Brett Ashton - Vengeance - Hatred and Honor

Still feeling the pain in my head and in my side, I was nonetheless glad to have turned down the doctor’s painkillers and blood transfusions. These men needed them more than I did, and I knew I had made the right choice. Although I was weak, at least I could still walk.

And walk I did, right out the door of the dispensary and onto the lawn to look for the battleship that was underway.

From where I was, I could only catch brief glimpses of the escaping battleship through the smoke of the burning California . I couldn’t tell at first which one it was, but then she came out from behind the smoke of Battleship Row. All anti-aircraft guns were skyward and blazing as Jap plane after Jap plane dove on her, strafing and dropping bombs. It was the Okie ’s sister, Nevada , making her run to get free of the hell Pearl Harbor had become. And by the looks of it, she was as determined to make it as the Japs were determined to stop her.

As I stood there, riveted and watching, I realized more guns were shooting back at the planes diving on Nevada than just hers. Every gun in range was firing up at the Japs to defend the Nevada with all of the aggressiveness they could muster. People who could not find guns to shoot back at the Japs were cheering her on as they could between tending the wounded, fighting fires, and running for cover because of the attacking planes. It was as if the whole of Ford Island and Pearl Harbor itself was cheering her on. Everybody wanted that ship to make it.

One of the ships firing her anti-aircraft guns in support of the Nevada was the California . She was paying dearly for it as well. I watched as several bombs dropped from altitude rained down around her, scoring a number of hits. Fires had broken out all over her, and she was sitting low in the water and listing. I remembered she was the other ship that was due for inspection that day and knew the basic material condition X-Ray was not set as the attack began. Keeping her afloat with fires above and flooding below would be difficult at best.

Nevada was smoking badly and down by the bow. The Japs concentrated their attack on her. Then a bomb struck her forward again; then another, and another. And still, she fought on, even as she sank lower into the water. Sadly, she wasn’t going to make it, and it was becoming more obvious to me that if she sank in the channel, she would block up the harbor for months. Even as I was thinking this, she began a turn, and before reaching the south channel, headed for the beach. She was going to ground herself off of Hospital Point. The Japanese had won again as the Nevada had finally succumbed to her wounds and sank into the muddy water.

“Goddamned Japs, I’m going to kill all of them if I get a chance,” I said to myself over and over again, as I sat and watched the battle rage on, frustrated that there was no way for me to participate.

Once again, I was reminded of my wife and son as the Nevada beached herself near where they were. I hoped they were alright as I sat peering through the smoke rising from the beached battleship and tried to find out if the hospital was still even there.

Looking at the heavy smoke that was pouring from the California , I began to get interested in her struggle. I watched as the spot plane was pushed off into the water, obviously to reduce the chance of a gasoline fire on the aft deck.

After a period of time watching the crew of California struggle to keep their ship afloat, I noticed the attack begin to lighten up. Then, all of a sudden, the Japs just disappeared from the sky, almost as quickly as they came, leaving behind them the terrible destruction, along with the unmistakable stench of warfare.

I don’t know what time it was; my watch was full of water from Pearl Harbor and stopped, evidently I left the capsizing Oklahoma at about five after eight.

“Jake, is that you?” I heard a familiar voice behind me as I sat on the small piece of dispensary lawn watching the burning oil from the Okie , West Virginia , and Arizona advancing on California . I turned to see Lieutenant Lewis, black from head to toe with oil and his arm in a sling. “Chuck!” I responded “Glad to see you! You’re looking as well as anybody else here. Are you alright?”

His face was grim at first but brightened when he realized it really was me. It seemed like ages since I’d seen him, and our condition really added to the effect.

“I’ll be alright,” he said. “As the ship rolled over, I was trying to get over the starboard side and slipped and broke my arm. What about you?”

“I hit my head on something in the dark when the fifth torpedo hit the ship and then got hit by a bullet fragment or splinter or something topside. It’s just a nick though, but both needed stitches.”

Then I asked him the hard question, which I’m sure was on both of our minds. “Who made it off of the ship?”

“Well,” he said with a very long pause “Commander Kenworthy and Lieutenant Commander Hobby did, I think, because I met them on deck as they were discussing whether to abandon or not.”

“XO and damage control,” I said. “That’s good. So they did decide to abandon, huh?” I didn’t tell Lewis I had independently decided to abandon ship, but I was relieved to know my own decision was the correct one.

“Yes, sir, they did,” he replied. “They ordered abandonment to starboard by word of mouth, so I ran down the starboard side to my turret to order the crew out. As I looked in, crewmen were already struggling to get out. The ship was rolling pretty hard by then. A flashlight was shining up toward the hatch from down below. Ensign Flaherty was down there using the light to guide the other crew members out.”

“Good, so Flaherty and most of the crew from number three made it,” I said.

“No, sir.” Lewis said. “Flaherty was on the lower deck of the mezzanine. As fast as the ship was rolling at that point, I don’t see any way he could have made it. Some of the other crew who did make it out told me that he just stayed there, holding the flashlight on the exit as the compartment flooded, and guided as many other people as he could out of the turret. There is no chance he made it.”

“Joe Fitzgerald didn’t make it either,” I told him, noting the sudden expression of shock on his face.

“Chief Fitzgerald?”

“Yes.”

“He passed by me on the way out of the turret when I shouted in to tell them to abandon ship,” he said. “What happened?”

Then I told Lewis my part of the story where I had come across Joe and tried to help him get over the side. I decided not to give him the specifics of what happened when he got hit by the twenty-millimeter round. I just told him that he had been shot and died. It was true enough.

After I finished telling my story, we sat silent for a while, watching the California in her struggle to stay afloat (which she eventually lost). She was beginning to be engulfed in burning fuel oil from the other ships when I noticed the crew going over the side in boats wherever they could. At least she was on an even keel. Evidently, they decided to abandon. They had time, whereas we didn’t.

The injured and dead were beginning to really pile up around the dispensary by then, and the helplessness of not being able to do anything about it was really beginning to wear on us. The smell of burning oil and burnt flesh was everywhere, and nothing could be done to escape from it.

Suddenly, across the harbor, the destroyer that was burning in the floating dry dock exploded. The fireball was huge and kind of reminded me of the Arizona explosion earlier. It literally rocked the island again. My attention was once more drawn to Hospital Point, where I last knew my family to be.