Lester Ritchie US Civil Service Pearl Harbor Navy Shipyard |
Lester Ritchie was born on July 4, 1920 on a farm in North Dakota near the little town of Steele. The youngest of six children, Lester was four years old when his mother died. His father remarried, and moved the family into town and opened a small garage. Les dropped out of school in his junior year when his father became ill and needed help to support the family. Les worked with his father until the spring of 1937 when he to moved to Oregon and lived with his brother while looking for work. Les was working for a company that produced powdered milk when he left for Pearl Harbor in 1941. Upon returning to Oregon, he went back to work for them and married Phyllis Walls. A few years later, he became a television technician and opened his own shop in Salem, Oregon. His shop provided repair service for eight major department stores in Salem as well as individual customers. After suffering a heart attack at age 58, he turned the business over to his sons. He and his sons also owned and operated an 85 foot commercial fishing boat and fished for albacore during the summer months along the coast of California and Oregon. Les and Phyllis have three sons (one deceased), six grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. They currently live in Yuma, Arizona. Although Les was not in the military, he is a member of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association. One of only a very few who were civilians at the time of the bombing that have been accepted as members of that organization. |
Information provided by Lester Ritchie. |
Lester Ritchie holds the silver platter he recovered from the USS Arizona officer's dining room while working as a diver in 1942 during the salvage operations. |
December 7, 1941 'A Day of Infamy' By Dorothy Barstad It was a world far different from the world of 2001. A world where there was no television. No satellites, no tracking devices, no computers. A world where radar was new and not completely trusted. A world where radio, the written word, and the magic of "moving pictures" were the most powerful forms of communication. A world where in the aftermath of a horrific attack, ordinary men performed extraordinary duties. It was a world where lesser men could not have faced the tasks that had to be faced. This is the story of just one of those ordinary men. It was late fall in 1941 when 21-year-old Lester Ritchie and his buddy, Merle Springer, stopped to pick up their mail at the post office in McMinnville, Oregon. The night postal clerk was tacking up a notice - Men needed to work at Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard. The clerk turned and spotted Les and his buddy. "Here, take one of these. This is just what you fellows are looking for." Les reached out for the flyer and replied, "Where in the hell is Pearl Harbor?" "In Hawaii! They will pay your way over, and if you don't want to stay, all you have to do is work six months, and they will send you back. All expenses paid. What more could you want? A chance to see Hawaii and a good paying job while you are there!" "Hey, Les, let's give it a try!" chimed in Merle. "You want to get married soon. This will give us a chance to make some extra money and go to Hawaii too!" After taking U.S. Civil Service exams, both men were hired as laborers and were soon on their way to Pearl Harbor aboard a military troop ship, the U.S.S. Henderson. Upon arrival at Pearl Harbor, they were assigned living quarters at the Navy Cantonment, a barracks for civilian employees located next to Hickam Field. Merle was assigned to the carpenter shop and Les to the rigging loft. The rigging loft was in charge of the drydocks. First day of work - December 1, 1941. Welcome to Hawaii Planning to go to Waikiki Beach on their first Sunday in Hawaii, they were awakened by the loud roar of planes flying low over Hickam Field. The landing field was located just 20 feet or so on the other side of a chain link fence. Surprised that a training practice was being conducted on a Sunday morning, many of the men ran out in time to marvel at how authentic the planes were, even to the point of being painted to resemble Japanese aircraft, including a red ball on the underside of the wings. Their amazement turned to horror in the next few minutes as the Japanese pilots opened fire on the U.S. planes lined up in the center of the field, wing tip to wing tip. Pilots were running to their planes hoping to get airborne, not only to save the planes, but to fight the attacking enemy aircraft which filled the sky. "The Japanese planes were so low we could see their faces as they began to open fire," Les remembers. "Many of our pilots had reached the planes when the bombing and strafing began. The planes were so close together that when the first one exploded it went right down the line, one right after another. In a few minutes there were dead and wounded all over the field. Planes and buildings on fire, ammunition and gasoline tanks exploding, air raid sirens screaming." We were told to dress and report to our assigned work area as quickly as possible. We ran, several thousand men, to the main gate at the Pearl Harbor Shipyard, but everything was so disorganized. The Marines on sentry duty wouldn't let us pass. We were held back at gunpoint until an officer arrived and authorized the Marines to admit us so we could help. I immediately reported to the rigging loft and was sent to the drydocks to fight the fires on the Cassin and the Downes. |
The destroyers, the U.S.S. Cassin and the U.S.S. Downes after the fires destroyed both ships. The battleship, U.S.S. Pennsylvania, can be seen at far end of the No. 1 drydock. |
In the Number 1 drydock were two destroyers, the U.S.S. Cassin and the U.S.S. Downes, and the battleship, U.S.S. Pennsylvania. The Cassin and Downes were engulfed in flames from a ruptured gasoline tank. Soon, explosions in the magazines and a torpedo completely destroyed both ships. The fires were so intense from the two destroyers the paint on the starboard bow of the Pennsylvania caught fire. Although the Pennsylvania was a primary target of the Japanese, she sustained only minimal damage even though she was struck amidships by a bomb, killing 26 men and two officers. The Cassin and Downes were completely destroyed. The drydock was flooded to help in controlling the fires, but this caused the Cassin to roll over against the stricken Downes. Every few minutes a Japanese plane would fly over and strafe the Pennsylvania. We would turn off our fire hoses and run for cover. Once, the water wasn't turned off when the planes came in. Everyone dropped the hose and ran, leaving just three of us on the line. We couldn't let go because the pressure from the water would have whipped the hose back and forth making it as dangerous as the bullets. We hung on and luckily none of us were hit. |
At sometime after midnight, we were sent over to the 10-10 dock. The U.S.S. Helena had been hit by a torpedo, which put two holes in one side. It was secured to the dock, but was taking on water and listing badly. We were told to unload the food lockers so the compartments could be flooded in hopes of righting the ship. A hundred or more men made a chain to take out the tons of meat, chicken and frozen food. We did this for several hours until they could wait no longer to flood the compartments as the dock was starting to pull apart. In all those hours we had not eaten. Not even a cup of coffee. When we went topside, we found the cooks were frying chicken on the biggest stove I had ever seen. It must have been 30 feet long and was just covered with chicken. They told us to sit down and eat all the fried chicken we wanted. I think I ate two or three whole chickens I was so hungry. After eating I returned to the rigging loft where my supervisor told us to get some rest as they expected another raid at daybreak and he wanted us all back at our shops. There was a pile of sand used for sand blasting that had a little cover over the top. I crawled up in there for the few hours we had before dawn. The Cleanup The expected air raids and invasion of ground troops on December 8 did not materialize. Now started long hard days of burying the dead, caring for the wounded, cleaning up the broken ships, the damaged buildings, docks and airfields. The work week became a grueling seven days filled with twelve hour shifts to tackle the monumental task. The next morning there was no raid much to everyone's relief, but also there was no breakfast. The cafeterias were contracted out and the people who ran them couldn't get in to prepare the food. It was sometime late in the day before the cafeteria opened and we got another meal. We were sent out in trucks to help recover the dead and injured. I was on one of the trucks picking up the dead. We were stacking them on there like you would stack hay in a hayrack. We had quite a load by the time we got down to the other end of the shipyard. All morning, every hour or so, air raid sirens would go off whenever a plane was spotted in fear the Japanese were launching another attack. We had ten of those alarms that day. They were expecting to have the Japanese infantry land. The Japanese made a big mistake as they could have driven right on in the front gate we were so vulnerable. The remainder of that week I was working down in the drydock cleaning up all that mess from the ships that had burned. There was about two feet of water, oil and sludge down in the bottom. Even after they drained it, it was still an awful mess. The ships had been blown all to pieces and were just like crushed beer cans. They couldn't get any machinery down in there, so we took 50 gallon barrels and used scoop shovels. All those dead bodies and stuff that had been blown out of the ships. You didn't know if you were picking up someone's leg or a ham from one of the ships. Several days later I saw a notice posted at the shop for divers and helpers. I didn't sign up right away, but continued to work down in the drydock where the rapid deterioration of bodies and meat caused by the tropical heat was making it almost intolerable. I finally decided to sign up for the diving crew, but found they only needed five men and so many had signed up the lead diver was going to pick his own men. So I went back down into the drydock and started shoveling. Later that same day, my foreman called me up out of the drydock and told me to report to the lead diver (Gottschalk). He asked if I would be interested in being a diver. I replied, "Is it any dirtier than this?" He laughed and said, "It could be!" I wondered what made him notice me down in all that muck with all those other men, but told him I would give it a try. I was told to report to the dive lockers and get cleaned up. Take a shower, shave and get some clean coveralls and wait there, as he would be down shortly. Learning to Dive That was my first shower since the day of the attack. We had no running water at the barracks and had been washing the best we could with a little cold water. I had grease in my hair and hadn't shaved in all those days. I was just an awful looking mess. After I got cleaned up, I checked out all the equipment and looked over all the dive gear and hats. I wondered to myself, "What in the world would you do in one of those things?" The lead man picked me up with a small boat and took me over to the U.S.S. California which was sunk on the other side of the bay. On the way across he explained that I would be pumping air for a few days until barges equipped for diving with motors and air compressors could be prepared for our use. My diver would be training me in the meantime whenever he had some stand by time. The air pump being used was one of the old two-man type with the large wheel on each side. With the diver down it had to be pumped constantly. You couldn't even stop long enough to light a cigarette. The minute you stopped, your diver was out of air. So I pumped air. As it turned out, I pumped air for several days and had about 15 minutes training. After several days of pumping air, my diver told me to get suited up and he would teach me to dive. Well, I went down all right, but came back up upside down. I had blood running out of my ears. I was just getting undressed when the lead man came up and said, "Well, I am glad to see you have learned to dive. I have a man here to take your place on the pump and I want you to come with me." We loaded into his little boat and on the way across, he asked, "Do you think you can dive now?" I replied, "Well, I suppose I can." I hated to admit that I had been down only the one time and upside down to boot! We went back to the dive locker and got my gear ready for the next day. We were using the Navy Mark V gear. The next morning, we went down to the marine railway. This was a track similar to a railroad track, but built on cement pilings and used to bring a ship into drydock for repairs. It was used for the submarines and small destroyers, but had been damaged when keel blocks were not set correctly causing a ship to tip over. Because of the size of the newer submarines and the start of the war, it was decided to build a larger marine drydock rather than trying to repair the old one. The old pilings and track had to be removed before the new construction began. I was using a 90-pound air buster with extra weight belts to hold me down. I must have had on about 300 pounds of gear. After working down there for a couple of weeks, I could see we just weren't getting anywhere as the cement was so hard you just couldn't bust it up. I happened to see the plans for the new drydock and noticed the new rail would be higher and six to seven feet farther out than the old rail. I pointed this out to the lead man. "Les," he said, "the first thing you will learn. You never tell the Navy how to do anything." We continued working every day, twelve hour days. That air buster was just jarring me to pieces. Even with the extra weight belt, you would just lay with your stomach across that thing and couldn't bust off a piece of cement much bigger then your hand. I was working with another diver and I had managed to clear about 40 feet on my side of the rail, but he wasn't even that far along. I was so sore all over I could hardly move. I decided I would have to quit, as I couldn't take much more. I went in to see the lead man that night after work, but he was out of the office, so the next morning I dressed-in and went down. I had only been down a few minutes when my tender told me the lead man wanted me to come up and report to the office. He said, "Well, Les, you were right. That old cement doesn't have to be taken out and we are going to go ahead and pour the new cement. The Navy has decided they can build the new track right over the old one." We talked for a bit and he could see that I was about done in. He said, "Les get some rest first. Just go back in the office, lay down on the cot and take a nap. You look like you are about to cave in." "Well, I am," I replied. I slept until six that evening. After a couple of days I got so I could handle myself again. Anyway, that's how I came to be a diver. I don't think I could have had a job that was any harder. It would just shake the living daylights out of you. If I had false teeth, they would have been laying down in my diving suit as there would have been no way I could have kept them in my mouth. Next we were sent to the U.S.S. California. They were building cofferdams trying to seal off some of the holes in the ship so they could get it into the drydock. I was to survey the damage on the port side and look for cracks in the hull. I didn't find any cracks but did find where some rivets had popped out. A cofferdam was built at that spot to keep the water out. Occasionally they would send me over to the Navy Yard on a salvage job. One day I was sent to locate a crane that had tipped over and fell into the harbor. The lieutenant in charge said it wouldn't be a big job, just drop straight down, hook a cable onto it and they would pull it up. I spent the day probing in the silt with a piece of re-bar, but wasn't having any luck finding the crane. When my lead man came over, he told me not to expect the crane to be straight down that it was probably out quite a way. After six or seven days, I located it about 200 feet out. It had floated that far before it had settled. I had never done anything like this before and it was a new experience for me. They brought in a big floating crane and I took cables down, hooked onto it and brought it right up. I guess it wasn't damaged too badly as about four or five days later I saw it running down the tracks. After that they sent us over to the U.S.S. Arizona. My lead man told me to plan on this being my permanent job unless something was posted on the bulletin board telling me otherwise. We went over to the U.S.S. Arizona and started diving. Although there were a number of other civilian and Navy divers working on the Arizona, I was the only civilian diver to work down on the inside. My first job was to bring up the silver service1) from the officer's dining room. The silverware was later auctioned off in the States as a promotion to sell war bonds. An officer had been over and told me they wanted all the silverware brought up and gave me a list of the pieces in the set. I asked him, "Where in the hell do I find it?" He said, "I don't know. It's your job!" I didn't have any idea of how to find the officer's quarters in that big ship. I had never been on a ship until we sailed on the Henderson. I talked it over with my tender and he managed to obtain a copy of the blue print for the Arizona and with that we were able to locate the officer's mess. The table had been set for breakfast, and as you can imagine, after the explosion, the silver was scattered all over the floor. I probably would never have found all of it if I had gone to a diving school. The one thing you don't do is get down on your knees in one of those suits unless you are a really good diver and know how to operate the air. If you get upside down with a ceiling overhead, you can't get out. The helmet fills with water and you drown. Anyway, not knowing any better at the time, I just crawled around on my hands and knees. Once in awhile, I would feel my feet start to float up and I would very quickly release my air. I did find all of the silver except for one platter. You would think it would only take a couple of hours to pick up half a sack of silver, but I think it took about ten days. Everything you did was just days. Of course sometimes it would take an hour or two to get down to the place you were to work. |
The U.S.S. Arizona was destroyed by the Japanese when a bomb exploded in the powder magazine in the forward section of the ship. |
Keep in mind that there was no light - just pitch black. Lights were of little use. Not only did the additional line cause extra problems by getting hung up, but also the floating oil, sediment, and other debris in the water, caused the light to reflect back into the face plate. There was a six to eight-inch layer of oil on the surface of the water. The minute you went through the oil layer, it coated the face plate. When you came up you could tell you were out of the water, but you couldn't see anything. I had two sets of Mark V diving gear. When I came up the dress and helmet would be just covered with a half inch layer of all this oil and gooey tar like substance. There was a little Filipino boy on our crew and his job was to clean the dive gear. I wore a pair of bib overalls over the dress which was made of heavy canvas and had two big pockets. Of course, I didn't come up too often, as it was too difficult to get in and out. A lot of days I never came up at all, not even for lunch. I would put on a pair of gloves until I dropped under the layer of oil, then take them off. This would leave my hands free to feel my way around without having them coated with oil. It was surprising how much you could do by just feeling. It was just a blind man's job to work down there. |
I would study the blue prints of the ship and plan a route. I had to be able to see this in my mind. My tender would go over it with me and help me keep my bearings and recognize the compartment I was in. Sometimes you couldn't get through as the bulkhead doors would not open or wreckage would block the way. Then you had to find a different route. You might be down only 25 feet in depth but you would have 150 feet of air hose out because of the wreckage and different obstacles in your path. It was a slow-moving process to get out as well. Sometimes taking two hours, as you would have to pull and roll all that hose as you went. The air hose and the life line were taped together at about three foot intervals and were constantly getting hung up on something. And of course, you couldn't go until the air hose went. You would have to go back until you found where it was fouled, and start again. Bodies were a priority. When I found one, I was to bring it up immediately. At first we took out a lot of bodies, but after a time the bodies had deteriorated so and became so water logged it was decided to leave them on the Arizona. Once in a while a piece of a body would be brought up, or a skull. That was an awful thing. Sometimes they would follow along in the stream made by the exhaust on the helmet. On one occasion, I could feel something, bump, bump, bump, at the back of my hat. I felt around, but couldn't find anything. A few minutes later - bump, bump, bump. As I went up through the hatch a skull popped up to the surface right beside the dive barge and my tender was able to scoop it out of the water. It apparently had been pulled along by the air exhaust and had followed me out. My steady job was on the Arizona. Every day, twelve hours a day. The first six months or so we worked seven days a week. At times, I would be called out on a dive job somewhere when no one else was available or someone needed help. For instance, one day I was called over to one of the drydocks to recover a body. One of the men had been sitting on the bank eating lunch when the bank caved in. He went in the water and never came up. One of the big items I took out was the towing cable. It was a two or two-and-a-half inch steel cable that was right down in the very bottom of the stern. I think there was a mile of cable on that great big monstrous reel. There was a hole through each deck to pull it up, but stuff was so scattered the first thing I did was to take a cutting torch and make new holes in some of the decks to run a line down and hook onto it. Before I went down, one of the guys had said, "You know the gears will be froze tight and you will have to find the release mechanism before the wheel will even start to turn after we hook onto it." On the first trip down I didn't know what to expect. I felt around and found that it had a steam driven engine and the release was just a dog gear. I took a wrecking bar down with me the next day, but it was just in there "bang, bang" solid and there was no way I could get it loose. I had to take a cutting torch all the way down into the keel; I suppose 100 to 150 feet of hose. The torch had to be lit before going down and the minute it touched anything, it would go out. It was the same torch used topside except it had an additional pipe around the stem for air. You would open the air first then light the torch so it would be burning in a bubble of air. It was quite tricky. If you touched the torch straight onto the metal it would go out and of course, there was no way to light it underwater, so you would then have to go back up and relight the thing. It took about two days before I finally managed to get all the way down with the torch and cut the "dog" so it would release the gear. I had already run a line down, so I hooked it up and told them to take a left. Sure enough the wheel started moving. A long trough filled with some kind of oil was set up over on Ford Island and the cable was pulled through the oil to prevent it from rusting and they were able to salvage all of it. It was quite some time after I started working on the Arizona that I found the missing platter. I was in one of the compartments, just feeling my way along, when I felt this thing. I knew right then it was the other silver platter. I shoved it into the bib of my coveralls until I got into one of the compartments I often used when entering the ship. There were pipes running along one side, so I shoved it up in them until I could decide what to do. I knew if I brought it up some officer would take it and that would be the end of that. I really didn't think I would ever get it off the ship. We were checked each night when we left work. The sentries even made us open our lunch boxes before we walked out the gate. I had it there in the pipes for quite some time when we started training several Seabees. They drove in and out of the yard in a pickup every day, but no one ever checked the truck when they left. We became good friends while working together, so I asked them if they would do me a favor. They said, "Sure, what do you need?" So I told them about the platter and asked if they would take it out in their truck. I invited them over for a little lunch that evening and they brought the platter over. So that is how I got it out of the Navy yard.2) |
Les Ritchie. This photo was taken by one of the Seabees who smuggled in a camera while Les was working on the U.S.S. Arizona |
The salvage work was all classified so no one was allowed to bring in a camera. The only pictures taken were photos taken by the Navy. However, one of the Seabees did smuggle in a camera one day. The only picture I have during this time is the one he took of me dressed in my dive gear while working on the Arizona. I did have several close calls. A lesson I learned early on was that there are some dangerous situations that can develop very rapidly. After the bombing, they needed more dock space for other ships coming into Pearl Harbor. Pilings were driven down alongside the Arizona to tie up other ships while the salvage work was being done. I was on the outside of the ship walking along on the torpedo blister. This blister was about two feet wide. My foot slipped down between the ship and one of the pilings and it just grabbed onto me. I pulled and pulled, but my foot wouldn't budge. Finally I just blew my suit plum up with air so I would have more buoyancy, hoping I could pull loose. Well, you might know, about that time the ship shifted a little and my foot came loose. Up I went! |
I just went sailing up. I must have shot up out of the water two or three feet. I lay out on top of the water with my arms straight out. I was just lucky that I had a good tender. He saw what happened and told the little Filipino boy from our dive crew to swim out and let some of the air out of my suit. Once he did that, my feet dropped back down and I could move my arms again. Without his help my suit would have blown up and I would have drowned. It did open up one ear and I bled out of that ear for several days because of the rapid change in pressure. They sent me over to the submarine base and had me decompress. And - I went back to diving. Most of the time we were only diving from 25 to 50 feet deep. My deepest dive occurred when I was sent out to recover some channel buoys that had been sunk to prevent the Japanese subs from locating the island channels. The lead diver came over with a lieutenant and said they were sending me out on a lighthouse tender to recover the buoys. Our first stop was to be Kauai and they thought it would take about 30 days to recover all of them. On the way over we were hit with an awful storm. God, it was rough. We got into port at Kauai, but it was so rough we weren't able to dive. It was about two or three days before we were able to get out again. The buoy was down about 180 feet and that was the worst scare I had while diving. I never went down the ladder but always just jumped in the water. For some reason that day I went down the ladder instead. I got my helmet down to where I could see and there was this white coral bottom. It was just like being on top of a 300 foot skyscraper! I just hung there on that ladder. Pretty soon my tender says, "What's the matter Les?" I answered, "Oh nothing, I'm just looking at the scenery!" I was scared to death. I finally got the air pretty well saturated in my suit and let loose, and went right on down. We brought the buoy up, but the lighthouse tender received word that one of the lighthouses on the beach had been damaged from the storm so they called our trip off. They planned to try it again at a later time, but never did. The buoy we brought up was in such bad shape it was decided they weren't worth retrieving. I was working in a gun turret when I had my closest call. We had been pumping the ship out constantly, putting on patches and had actually started to bring it up. We had an electric welder but you couldn't really weld, but just had to tack along until the patch held and wasn't leaking too badly. Then we would stuff this material called "oakum" into the cracks to stop the leaks. I looked across the harbor that morning and I could see that it had sunk again. I thought, "Oh, no. One of the patches must have come loose." I knew there was a big one down in the one of the gun turrets that had been leaking badly. I had been stuffing this oakum around it whenever I had a chance. When I got over to the ship I started checking to find where the break had developed. I went down in the gun turret, just following around the sides, and that damn sheet was hanging down and just split my sleeve wide open. It wasn't two seconds until my suit flooded with the water right up to my lips. I thought, "Oh man, now what do I do?" I managed to keep my head and not panic. The water shorted out the communications in my hat and as I went to give my life line a pull to signal the tender, I found my lines were fouled. I wasn't down very deep, maybe only 25 feet. Just down the ladder into the turret and about 12 feet on the other side. I knew whatever it was that my lines were snagged on was probably down on the floor. If I bent down the helmet would fill with water and I would drown. I could feel my lips starting to swell and burn, and I had swallowed some water. The water was so contaminated with bacteria and chemicals, that if it got in your mouth or on your lips they would start swelling. I knew my only chance was to cross the turret and hope I didn't fall. You were always falling because of all the wreckage and junk on the floors. I knew that if I went down it was all over. That I would just drown and that would be it. I took quite awhile, probably 45 minutes to an hour, to make it across and find where my line was fouled. The turret had been pumped out at one time and a crew had been cleaning up the debris. They had a bucket up above with a little crane and had put a ladder down the one side of the turret. My hose had come up underneath the ladder and hooked on the leg. At first I tried to take my foot and push it down but couldn't get it loose. I finally decided to hang onto the ladder and just get myself down, unhook it and pull myself back up as quickly as I could. I got it loose and gave my line four fast pulls. My tender was sitting right there and started hauling. They got me up until I was out of the water, but I was so weak by that time, I wasn't able to climb the ladder. Someone came down, and put a hook on my belt and they pulled me on up. I was sicker than a dog from swallowing that bad water. I went over to the Navy hospital where they gave me an injection of something and wanted to keep me overnight. After some argument from the doctor though, I was back at work the next day. I had always been told that when something like that happened if you didn't go right back, you never would. I had many diving duties on the Arizona including finding cracks, popped rivets and plugging the holes (finding them by feeling the rush of the water). Taking the guns off and salvaging all the small light items from the ship. The forward section was a total loss, so I burned it in sections so the crane could bring it up. Often, we would have to call the crane in four or five times before they were actually able to bring the wreckage up. You were working in the dark all the time and you never knew for sure if you had it cut loose or not. So you would send for the crane and if they couldn't get a lift, then you would have to go back and try to find the place you had missed. I also brought up the ship's vault3 which was said to contain over 200 thousand dollars in cash and jewelry from the ship's store. This was a huge walk-in vault from about the mid section of the ship where most of the damage from the explosion had occurred. It fact, it was right above one of the powder magazines that had blown up. The Navy divers had looked for the safe for about six months, but had not been able to locate it. It was believed that the safe had been blown over the side and lost down in the silt. I had been cutting loose the wreckage on the bow section, when I happened to find something you could hook a cable onto to lift it. After moving some of the debris from the top, I could feel one of these on all four corners. I don't know what made me think it was the safe. Only the top was accessible as it appeared to have sunk down through the deck. I cut away some of the scrap around the sides and found the combination. I went up and told the salvage officer, Lt. Nordquist. At first he said, "No way. That thing went overboard. The Navy divers spent six months looking for that thing." I told him, "I don't care, it's down there! You get that 55 ton crane over here and we will left it out." The next day Lt. Nordquist dressed-in and went down to check out my find and agreed that he too believed it was the safe. They called the big crane over and rigged me up with four cables which I took down and hooked onto the safe. They pulled her right out of there as pretty as could be. It was loaded onto the Maryann, a self-propelled crane barge, and away they went 90 mph. And, that was the last I saw it. Usually whenever we recovered anything big, the photographers would be over to take pictures and it would be in this little newspaper we had. There was never a thing about the safe and no one ever found out what became of it. Not even Lt. Nordquist as far as I know. We worked long, hard days. Sometimes being down all day long. The Navy divers were limited to just four hours down, but there was no limit on the number of hours we would be down. Even though I was young and in top physical condition, it started to take its toll. Once a month I was sent to the submarine base for decompression and was also given a physical. I started to notice that when I laid down at night, I could hear my heart beat so loud I would have trouble going to sleep. I could also feel it in my fingers and pounding against my ribs. The Navy doctor checked me over and said my heart was quite enlarged. I was told to take some time off and rest up a bit. I took off a few days and did feel better so went back to work. It wasn't long though until I was back at the doctor's office. I was given a thirty day medical leave and sent back to the States. The first time I had been home in two years. When my leave was up, I caught a transport ship out of San Diego back to Pearl Harbor and went back to work. It wasn't long though until the Navy doctors gave me a medical discharge and sent me back to the States for good. My heart had become so enlarged and was fibrillating so badly, they didn't know if I would ever be able to do very much again. I began seeing a doctor in our little town of McMinneville, Oregon. His office was in one of the old buildings, up on the second floor. It had a long stairway with a landing half way up with a bench to rest. I would sit there until I could make it on up to his office. He checked me over and I told him what I had been doing. He said he didn't know if he could help me or not, but he had a new drug he would like me to try - digitalis. His supplier had given him enough to treat one patient and if I was willing to try it, he wouldn't charge for it. There was enough for about two weeks. After a week I went back for a check up and I was able to walk right up that stairway. He said, "My God, you aren't the same guy that was in here a week ago." He couldn't believe it. He listened to my heart and called in another doctor from down the hall. He had also checked me over on the first visit. They just stood there and looked at each other. He told me to take it for the second week and then to come back as he was going to contact the supplier. I went back a week later and, "Hell, I could have run a race!" It just pulled me right out of it. They put me on something else for a time and the supplier did send him another batch of the digitalis to keep in reserve in case I should start having problems again. They didn't know how it would affect me over a long period of time so didn't want me to take it unless it was necessary. My old boss found out I was back in town. He came right over and wanted me to come back to work. He really needed someone to take over making the powdered milk, which was going to the armed forces. I wasn't supposed to work for at least two months. He told me I could just be my own boss and do anything I wanted. I could sit down or lay down or go home if I needed to. Just anything I wanted as long as I could keep the operation running. "Well," I said, "you gave me a job when I was starving so I'll do it." So I went back to my old job. I never went back to diving. I could have gone to work for Pacific Bridge in Portland. I had worked for them in Pearl Harbor when they were short handed and needed help. In fact, I could have worked for them at that time at five times the money I was making, but I was frozen on my job with Civil Service. My buddy and I even tried to enlist while we were in Hawaii, but couldn't get a release from our jobs, not even to go into the service. When we arrived in Pearl Harbor, I was making $1.45 an hour. The Civil Service had no pay scale for divers. After becoming a diver, though, I was raised to the same level as a shop lead man - $2.86. And that is what my pay scale remained until I was sent home. In my mind, I had no training for any aspect of this job, but with help beyond my powers, I was able to do anything put before me. Remember Pearl Harbor One thing should always be remembered - Freedom is not free. On this "Day of Infamy" there were 2388 service men killed - 1172 of the dead were from the U.S.S. Arizona. Wounded - 1178. Twelve ships sunk or beached, nine damaged; 164 planes lost, 159 damaged. Countless lives were changed forever in those few hours on December 7, 1941. The events of that day never to be forgotten by those who survived. As in all wars there were no real winners. One side won, one side lost, but the cost in lives taken or incontrovertibly altered precluded there being a real winner. As in all wars the impetus to invention and technological advance was extreme. It transformed the world as it was, to the world as we know it. 1) The silver service from the officers dinning room should not be confused with the USS Arizona Silver Service that was presented by the citizens of Arizona shortly after the ship was commissioned. The USS Arizona silver is a very ornate, 87-piece set that was used for entertaining high ranking officers and visiting dignitaries. With the possibility of war, the silver was put into storage at Bremerton, Washington before the ship sailed for Hawaii in 1941. It is currently at the Arizona State Capitol Museum in Phoenix. 2) The silver platter has a large USN engraved in the center and is approximately 8 x 12 inches. Lester Ritchie engraved the platter with the name of the USS Arizona just under the USN and included a list of the divers names, the names of his tenders and the names of the commanding officers who were in charge of the salvage. Les states that he could have sold the platter a number of times, but would not do so. His intent is to present it to the Pearl Harbor Memorial at the 60th Anniversary Service in December 7, 2001. 3) In the book "Battleship Arizona," written by Paul Stillwell, there is an account of finding a safe in the officer's quarters at the stern of the ship, which contained the payroll and the ship's pay records. The money was pulled out in bundles by the divers and loaded into gunny sacks. Ensign Homan Walsh then took charge of it, as he was the officer responsible for the payroll. The pay records were recovered a little later on and were turned over to Chief Byard who was the warrant officer. Ed Raymer, in his book, "Descent into Darkness," also writes of finding a safe; the disbursing office safe, between frames 81 and 84 on the second deck. Raymer and his crew tried to recover the safe but had leave it when they were sent to begin work on the U.S.S. California. Whether or not this was the same safe Les Ritchie recovered later on is not known. |
