William Harold Trent US Navy USS Medusa |
I was aboard the USS Medusa (AR-1), which was an auxiliary repair ship. It was about 600 ft long. The Medusa was the very first repair ship built specifically for that purpose. We had a crew of 600 men. We were anchored near the Pearl City Landing NW of Ford Island with the USS Curtiss nearby and the USS Utah not far away. We always slept in on Sunday morning. I had just awakened about ten minutes before. I was brought wide awake the loud sounds of "boom, boom, boom". I said to the person on the cot next to me, "They must be in a big hurry to finish the hangers on Ford Island with all the blasting even on Sunday." There had been blasting for the last week most of the day for the foundations on the hangers so that was my thought. I casually stood up and looked out the port. I was shocked and amazed by what I saw. Two of the hangers were burning and I saw a plane swoop down and pass over the hanger. There was the large red circle, "the rising sun" on its side! Excitedly, I shouted, The Japs are attacking!" Those around me thought I was kidding and said in their salty ways to that effect. I didn't stop to argue since I knew where my duty post was. My first job was to "dog down" the ports on the starboard side of the Electrical Shop. This was something that had been practiced in General Quarters many times. It was now paying off. I had already "dogged one" before General Quarters had sounded. After "dogging down" all the ports, I then rushed to my station, which was on one of the lower decks. We were supposed to patch up any leaks, which might happen on that deck. If they had dropped a bomb through us, I doubt we would have been ale to patch it. About this time, all hell broke loose and the shooting by us as well as the Japs was tremendous. You couldn't hear anything but the shooting. I don't know how long this lasted, but it seemed like an eternity. I thought any minute a bomb would come through and we would be done for. Finally, it was over but I knew that we had lost. My heart sunk to the bottom of my feet. As I ventured up on deck to see what had happened, I was told that one of the men had shot down a Zero, which was coming in to bomb us. The Lord was with us as this was a million to once chance for a hit since this was a War1 Machine gun. I could see nothing but smoke for several hours. After that, I saw ships on fire or bottom side up all over the Harbor. I figure with what they had done to us, they would come in and take over any minute and we would be prisoners of war. We waited and waited. Thank God they didn't come in and finish the job. As the smoke cleared, we could see the Utah, an old outdated battleship used to pull targets for the other ships to practice, belly-side up. The hangers on Ford Island were all in charred ruins. Most of the planes were destroyed. Battleship Row was in shambles and ships sunk and smoking. Some burned for a couple weeks after. We figured w had just about lost the war before it started. President Roosevelt gave a speech, which was very uplifting and helped all of us pull ourselves together and begin to believe we could win the war. On the plus side, we had not lost a single Aircraft Carrier since they were all at sea at the time. |
Information provided by William Harold Trent. |
