Battleship honored 63 years after
Pearl Harbor attack...Hundreds
died
aboard USS Oklahoma
PEARL HARBOR,
Hawaii, December 7, 2004 - Paul Goodyear was standing on a signal
bridge on the starboard side of the USS Oklahoma in 1941 when bombs
started falling from the sky and torpedoes zeroed in. Explosions,
screams, chaos and gunfire shattered the calm morning of that Dec.
7, and within 12 minutes, the massive battleship rolled over and
capsized, trapping hundreds of men below decks.
Sixty-three
years later, Goodyear can still hear their cries and tapping for
help.
Goodyear, 86,
and a dwindling number of survivors returned to the site of their
most haunting memories to honor the 429 men from the Oklahoma and
nearly 2,000 others who died in the Japanese sneak attack that
plunged the United States into World War II.
“There’s a great
bond between us,” Goodyear said.
Goodyear was a
23-year-old petty officer in 1941 whose life was saved when, after
he jumped into the burning waters of the harbor, someone threw him a
line from the USS Maryland and he was able to pull himself up.
The USS Oklahoma
suffered the second-highest number of Pearl Harbor casualties behind
the USS Arizona, where most of its 1,177 killed crewmen remain
entombed after the ship sank.
“I could see the
torpedo coming and I was yelling at the gunner to shoot the bastard
down,” said Goodyear, of Casa Grande, Ariz.
Day of
remembrance
The anniversary will be marked with simultaneous ceremonies Tuesday
aboard the USS Arizona Memorial above that sunken battleship, and on
shore. Each ceremony was to feature a moment of silence at 7:55 a.m.
— the minute the attack started.
Goodyear, head
of the USS Oklahoma Survivors Association, joined four other
survivors and about two dozen friends and family Monday evening for
the unveiling of a permanent exhibit on the Oklahoma.
Although they
were pleased with the small exhibit in the Arizona museum, survivors
of the USS Oklahoma are pressing for a permanent memorial.
“I’ve written
every congressman,” said George Brown, 83. “I’ll doubt I’ll ever see
it.”
Goodyear said he
also wants the USS Arizona Memorial’s named changed to the Pearl
Harbor Memorial or the Memorial of the Pacific.
“The kids on the
Arizona died one of the most merciful deaths known to man, whereas
the kids on the Oklahoma suffered one of the most horrible,
traumatic demises known to man and yet no one knows the Oklahoma was
here,” he said. “They suffered casualties and they should be
remembered, but there were other ships there too and that’s our
beef.”
The National
Park Service, which operates the Arizona Memorial, said it is
considering changing the name and broadening the museum’s scope.
When it sank,
the Oklahoma was anchored off Ford Island on Battleship Row in the
middle of the harbor, next to the USS Maryland. The Oklahoma took
the brunt of the torpedoes, leaving the Maryland relatively intact.
The Oklahoma was
refloated in 1943 and sold for scrap after the war, but it sank in
the Pacific while being towed to California.
Japan’s surprise
attack on Pearl Harbor and other military bases on Oahu lasted two
hours. Twenty-one ships were heavily damaged, and 320 aircraft were
damaged or destroyed. In all, about 2,390 people were killed and
about 1,178 were wounded, according to the National Park Service,
which maintains the Arizona site.
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