Lawrence L. McNabb US Navy USS Pennsylvania |
I would like to tell how I ended up in the US Navy on the Flagship USS Pennsylvania, and how lucky I was not being injured or killed at Pearl Harbor. A little backgroundI joined the US Navy on April 7, 1939, after having waited one year as stand-by. My first three months were spent at the Naval Training Station in San Diego. We seemed to be marching all the time and it was hot with the white sailor hat. There wasn't much protection for my nose. I tanned everywhere but my nose and that seemed to be peeled all the time. I had played cornet in high school and when they found that in my record, they insisted I go to the Drum & Bugle Corp School, which was another three months walking in the hot sun with no protection for my nose. One fellow said to me, "You will probably get a cancer on the end of your nose some day!" Well, I am now past 80 and I have had nose cancer. I was fortunate to make Honor Man of the class and the policy then was that Honor-Men were sent to Flagships (a Flagship has a high command on board). I was sent to Admiral Kimmel's Flagship, the USS Pennsylvania. Not much opportunity for advancement as a Bugler, so I was able to get a transfer to the "B" (Boiler) Division, but was put in the Pump Room instead, which fed oil and water to the boilers. By the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor, I and advanced to the rating of Machinist Mate 2nd Class. My station was at the very bottom of the Ship and closed by a large iron hatch about one foot in thickness and could only be operated from the hatch above by a large spring. We were very, very lucky being the Flagship that day. We got to tie up to the pier. The other Battleships had to anchor and with luck we had just gone into the dry dock the day before, so the ships that moved to where we had been, really caught it as the Jap's bombed and torpedoed them thinking they were getting the USS Pennsylvania. They were unable to torpedo us in dry dock, but they did bomb us. The Destroyers USS Cassin and USS Downes were in the dry dock with us and they were both sunk. One of our Gun Crews, which was manned by US Marines, was hit and several US Marines were killed. At the time it was reported the USS Pennsylvania casualties were: 27 killed, 29 wounded and 7 missing. Of course many more died later from injuries and burns. While at our battle station, I recall a First Class Machinist Mate telling me that the war with Japan would only last about six weeks because they were so inferior to us and that they only could make things they copied from the United Stateshow wrong he was! The USS Pennsylvania's sister ship was the USS Arizona. Both were built before World War I. We only displaced 39,000 tons, used saturated steam and could only go a maximum of 18 to 21 knots. The Japanese ships were more modern and some approximately 65,000 tons. With superheated steam they could travel 30 plus knots. We were worse off with out Aircraft Carriers. We had four active in the Pacific (the Japanese had ten). Of those four, one was transferred to the East Coast, one was in San Diego under repair. That left the USS Saratoga and the USS Lexington. A very strange thing came about. These two ships were ordered out of Pearl Harbor a few days before the attack, but other ships in the US Fleet that may have been in the area that the Japanese ships would be taking, were ordered "into" Pearl Harbor. (There were approximately 100 US Naval Ships in Pearl Harbor at the time of the attack.) A vacant sea for the Japanese was ordered left open and all US and Allied shipping were ordered out of the Sea Lane. The USS Pennsylvania was tied up to 1010 dock on December 6, and moved into the dry dock, which was in the same area. There was a baseball field near by and on that evening, there was a contest called the "Battle of the Bands". In the competition the USS Pennsylvania won. However, the next day, when we heard that all of the USS Arizona Band Crew were killed, the USS Pennsylvania Band re-assigned the trophy to the USS Arizona. My very good shipmate, Bill Miller, had the Duty the night of the 6th, so he couldn't go ashore, but two brothers from the USS Arizona had come to the USS Pennsylvania to visit with Bill. They had all gone to high school together. They stayed visiting with Bill until their last liberty boat left for the USS Arizona. These two young brothers were both killed the next morning! If you should ever visit the USS Arizona Memorial, you will see their names there. "Don and Joe Lakin". Bill was the all-service champion boxer of his weight. He weighed approximately 125 pounds and had been in 104 boxing bouts. He was so popular on board that Admiral Nimitz had a special trophy made for him. I'll tell you how quick and strong he was. When General Quarters sounded at approximately 8 am on December 7, 1941, Bill Miller knew it was the real thing after seeing a Japanese plane fly close by. His General Quarters station was three decks below and to get there, he had to go down an attached ladder to the decks below. Bill ran to the open hatch, jumped in and caught the ladder on the way down! Only a strong young person could have done this. Bill has since passed away and I miss him. The night before the attack, I was up most of the night, so I didn't get much sleep. I enjoyed hearing the different bands plan, then I had to stand the "cold iron watch" in the Pump Room from midnight to 4am. When I returned to my bunkroom, a very good friend of mine, Payton Vanderpool, was getting ready to go on his watch , the 4 am to 8 am watch. Payton was from Lawson, MO, and I was from a farm in Kansas and somehow that made us feel a little closer. Vanderpool's duty was to go over on the dock and feed wood into a Donkey boiler which would make hot water for the cooks and those taking showers. Because we were in the dry dock, the ship had to cut off all their energy supplies. Vanderpool had just started feeding fuel into the boiler when he was bombed by a close flying Japanese plane. He died, I was told, on the way to the hospital. Another sad thing was that this happened off the ship and no one knew him, so he was buried as an "unknown", and he is, to this day, among the "unknown". I have had correspondence with his family since and I try to get them what information I can. I understand there is now a bill in Congress for identification to be made in some cases, which is now possible, and to add their names and ship to the unknown markers. I had to stay at my battle station all during the attack wearing ear phones and could hear the awful things going on in the harbor. We were at the very bottom of the ship with this big steel hatch over us and we were not let out until sometime in the afternoon. But before that, there was a 2nd air raid that occurred about an hour after the first one. It was high flying planes and by now they knew where the Flagship USS Pennsylvania was, which was in the dry dock. The bombers were coming for us with their bombs, but as luck would have it, the USS Nevada had managed to get under way and was going by when the planes were headed for us, so they turned to the USS Nevada as it was headed out the narrow channel, trying to sink it in the channel which would have closed it off to all traffic. The USS Nevada realized they would soon sink, so they beached their ship. In the afternoon, when they finally declared "all clear" and opened the hatches for us to get out, I came up by going through a large fan room where sometimes the sailors would meet to talk. There I saw some of the dead!!!! They were all laying in rows with a sheet over them. One fellow was quite large and his feet were sticking out and I could see a hole in his foot where a shell or something had gone through it. When I got top side, the whole Harbor was full of smoke and fire. |
Rate / Rank MMC Service Branch USN Service Dates 4/1939 - 4/1969 Born 2/20/1920 MELVERN, KS Duty Stations PEARL HARBOR, HI - 12/7/1941 USS BRAY DE-709 USS COLUMBUS CA-74 BREMERHAVEN, GERMANY NAVY RECRUITING DUTY, FRESNO, CA Awards PEARL HARBOR SURVIVOR ASIATIC PACIFIC CAMPAIGN MEDAL WORLD WAR II VICTORY MEDAL NATIONAL DEFENSE SERVICE MEDAL AMERICAN DEFENSE SERVICE MEDAL - NAVY GOOD CONDUCT MEDAL |
Information provided by Lawrence L. McNabb. |
