ARIZONA WIND CHIMES (or 1,177 Men on a Dead Man's Ship)
Dec 6, 2013 13:55:39 GMT -5
kacyds, john6625, and 2 more like this
Post by Gordon Lee on Dec 6, 2013 13:55:39 GMT -5
Greetings Fellow SB Boarders
.
Here's a blog post that I have created a few years ago in commemoration/remembrance of December 7, 1941. Notice, before I start this tale, the story is told in the first person. Also notice that I, Gordon Lee, AM NOT the 'first person' in this true story. The actual accounting of this story can be found in Edward C. Raymer's Decent into Darkness, A Navy Diver's Memoir. Metalsmith First Class Edward C. Raymer was the first diver to enter the USS Arizona after the fateful Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. This is his story. Yes, I plagiarized the tarnation out of Mr. Raymer's book, but I also toned down a lot of technical jargon and shifted a few details around to make it a tad more interesting. So, adjust your sealegs, place yourself back to January 1942, and remember Pearl Harbor.
.
.
ARIZONA WIND CHIMES
.
On January 12, 1942, the once great battleship was boarded again, this time by me, a navy salvage diver.
.
In solemn stillness, the USS Arizona lay at peace. Jarred by massive explosions and gutted by fire, the battleship slipped beneath the waves of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Only the mast and part of her superstructure remained visible. But she was not abandoned, for she served as an underwater tomb for more than one thousand American sailors and marines.
.
Our diving barge tied up to the starboard side of the Arizona. I looked at the pitiful wreckage and wondered if we could ever raise her. As senior petty officer and leader of our diving crew, I decided to make the first dive.
.
My dive that day would be the first salvage dive inside the sunken hull. An external survey revealed what appeared to be a hole below the mud line on the after port side, presumably made by an unexploded torpedo. My mission: find the torpedo and attach a lock on the propeller to prevent it from arming itself and exploding. The submarine base assigned a chief torpedoman to provide technical assistance if we needed help to disarm the torpedo.
.
With exaggerated deliberation, I climbed down the wooden ladder and entered the oil-covered water. My helmet was barely awash as I walked aft on the battleship's main deck, skirting wreckage. The dense floating mass of oil blotted out all daylight. I was submerged in total blackness. I slowly groped my way across the littered deck to the hatch. Only a line of air bubbles popped to the surface to marked my path for topside observers as I traveled to the entrance of the Arizona. There I forced open the hatch and descended into the darkness below.
.
As I landed on the third-deck level I headed for the starboard side of the ship. I moved cautiously, feeling my way with ungloved hands. What I would find I had no inkling. Eventually, it would severely draw on every ounce of courage I possessed. As I looked up, I saw a light that glowed dimly, flickered, and disappeared. It must have been phosphorescence in the water, I thought as the blackness enveloped me once again. I shrugged as I thought: I would settle for just enough light to be able to see the end of my nose.
.
Suddenly, I felt that something was wrong. I tried to suppress the strange feeling that I was not alone. I reached out to feel my way and touched what seemed to be a large inflated bag floating on the overhead. As I pushed it away, my bare hand plunged through what felt like a mass of rotted sponge. I realized with horror that the "bag" was a body without a head.
.
Gritting my teeth, I shoved the corpse as hard as I could. As it drifted away, its fleshless fingers raked across my rubberized suit, almost as if the dead sailor reached out to me in a silent cry for help.
.
I fought to choke down the bile that rose in my throat. That bloated torso had once contained viscera, muscle, and firm tissue. It had been a man. I could hear the quickening thump of my pulse. I felt confined in the suffocating darkness and had to suppress the desire to escape. "Breathe slowly, breathe deeply," I commanded myself. I must stay calm, professional, detached. The dangers from falling wreckage, holes in the deck, and knife-sharp edges were real, formidable hazards. I must not succumb to terror over something that could not harm me.
.
Eventually I reached the shop which we suspected the torpedo could be found. There I got the eerie feeling again that I wasn't alone. Something was near. I felt a body floating above me. Soon the overhead was filled with floating forms.
.
My movement through the water created a suction effect in the dark water that drew the floating masses towards me. Their skeletal fingers brushed across my copper helmet. The sound reminded me of the tinkle of oriental wind chimes.
.
This time I did not panic. Instead, I gently pushed the bodies clear and moved through the compartment. I shuffled through the workshop area, threading my way around lathes, milling machines, and drill presses. I stopped and again found myself surrounded by ghostly bloated forms floating on the overhead, all without heads. This shop had been the damage control battle station for one hundred members of the crew. The violent explosions from bombs and torpedoes, plus the forceful impact of water, must have thrown the sailors like rag dolls against bulkheads, breaking their necks and severing skulls from spines. Voracious scavenger crabs had finished the job of shredding flesh from bone.
.
[NOTE: Neck bones are not strong enough to retain the weight of a human skull when the body starts to decay. Most of the deaths on the USS Arizona resulted from the initial explosion when the number two turret magazine exploded. Almost every body recovered from the Arizona had sustained a broken neck (and terrible burns). After only a couple of days in the water ALL recovered bodies were found to be decapitated. Less than adequate forensic recourses at the time, and the overwhelming number of bodies, would hamper the 'war effort' beyond reason should all bodies and body parts be identified. This was one of the main reasons for deciding to keep the rest of the men entombed within the ship.]
.
I did not want to think about the floating bodies. I pushed the thought from my mind as I moved forward again. This is when I stumbled over what felt like a torpedo, the object I had come down here to find.
.
"Topside, I found it. I'm at the nose cone."
.
"Careful," warned the voice from topside. "That's where the detonator is located."
.
"I know. I'm still at the nose cone. It's wedged under a lathe. As soon as I circle this machine, I'll feel my way down to the torpedo body and attach the propeller lock."
.
"Keep us posted on your progress."
.
Once in position, I reached out for the torpedo, but there was nothing there. "I'm on the other side of the lathe, but I can't feel the body of the torpedo," I reported.
.
Silence. Then a voice said, "The chief torpedoman thinks the nose cone may have separated from the body of the torpedo after impact."
.
I slowly worked my way to the hole in the side of the ship where the torpedo would have entered. Strangely, I still could not find the torpedo body, and I reported this to topside.
.
No one topside seemed to have any ideas regarding the missing torpedo, so I returned to the detonator. I felt around the cone and soon determined that I had found a large-caliber shell instead of a torpedo. It had metal fins welded to its base and the nose cone was shaped much like a shell. I reported this information.
.
"The chief torpedoman thinks it's a shell, too. He thinks the Japanese welded fins on it so it would spiral like a bomb when it was dropped from a plane. The chief says it doesn't pose any danger under the lathe. Are you ready to come up?" topside asked.
.
"Take up the slack in my lines and see if they are clear." I gave the lines a hard yank. "Did you feel that?" I asked.
.
"Negative."
.
Then, as if someone had thrown a switch, my air supply stopped. "What's wrong with my air supply?" I yelled.
.
No answer. The topside phone key was depressed, but all I could hear was panic-stricken shouting.
.
I quickly closed the exhaust valve in my helmet before all the air escaped from my helmet and suit. "Take in my slack, I'm coming up," I yelled, fear rising in my voice.
.
Back came a rapid reply, "Your lifeline is hung up. Retrace your steps and clear it as quickly as you can." I knew the oxygen remaining in my helmet could not sustain life for more than two minutes. By now the air had escaped from my suit, causing the dress to press tightly against my torso, the pressure from the surrounding water flattening it. As the pressure increased, I felt the huge roiling mass of panic surge into my throat. I tried desperately to hold back the growing anxiety within me. I had seen what terror could do to a man. It could take possession of mind and body and prevent him from helping himself, even cause him to give up completely. I told myself to concentrate on surviving.
.
I grabbed the lifeline and started back, pulling hand over hand toward the access hatch. The 196 pounds of diving equipment on my shoulders became an incredible weight. Without buoyancy in my suit, it became a heavy burden dragging me down.
.
Stumbling, wildly now, I bumped into a milling machine and fell into a drill press, my breath quick and shallow from fear and exertion. Blind terror was destroying me. I fought it as best as I could.
.
"Stay calm. We'll have you up in a minute." someone shouted over the phone.
.
I did not have breath enough to answer.
.
Without air pressure in my suit, foul fetid water poured in through my suit cuffs and the exhaust valve in my helmet. I could feel the coolness of it around my neck. I stumbled again and fell over a milling machine. Filthy water gushed into my mouth. Somehow I was able to regain my feet, only to slam against a lathe.
.
Time had run out for me. I fell yet again, and putrid liquid rushed into my face. I stood up, coughing and gagging. My breathing was labored and the panic was like a rat pack behind my forehead, twisting and gnawing. I was not aware that my instinct to survive had vanished. Bursts of stars and brilliant white shards of light exploded before my eyes. A loud ringing filled my ears. Even in my dire state, I recognized the symptoms of carbon dioxide toxicity and oxygen deficiency. A hundred ugly visions flashed through my mind, grim reminders that I was going to die down here among these headless corpses.
.
A red haze passed before my eyes, grew fainter and fainter and finally disappeared into blackness. I was dying and the part of me that still cared, knew it. But for now I would just close my eyes and go to sleep.
.
I heard a faint, soft, tiny tinkle of wind chimes against my helmet. I open my eyes. They're sounding louder now. Pushing me, directing me onward.
.
Stepping towards the right, the chimes began frantically telling me that it's the wrong direction by lightly pushing against my helmet. I start to the left. Now the wind chimes urged me onward. In a couple of steps I reached out and finally felt where a loop in my air hose was caught on the hand-wheel of a lathe. I cleared my lines and with a gulp of fresh air filling my lungs I yelled, "Take up my slack!"
.
Almost immediately, I felt the answering strain on the lines as my diving tenders heaved them in. "It's free," someone shouted over the phone.
.
.
EPILOGUE
.
Truth is stranger than fiction. Although his lines were really snagged on a lathe and couldn't be pulled up by his tending crew, his air supply actually stopped because another salvage crew from the other side of the harbor mistakenly unhooked and tried to take his unsupervised air compressor -- the US Navy did not have official 'diving' teams before WW2 and a lot of the safety requirements became established because of these type of hit and miss episodes. Thus, diving air compressors are never left unattended while being used today.
.
Eventually all topside structures and projections from the USS Arizona's hull were cut off and removed by divers. A memorial structure was built over the hull of the ship, which is the final resting place of more than one thousand men. A marble wall in the shrine is inscribed with the names of 1,177 men who were lost on the Arizona on December 7, 1941.
.
The memorial was built with funds from private donations, with some governmental assistance and Elvis Presley. The US National Park Service is responsible for its maintenance and upkeep.
.
The USS Arizona is the only sunken ship that remains a commissioned vessel of the US Navy. It honors all those who died, civilian and military, during the initial Japanese attack on December 7, 1941. All warships render honors as they sail past the memorial.
.
Respectfully,
Gordon Lee
Great Fritain Royal Memorabilia & Red Fish/Blue Fish Emporium.
"What! will the line stretch out to the crack of doom?" - Shakespeare
.
Here's a blog post that I have created a few years ago in commemoration/remembrance of December 7, 1941. Notice, before I start this tale, the story is told in the first person. Also notice that I, Gordon Lee, AM NOT the 'first person' in this true story. The actual accounting of this story can be found in Edward C. Raymer's Decent into Darkness, A Navy Diver's Memoir. Metalsmith First Class Edward C. Raymer was the first diver to enter the USS Arizona after the fateful Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. This is his story. Yes, I plagiarized the tarnation out of Mr. Raymer's book, but I also toned down a lot of technical jargon and shifted a few details around to make it a tad more interesting. So, adjust your sealegs, place yourself back to January 1942, and remember Pearl Harbor.
.
.
ARIZONA WIND CHIMES
.
On January 12, 1942, the once great battleship was boarded again, this time by me, a navy salvage diver.
.
In solemn stillness, the USS Arizona lay at peace. Jarred by massive explosions and gutted by fire, the battleship slipped beneath the waves of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Only the mast and part of her superstructure remained visible. But she was not abandoned, for she served as an underwater tomb for more than one thousand American sailors and marines.
.
Our diving barge tied up to the starboard side of the Arizona. I looked at the pitiful wreckage and wondered if we could ever raise her. As senior petty officer and leader of our diving crew, I decided to make the first dive.
.
My dive that day would be the first salvage dive inside the sunken hull. An external survey revealed what appeared to be a hole below the mud line on the after port side, presumably made by an unexploded torpedo. My mission: find the torpedo and attach a lock on the propeller to prevent it from arming itself and exploding. The submarine base assigned a chief torpedoman to provide technical assistance if we needed help to disarm the torpedo.
.
With exaggerated deliberation, I climbed down the wooden ladder and entered the oil-covered water. My helmet was barely awash as I walked aft on the battleship's main deck, skirting wreckage. The dense floating mass of oil blotted out all daylight. I was submerged in total blackness. I slowly groped my way across the littered deck to the hatch. Only a line of air bubbles popped to the surface to marked my path for topside observers as I traveled to the entrance of the Arizona. There I forced open the hatch and descended into the darkness below.
.
As I landed on the third-deck level I headed for the starboard side of the ship. I moved cautiously, feeling my way with ungloved hands. What I would find I had no inkling. Eventually, it would severely draw on every ounce of courage I possessed. As I looked up, I saw a light that glowed dimly, flickered, and disappeared. It must have been phosphorescence in the water, I thought as the blackness enveloped me once again. I shrugged as I thought: I would settle for just enough light to be able to see the end of my nose.
.
Suddenly, I felt that something was wrong. I tried to suppress the strange feeling that I was not alone. I reached out to feel my way and touched what seemed to be a large inflated bag floating on the overhead. As I pushed it away, my bare hand plunged through what felt like a mass of rotted sponge. I realized with horror that the "bag" was a body without a head.
.
Gritting my teeth, I shoved the corpse as hard as I could. As it drifted away, its fleshless fingers raked across my rubberized suit, almost as if the dead sailor reached out to me in a silent cry for help.
.
I fought to choke down the bile that rose in my throat. That bloated torso had once contained viscera, muscle, and firm tissue. It had been a man. I could hear the quickening thump of my pulse. I felt confined in the suffocating darkness and had to suppress the desire to escape. "Breathe slowly, breathe deeply," I commanded myself. I must stay calm, professional, detached. The dangers from falling wreckage, holes in the deck, and knife-sharp edges were real, formidable hazards. I must not succumb to terror over something that could not harm me.
.
Eventually I reached the shop which we suspected the torpedo could be found. There I got the eerie feeling again that I wasn't alone. Something was near. I felt a body floating above me. Soon the overhead was filled with floating forms.
.
My movement through the water created a suction effect in the dark water that drew the floating masses towards me. Their skeletal fingers brushed across my copper helmet. The sound reminded me of the tinkle of oriental wind chimes.
.
This time I did not panic. Instead, I gently pushed the bodies clear and moved through the compartment. I shuffled through the workshop area, threading my way around lathes, milling machines, and drill presses. I stopped and again found myself surrounded by ghostly bloated forms floating on the overhead, all without heads. This shop had been the damage control battle station for one hundred members of the crew. The violent explosions from bombs and torpedoes, plus the forceful impact of water, must have thrown the sailors like rag dolls against bulkheads, breaking their necks and severing skulls from spines. Voracious scavenger crabs had finished the job of shredding flesh from bone.
.
[NOTE: Neck bones are not strong enough to retain the weight of a human skull when the body starts to decay. Most of the deaths on the USS Arizona resulted from the initial explosion when the number two turret magazine exploded. Almost every body recovered from the Arizona had sustained a broken neck (and terrible burns). After only a couple of days in the water ALL recovered bodies were found to be decapitated. Less than adequate forensic recourses at the time, and the overwhelming number of bodies, would hamper the 'war effort' beyond reason should all bodies and body parts be identified. This was one of the main reasons for deciding to keep the rest of the men entombed within the ship.]
.
I did not want to think about the floating bodies. I pushed the thought from my mind as I moved forward again. This is when I stumbled over what felt like a torpedo, the object I had come down here to find.
.
"Topside, I found it. I'm at the nose cone."
.
"Careful," warned the voice from topside. "That's where the detonator is located."
.
"I know. I'm still at the nose cone. It's wedged under a lathe. As soon as I circle this machine, I'll feel my way down to the torpedo body and attach the propeller lock."
.
"Keep us posted on your progress."
.
Once in position, I reached out for the torpedo, but there was nothing there. "I'm on the other side of the lathe, but I can't feel the body of the torpedo," I reported.
.
Silence. Then a voice said, "The chief torpedoman thinks the nose cone may have separated from the body of the torpedo after impact."
.
I slowly worked my way to the hole in the side of the ship where the torpedo would have entered. Strangely, I still could not find the torpedo body, and I reported this to topside.
.
No one topside seemed to have any ideas regarding the missing torpedo, so I returned to the detonator. I felt around the cone and soon determined that I had found a large-caliber shell instead of a torpedo. It had metal fins welded to its base and the nose cone was shaped much like a shell. I reported this information.
.
"The chief torpedoman thinks it's a shell, too. He thinks the Japanese welded fins on it so it would spiral like a bomb when it was dropped from a plane. The chief says it doesn't pose any danger under the lathe. Are you ready to come up?" topside asked.
.
"Take up the slack in my lines and see if they are clear." I gave the lines a hard yank. "Did you feel that?" I asked.
.
"Negative."
.
Then, as if someone had thrown a switch, my air supply stopped. "What's wrong with my air supply?" I yelled.
.
No answer. The topside phone key was depressed, but all I could hear was panic-stricken shouting.
.
I quickly closed the exhaust valve in my helmet before all the air escaped from my helmet and suit. "Take in my slack, I'm coming up," I yelled, fear rising in my voice.
.
Back came a rapid reply, "Your lifeline is hung up. Retrace your steps and clear it as quickly as you can." I knew the oxygen remaining in my helmet could not sustain life for more than two minutes. By now the air had escaped from my suit, causing the dress to press tightly against my torso, the pressure from the surrounding water flattening it. As the pressure increased, I felt the huge roiling mass of panic surge into my throat. I tried desperately to hold back the growing anxiety within me. I had seen what terror could do to a man. It could take possession of mind and body and prevent him from helping himself, even cause him to give up completely. I told myself to concentrate on surviving.
.
I grabbed the lifeline and started back, pulling hand over hand toward the access hatch. The 196 pounds of diving equipment on my shoulders became an incredible weight. Without buoyancy in my suit, it became a heavy burden dragging me down.
.
Stumbling, wildly now, I bumped into a milling machine and fell into a drill press, my breath quick and shallow from fear and exertion. Blind terror was destroying me. I fought it as best as I could.
.
"Stay calm. We'll have you up in a minute." someone shouted over the phone.
.
I did not have breath enough to answer.
.
Without air pressure in my suit, foul fetid water poured in through my suit cuffs and the exhaust valve in my helmet. I could feel the coolness of it around my neck. I stumbled again and fell over a milling machine. Filthy water gushed into my mouth. Somehow I was able to regain my feet, only to slam against a lathe.
.
Time had run out for me. I fell yet again, and putrid liquid rushed into my face. I stood up, coughing and gagging. My breathing was labored and the panic was like a rat pack behind my forehead, twisting and gnawing. I was not aware that my instinct to survive had vanished. Bursts of stars and brilliant white shards of light exploded before my eyes. A loud ringing filled my ears. Even in my dire state, I recognized the symptoms of carbon dioxide toxicity and oxygen deficiency. A hundred ugly visions flashed through my mind, grim reminders that I was going to die down here among these headless corpses.
.
A red haze passed before my eyes, grew fainter and fainter and finally disappeared into blackness. I was dying and the part of me that still cared, knew it. But for now I would just close my eyes and go to sleep.
.
I heard a faint, soft, tiny tinkle of wind chimes against my helmet. I open my eyes. They're sounding louder now. Pushing me, directing me onward.
.
Stepping towards the right, the chimes began frantically telling me that it's the wrong direction by lightly pushing against my helmet. I start to the left. Now the wind chimes urged me onward. In a couple of steps I reached out and finally felt where a loop in my air hose was caught on the hand-wheel of a lathe. I cleared my lines and with a gulp of fresh air filling my lungs I yelled, "Take up my slack!"
.
Almost immediately, I felt the answering strain on the lines as my diving tenders heaved them in. "It's free," someone shouted over the phone.
.
.
EPILOGUE
.
Truth is stranger than fiction. Although his lines were really snagged on a lathe and couldn't be pulled up by his tending crew, his air supply actually stopped because another salvage crew from the other side of the harbor mistakenly unhooked and tried to take his unsupervised air compressor -- the US Navy did not have official 'diving' teams before WW2 and a lot of the safety requirements became established because of these type of hit and miss episodes. Thus, diving air compressors are never left unattended while being used today.
.
Eventually all topside structures and projections from the USS Arizona's hull were cut off and removed by divers. A memorial structure was built over the hull of the ship, which is the final resting place of more than one thousand men. A marble wall in the shrine is inscribed with the names of 1,177 men who were lost on the Arizona on December 7, 1941.
.
The memorial was built with funds from private donations, with some governmental assistance and Elvis Presley. The US National Park Service is responsible for its maintenance and upkeep.
.
The USS Arizona is the only sunken ship that remains a commissioned vessel of the US Navy. It honors all those who died, civilian and military, during the initial Japanese attack on December 7, 1941. All warships render honors as they sail past the memorial.
.
Respectfully,
Gordon Lee
Great Fritain Royal Memorabilia & Red Fish/Blue Fish Emporium.
"What! will the line stretch out to the crack of doom?" - Shakespeare
