERE, for Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape. The crews were based on tender ships moored in secluded harbors. Just another site did sharks eat pearl harbor victims After the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom, the United States opted to construct a naval base in 1899. When they sent me my discharge, I just stayed here.". He wanted to interview Langdell for his project. Now, some courses require less than a week of field time. Inside deadliest shark attack EVER as 150 sailors from USS Indianapolis From the shore, he helped wounded men from the water, men whose bodies had been torn apart by bombs and bullets and fire. So you see how that works."). Calhoun quizzed Conter about his posting, his job on the ship. Marietta shakes her head. He has been telling his story to an author, Ed McGrath, who is working on a book and a film about Bruner's escape from a collapsing tower on the ship. world war ii. The USS Arizona ballcap that almost every survivor owns and wears. It was the first time Randy, his son, had seen his father cry. As he waited, he had a feeling he knew what would happen, but he didn't say anything. On Veteran's Day, he participated once more in a parade through Marysville, the next town over from Yuba City. Posted by ; royal canin yorkie dog food reviews; parkland psychiatric hospital dallas, tx . In 1967, Conter retired from the Navy. Conter attended the same event and was seated next to Valerie. Usually, sharks will prioritize eating: Smaller fish. You need the exercise. "Three months later, I was in Korea.". Bruner was one of them. One morning, he was at his desk, catching up on paperwork, when he heard a vehicle screech to a halt outside. Pearl Harbor | Facts & History | Britannica "He should have the Navy Cross," Stratton says. Conter was stationed on the Arizona at Pearl Harbor in September 1941, when he turned 20. I'd been told things like that before. One of our cruisers, the heavy cruiser, got hit and water got into the oil. Debris from the Arizona showered the Tennessee's stern and started fires, but the vessel stayed afloat. Here's what he revealed: The USS Arizona (BB-39) burns after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. The smile widens. "He told you the story?" Similarly, the . Since the 1920s . He's not sure he'd have learned that lesson if he hadn't enlisted in the Navy. Langdell says only this: "It took two days to take all the bodies. "I got the lay a wreath in front of the names of the fallen," he says quietly. On the same bookshelf sit mementos from his time on the Arizona. Yes, he'll say, he was on the Arizona and he survived. Enemy patrol planes spotted the ships and the raid was canceled. UPDATE:John Anderson diedin November 2015, less than a year after this report. "I cleaned up my language," he says, admitting he deployed a salty vocabulary, even after leaving active duty. There, he lost his twin brother, "It was a bloody catastrophe, a bloody mess," he says. Military Casualties - Pearl Harbor National Memorial (U.S. National 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. He acknowledged the wreath. The fireball from the explosion engulfed the six men in the box and trapped them. The exhausted crew dragged ashore an hour later and hid in the jungle, fearful they would be captured by Japanese soldiers. Farther down the paneled wall hangs a painting of the USS Arizona, the battleship Navy recruit Potts boarded in December 1939. "They paid me by the day," he said. They will celebrate 65 years of marriage in April. "We lit into them, started firing on them," Bruner said. 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. Attack on Pearl Harbor in rare pictures, 1941 He went out to the floating memorial. Fish, in general, are the most common prey for sharks. Hetrick earned a Purple Heart for wounds during one of the bombing raids. This all changed when the United States declared war on Japan, bringing the country into World War II. The bomb that shattered the Arizona's bow exploded as Cook and the others climbed out of the turret. The Saratoga sailed across the South Pacific, to Guam, the Philippines, around New Guinea. The mast and towers near the bow tilted at a sickening angle. person grazed by a shark), nor incidents classified by the International Shark Attack File as boat attacks, scavenge, or doubtful. He joined the Navy because it seemed like a better environment. The Saratoga was attacked by six Japanese suicide bombers within about 24 hours. By the time the woman from Illinois found him, he was ready to face his past. 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. They are the marks of a survivor, 73 years on. He had settled in New Mexico with his family. I heard the general say, 'You're a remarkable guy.' I couldn't.". He looks forward to his time with the guys from his years in the Navy. "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. "They played country music because the people here loved that," Anderson says. It identifies Stratton as a survivor of the attack that sank the ship. Sight-setters and pointers would locate targets visually and determine their distance and range. on the Arizonawhen the battleship sankon Dec. 7. the final survivor to be interred in the ship. Pearl Harbor (2001) - IMDb This time the objective was clear. The first couple of trips back to Hawaii were difficult. Chile. Pentagon to exhume remains of 400 Pearl Harbor Marines and sailors For a long time, Haerry never talked about his experiences at Pearl Harbor. "We wouldn't get much fire back and by the time they sounded general quarters, we were on our way," Conter said. A year later, he felt better, so he re-enlisted. Thickets of tangled shrubs and rows of trees are visible from his window. Browse 2,614 pearl harbor attack stock photos and images available, or search for world war ii or pearl harbor 1941 to find more great stock photos and pictures. "They agreed.". '", "Some things," he says, "you don't know about what they'll mean until years later.". Pearl Harbor attack | Date, History, Map, Casualties - Britannica "That's what I want to remember. He got to know Alan Ladd, who had starred in a series of war movies. He moved to Provo and sold cars until 1990. UPDATE:Joe Langdell diedin February 2015, months after this report. The Japanese military had established strategic outposts in the Aleutian Islands and had its eye on Alaska. "Hi," he said, introducing himself. The man walked over and looked at Langdell's name tag. He keeps up with what the military does, and some of it irritates him. 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. The ship accompanied General Douglas MacArthur to the Philippines and was anchored in the harbor off Nagasaki, Japan, when the second atomic bomb exploded. Conter served on the San Pablo and Half Moon. Haerry nods and like a good sailor taking orders from the chief, he pulls himself up with a walker and shuffles off to lunch. He had visited before, but this trip meant more. When the fourth bomb detonated in the powder magazine, anyone left was blown over the side. He resumed one of his old jobs from the Arizona, piloting motor launches from the receiving station out to the Navy ships. Their orders were lost on the Arizonawhen the battleship sankon Dec. 7. Langdell will return to the Arizona once more. Long a bachelor again, Bruner has also entertained lady friends from time to time. 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. "Talk about treating you like royalty," he says. I think it was one of the proudest days of my father's life.". After so many years of travel, the Cooks have settled into a more tranquil pace. They were dedicating it to Potts and wanted him to have it. And the ships needed experienced sailors. The paneled room behind the door in the living room of the Provo house is filled with trophies of almost any imaginable sort. 9 Things You Might Not Know About the Attack on Pearl Harbor Bruner was at his battle station in an anti-aircraft gun director, a metal box on the forward mast of the Arizona, when an armor-piercing bomb ignited the ship's powder magazine. "That must be old Clyde Williams," he thought, the Arizona band member killed at Pearl Harbor. The owner said, 'give it a name and say who are. At the time, sailors wore patches designating their rates, the enlisted expression of rank, on the right or left sleeve, depending on their assignment. "On the day I swore into the Air Force, I was still in my Navy uniform," he said. Japanese torpedo bombers hit the Lexington and crippled the big ship. 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.". "When we got up into the Aleutians, we started banging on the Japanese that had already landed," Bruner said. Trains run close enough to hear the horns during the day, but not close enough to make them a nuisance. Three years later, Ray Haerry Jr. holds the cross in his hand, fighting back tears. He tries to abbreviate it: "We went to California and got married.". I wanted to know if you could do it for a couple of weeks.". Deer and rabbits wander the hillside. No one knew much about Bruner's years in the Navy, not the early years anyway. 2023 www.azcentral.com. Using its sonar equipment, the ship fired depth charges and eventually sank the enemy submarine. They moved to Santa Maria, not far from Santa Barbara, to be near their oldest son, then to Colorado Springs to be near Randy. Although he is 97, he decided he couldn't miss a final reunion this year and he bought his tickets early. 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. As he was packing, a buddy warned him that his possessions would be searched at the port in San Francisco. Then they'd go by.". The Worst Shark Attack In History & The Sinking Of - warhistoryonline "I was on a date on that Saturday night with a gal I'd been running around with," he says. Potts says, shaking his head. "They were very good days before the war. He kept the truck, held on to it through repairs, engine overhauls, new paint jobs. He put the disc on a turntable and dropped the needle. He had five brothers, including Jake, and four sisters, all grouped so close in age that paying for college wasn't practical for their folks. 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. 11 Oldest Pearl Harbor Survivors (Updated 2021) December 7, 1941 is a date that everyone in America has committed to memory. He found a report by a gunner's mate. He didn't know what to tell them. "I think my dad was one of the first American heroes of World War II.". "He'd always have to be prompted.". He fiddles with the radio. A few days later, the drove through the crumbling streets of Hiroshima. One day in May, crewmen spotted two periscopes in the water and the Frazier opened fire. High winds could slam one ship into the other and sink one or both of the vessels. They stayed composed as their stories were told, stories of bravery, of quick thinking. 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. Pearl Harbor Veteran Survived 57 Hours in Shark-Infested Waters (See Pearl Harbor Attack.) 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. As a tender, he stayed on the surface, monitoring the divers working on rigs, piers, pipelines, any piece of seaside or seagoing equipment. Back on land, Cook followed welding jobs from Kentucky and Pennsylvania to New Jersey and Long Island, west to North Dakota and Wisconsin and finally to a ranch house in Salinas, Calif., where he raised a family and stayed put for almost 30 years. Potts returned to Illinois in late 1945 to await his formal discharge, hanging out in Chicago. His kids and grandkids. "I motioned to crane operator what we needed, what tools to send down." He half-swam, half-walked the 70 yards to Ford Island and manned a mounted machine gun. He will tell his story to people he knows well and trusts, but he is 93 and the details are fading from his memory. 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. 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. "We took all the bodies we could find.". Cook was a gunner's mate on the Arizona. How remains of personnel killed in Pearl Harbor are - NewsNation "Andy, you had 12 years of the damnedest fighting I ever saw. They went out for coffee afterward. His story is always in demand, though he'd just as soon not tell it in front of a lot of people. I had one pair of dungarees and that was it, that and a towel and shaving gear.". Doctors and nurses wove among gurneys, administering morphine shots and looking for the victims most in need. By the time they were back, the icicles were forming again and two more guys would go out.". He still tools around town in the truck, but it's a classic now, so he drives it almost as often to car shows. He wants to secure a proper medal for Joe George, the sailor from the Vestal who helped rescue the six men from the gunner's control tower. He wasn't ready to see it all again, to sharpen the memories he'd tried to dull. The river wound through dense vegetation, leaving 15 or 20 feet of clearance on each side of the plane. The job paid $700. It sits today in the carport outside his home. He tried not to remember the days after the attack. "No," the worker said. "Can you tell me what ship did he go on after the Arizona?" A few years ago, the Cooks attended a fund-raising dinner at a local American Legion post. The crews learned the routines of the Japanese ships. "It's where the war started.". On a recent fall afternoon, Stratton ambles down the driveway and fires up the engine. Langdell is one of the last nine survivors from the Arizona. What he heard wasn't quite country music, but he liked it and he told the kid. In March, the crew turned back Japanese forces in the Battle of Komandorski. The ship was dead in the water. 4. He spent the rest of the day retrieving bodies from the harbor. The Navy censors would never allow such information in a letter. 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 then spent 14 months recovering in Great . "I said, 'sure, I'll take it.' When he dies, his remains will be interred under the No. Hawaii Sharks | Incidents List The band would cover all expenses for him and Doris. "We had to have two crews, a regular crew and a stand-by crew lined up waiting," Bruner said. "We got halfway there and I told them to turn around," Conter said. He was active in those groups for many years, serving as president of one devoted to the Arizona. The Navy began assigning sailors to new postings. "We picked up a couple of girls and made the rounds. Afew weeks after the war started, sometime in early 1942, Potts opened a letter from his mother. "Sure, let's see it." They wouldn't send her over so I didn't re-enlist.". "We'd send two guys out to knock the icicles off the guns, then they'd high-tail it back in. He endured what he did, he says, because that was his job. His new employer manufactured industrial refrigeration units. "He's there anytime I call him," Hetrick says. Helpless, I watched your bomb sink the Arizona in nine minutes.". 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. He went to work as a junior accountant for a prominent Boston firm. . "In three days, we rescued 219 coast watchers without losing anybody," Conter said. He survived, but was burned badly over two-thirds of his body. Before the attack, many Americans were reluctant to become involved in the war in Europe. They listened for their names and their service branch. He pushes his shirtsleeves up to show his arms. "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. The USS Shaw explodes after being hit by bombs during the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in this December 7, 1941 photo. December 5, 2021 at 11:21 a.m. EST. The things I don't want to remember was the blood.". did sharks eat pearl harbor victims Friends told them when the left the church, keep the water on their left. 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.". Cook and the other men stayed below deck until the smoke from a fire forced them to leave. "In the service, if you didn't use nasty words, you weren't a good sailor.". the young man asked. "Through all that, I never did lose consciousness," he says. 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. Nicaragua. He doesn't need to say which Saturday night by now. Anything you choose is fine. So he did. Hetrick saw a new opportunity and joined. He stayed on the 17thfloor of a hotel on Waikiki Beach. He still will not talk about it. He would become the final survivor to be interred in the ship. 1. The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, just before 8:00 a.m. (local time) on Sunday, December 7, 1941. He doesn't want to answer questions about his war service, shrugging them off or insisting he can't remember the details anymore. "Here's the one that told my mother I was missing in action on the Arizona," he says. There's a little air bubble. The Coghlan approached the Aleutians in October, as winter was pushing fall aside. Sea turtles. "The hat represents the Arizona. It sits a little higher than most items, but not necessarily on a platform. A moment passes. Potts was touched. The report said most of the guys in the anti-aircraft batteries, where Jake fought, were shot down early in the assault. He displayed no pictures, kept no mementos that his family knew about. He wasn't happy where he was, so he loaded up his big 12-cylinder Lincoln Zephyr and headed west. He started on a small station, playing organ music. Minutes later, the Japanese attacked and the Arizona was on fire, sinking beneath the surface. In 1887 the harbor's military history began when the US Navy set up coaling stations in the harbor. BuzzFeed News Photo Editor. The Pearl Harbour . This list and the accompanying graphics do not include encounters in which a shark does not actually bite a person or board (e.g. During his voyage to Alaska, Cook remembers the flying fish, which stirred up the water like a torpedo wake. He is one of nine living survivors from the attack on the USS Arizona, the battleship he boarded in 1941 when he was 17. . The woman helped connect Bruner with other survivors from the Arizona and Pearl Harbor. It took more courage on your part to present this wreath than it did for me to accept it.". Crippled ships still floated around the mooring posts along Ford Island. "It ain't worth a damn if it ain't loaded," he says. In California, he earned his naval seaman's license and went to work on a drilling rig offshore near Santa Barbara. Their skin charred and falling off, the men crawled down the line to the Vestal. Photographs. "The stuff he likes.". They were trying to replenish submarines or send smaller ships in. 39 Interesting Pearl Harbor Facts | Pearl Harbor Warbirds The Coghlan turned back, almost spent. Haerry accepts the chocolate bars his son has brought him. Cook got the buddy's telephone number and tried to call him. He was treated there for four months. In World War II, he fought at Guadalcanal, in the battle of the Coral Sea, at Okinawa and Iwo Jima. Jobs were few, so he set off for Warner, Okla, with the idea of playing football at Connors State Agricultural College. Fires still burned on the broken USS Arizona the morning after the Japanese ambush. They could ride to the mainland then and leave for Florida. He doesn't like to talk about the attack. Many places around the world are named for a stand-out feature, and Pearl Harbor is no different. queensland figure skating. The easy stories he'd tell. "It sounded like someone shooting guns. Sentiment ran high against the Japanese, he said, but also against U.S. leaders whose decisions many questioned in the aftermath. Conter fought on through World War II, scraped past a lot of close calls, then went to Korea. The marching band had been invited to fly to Pearl Harbor and perform at activities commemorating the 70thanniversary of the attack. He stayed there for months. Did he ever. He wanted to part of it. He liked the idea of working as an aircraft mechanic, so he volunteered. "They tried to jump off. "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. Conter told him about the lost orders. Cook enlisted in the Navy in 1940 and was assigned to the USS Arizona, one of the largest battleships in the fleet with a crew that, at full complement, numbered more than 1,500. Japan wanted the northern Pacific to control its shipping routes and block U.S. attacks from that direction. An electro-mechanical computer would aim the guns. The gun took away some of the terror he had felt from the moment he saw the first bomber, the panic he felt when he found the armories on board the ship locked.