What I Saw Aboard the USS Arizona on December 7, 1941

[Fox] Editor’s note: The following column is adapted from “All the Gallant Men: An American Sailor’s Firsthand Account of Pearl Harbor.“

I was aboard the USS Arizona on the morning of December 7, 1941. The courage I saw in our men was astonishing.

Those gallant sailors fought back however they could. Pilots tried to locate airplanes that were still operable, but only a few managed to get in the air and into the fight.

Gunners found themselves with only the ammunition in their ready boxes, with the rest of the munitions they so desperately needed locked up belowdecks.

If the bullets ran out, they raced to another gun, often one that had a fallen sailor crumpled beneath it.

The rest of the men fought back with whatever weapons were at hand, shooting at the streaking Japanese Zeros with lightweight machine guns, rifles, even pistols.

Acts of individual heroism could be witnessed everywhere you looked. Men being strafed as they brought boxes of ammo up ladders to the antiaircraft guns. Other men carrying their wounded buddies to safety, trying desperately to stanch their bleeding. Still others in small boats, navigating through the fiery sea, pulling oil-soaked sailors from the water. Many putting out fires on board their ships. All the while these men were dodging enemy bullets that were cutting everything around them to shreds, including their fellow sailors.

We were not extraordinary men, those of us who fought on that infamous date in December seventy-five years ago.  the rest is here