"Thank you, Sir. Right off, I want to make it clear that my recollections of what happened are—well—sketchy. I remember that sometime before we were attacked, Joe, who was manning the starboard gun, told me he was feeling sick at the stomach and telling him that I would take over the gun while he rested on one of the bunks for a while. Maybe some of you ladies don't know that I wasn't a regular crew member; that I was along on a special mission, so that made me the "oddball." That's nothing new; I think I have been the oddball all my life.
"Joe says I was at the coffee pot, pouring myself a cup of coffee when we were first attacked. I don't remember that part—pouring the coffee. Yeah, it was cold back there at the open hatch with the wind roaring in along with some rain and sleet. In navy jargon that hatch is called a blister. It looked like about half of a big bubble, but the lid had to be open to poke the gun through, which means all the time we are on patrol, no matter what the weather might be like.
"We would go get some hot coffee now and then—that was customary. I do remember running back toward the gun when the plane tipped to one side, then the other. Joe told me later he had fallen out of that bunk onto the catwalk and that I ran right over him. I don't remember that part.
"The next thing I remember—I don't know when—was Joe coming and telling me to go back into the tunnel and help Euchre get his gun going. The next thing I remember was a big flash, like the whole shebang had blown up, and feeling something hit me on the inside of my right thigh. I was lying alongside the gun on the starboard side while Euchre was lying along the other when that happened. It turned out to be the big parachute flare catching afire. That thing—there was only one—was carried in an upright tube fastened to the bulkhead wall. The purpose of it was to illuminate an area for miles around anytime it was thought necessary.
"What had probably happened was that a bullet from the Jap plane that had attacked us next hit it, or maybe a piece of a float flare that had exploded when hit by a bullet flew over to set it off. Another piece of that little flare hit me to tear a hole in my leg. They looked like little aerial bombs—even had metal tail fins. The body was made of wood, hollowed out and filled with powder that would ignite when in contact with water. They would float, so could be dropped anytime the plane had to be landed in water at night to illuminate a small area so the pilot could see exactly where the water was and how big the waves were. They were about a foot long and about a dozen were hanging in rows against the same bulkhead the big flare was attached to.
"The next thing I remember was noticing that the nose of the plane was going down and I reached over to make sure Euchre was OK. He didn't move or say anything so I decided he was either dead or knocked unconscious. I forgot to say that it was dark in there after that big flare had burned its way through the bottom of the plane and dropped out, and how hot it was in there while it was burning.
"I looked around and could see through the hatchway that Joe was doing something. It was daylight out there, so I went out and saw that he was pushing the big nine-man inflatable raft over the side through the blister, but doing it too slowly. I told him to hurry it up and he said he was hunting for the CO2 can that would inflate it when a pin was pulled. The tail end where we were was steadily going up and I think I hollered that the plane was about to sink and he'd better jump, or maybe he told me later that's what happened. I'm not sure.
"Anyway, he disappeared over the side and I dropped in after him. Since I wasn't one of the crew and nobody had thought to find a life jacket for me before we left, I didn't have any. So I swam over to the wing, which was still afloat, and crawled on. Then Joe was pulling over a line attached to the raft and telling me his hands were so numb that he couldn't have pulled the pin even if he found it, and crawled onto the wing.
"I found the can, pulled the pin, and the thing ballooned out across the water. Yeah, I'll never forget what happened next—I could hear gurgles and see bubbles coming to the top all around that thing. It was shot full of holes, and I was watching my life bubble away.
" I don't know how long Joe and I sat there staring at that shapeless, sorry-looking yellow mass of rubber washing this way and that but maybe out of the corner of my eye I saw something move, over a little way. It turned out to be the little two-man raft and maybe a couple of the guys. I could see it only when it floated over the top of a wave but noticed real quick that every time I saw it the thing was farther away.
"Then another thing popped into my head, maybe because I was an ordnanceman. The wing we were sitting on had a depth charge hanging on the under side, and I yelled at Joe, "There's a depth charge under here! It could blow up any minute! So I'm leaving," and slid off into the water to swim toward the raft. I don't know how I managed to get there, to hang onto a side, but soon Joe was there too, hanging on across from me. Mr. Hunt was sitting on one end with his feet in water that had splashed in, while Mr. Cusick, our pilot, was lying across and partly held in Mr. Hunt's arms. I was on Hunt's left, Joe on his right, and Morrison was hanging on at the other end.
"I don't remember much of what went on then, maybe nothing, until Mr. Hunt said that our pilot had died. I don't remember seeing what happened next, only soon noticing that he was gone and decided that since I didn't have a life jacket would try to get on the raft and sit on the end opposite Hunt, which I managed to do.
"After a while, who knows how long? I heard Joe yell, 'Catch him!' looked up and got a glimpse of Morrison floating away. He disappeared while the raft was sliding down into a trough and I never saw him again. Joe, maybe you can fill us in now on some of the stuff I didn't see or can't remember."
"Thanks, Carl. I can't add much to what has been said other than a few things heard over the interphone after I had taken over the gun. I heard Mr. Cusick order the radioman to send a message that we had been attacked by Japanese fighter planes, and to send our position. After a while I heard him ask if the message had gone through and the radioman answered, "I think so, sir."
"That 'I think so' sounded very discouraging—'Why didn't he know?' I was thinking.
"Then I heard Davis, who was manning the port 50 caliber gun say, "I think I got one, sir." I heard no more about that. The next thing I noticed was a black "cloud" streaming from the port engine and thought it might be afire and streaming smoke. The smoke soon quit, but a wide black streak remained on the underside of the wing. Then the engine quit—locked up, and it became evident that a bullet had cut a pressurized oil line and now all the oil was gone. We were flying on one engine.
"We had been flying all this time in clouds or fog and I could see nothing farther away than the wing tips. Suddenly we flew into a break and I could see four black looking fighter planes in formation high up at what in the Navy we call "Four o'clock", which means that if our plane was moving across the face of a clock toward twelve the object referred to is to the right and behind, in the direction of four o'clock. Behind us would have been six o'clock. It also seemed obvious that although they had not been visible to us, they could see enough of our shape or color to follow, waiting for more visibility before attacking.
"Almost immediately, the closest of the four peeled off and dove at us."
Brown paused for a few moments before continuing, "I will mention something now that I've told to a very few people, maybe only two or three, though I do have it written into my accounts somewhere. I had been with the squadron for almost a year, but never had my hands on a machine gun. The officers and rated men got to practice firing at a target, a sleeve pulled by another plane, but I was just a little Seaman 1st Class, striking for Machinist Mate so had never been given the chance. I know this must be hard to believe, but the machinist's job is to keep all the mechanical parts of the plane in flying condition. He calls in the electricians if something goes wrong in that department; the metalsmiths if rivets come loose or the metal skin is damaged; the radio shack keeps the radios working; and the ordnance crew handles the guns, bombs, depth charges, and torpedoes-all that is specialty work, out of his field.
"I knew how one operated because while yet in Machinist School an ordnanceman was brought in one day to take one apart, name every part, and put it back together. We then had a test to find out how much we had learned.
"This gun had a telescopic sight but I couldn't see a thing through it. Maybe ice was frozen over the lens. However, every fifth shell was what is called 'a tracer'. These are special bullets, having a hollow center filled with powder. Firing the shell causes this powder to ignite and the path of the bullet becomes a streak of fire to show where the bullets are going.
"When I judged the plane was close enough I opened up and he turned away to the rear and slightly down without firing. Then the next one was coming and I swung onto him, with the same result. By the time he disappeared to the rear the third was diving in, with the same result again. Now the fourth was coming in, but when I pressed the trigger nothing happened—I had used up the belt of 250 rounds on the first three! I grabbed up another belt, and while he was shooting at us—flashes of light winking from along his wings—was desperately charging it into my gun. Little use, he had already shot us up and was gone. That's the one that got us.
"Yes, I have lived with that for 60 years by reasoning it was no fault of mine. Just a little practice to find out how quickly 250 rounds can go through a machine gun might have resulted in a different story."
Brown sat back in his chair then to stare off into space. The rest sat in silence. I was seated a bit to one side of and behind Creamer, so could see only the Brown's and Hunt's faces. Hunt's eyes were closed, or perhaps he was looking down at something. The face of his wife, sitting more erect, appeared unnaturally white, almost as if bloodless, perhaps shocked by what she was hearing, while tears were misting Mrs. Brown's eyes and her lips, which had been pressing more tightly together, were now a thin line.
For while the only sounds were a faint scratching and the rustle of turning pages while I hurriedly scribbled notes onto my pad.
The silence had, I sensed, become awkward when Hunt finally looked up and cleared his throat before softly saying, "That was a long time ago."
Brown seemed to start then, as if suddenly awakened and, after glancing around the table, beginning with Hunt, resumed his narrative, "When that parachute flare went off the heat was horrible. I grabbed a fire extinguisher hanging near, but before I could use it the thing had burned a hole through the bottom of the plane and fallen out. I looked around then. Davis' gun hung at an awkward angle on its mount while he was on his knees, bowed over with his arms wrapped around his chest or stomach. Seeing lots of little geysers spouting up, perhaps through holes shot through the bottom, perhaps through holes where rivets had been popped out by the rough wave to wave landing, and noting that the front end was tilting downward while the rear part where I stood was rising higher and higher; I knew the plane must soon go down, so reached to pull the big rubber raft stored close by from its cover, and began reeling it over the side while searching for the CO2 bottle that would inflate it when a pin was pulled.
"Just then Carl emerged from the rear compartment and yelled, 'It's sinking! Jump!'
"I looked around then; neither Davis nor anybody else was in sight, so after tossing the whole mess overboard, I pulled the two little pins that would inflate my life jacket and jumped. Not realizing how high the rear was now above the water I went completely under with the result that I was choking before surfacing to spit out sea water. I also noticed that Carl hadn't jumped, rather was lowering himself as far as he could before turning loose to drop in.
"While I continued to attempt locating the CO2 bottle, he swam over to the wing, which was floating, and dragged himself on. By then my hands were so numbed by cold that I couldn't feel anything, so I yelled at Carl that even if I found the bottle I might not be able to pull the pin. He yelled back to drag it over to where he could reach it and he would inflate it. While he was searching through the tangled mess, I slithered onto the wing. I remember yet how much warmer I suddenly felt.
"Then he was yelling, 'I found it!' and the raft ballooned out, only to immediately begin going down, accompanied by hissings and bubbles. I recall a sinking feeling that matched what I was seeing, and while staring at the rubber and lines rapidly becoming a shapeless mass thought about the time, years before when gigging fish from a boat floating on waters flooding one of our fields, I saw a little bug clinging to the stem of a weed. A current was bending the weed stem over farther and farther until it and the little bug, that had crawled ahead of the water all the way to the end, disappeared. That was us, Carl and me; the plane was going down and there was nowhere else to go."
Suddenly my eyes were brimming over—I couldn't even see the pad held in my hands, and heard choking sobs from around the table.
After a while Brown resumed his account, "I sat there, looking around and saw something then that caused me to think I was suffering from delusions—little bluish-looking flames were dancing about on the waves splashing here, then there, over the top of the wings. While watching, and wondering what might be the implications of this weird, unlikely phenomenon I heard Carl yell, 'Hey! There's a raft over there with somebody on it!'
"I looked and at first saw nothing. Then a raft with some figures on it seemed to rise right up out of the water, crested a wave, then sank out of sight. Carl was yelling again, "There's a depth charge hanging under this wing, right under where we are—it might blow any minute! I'm leaving!" and slid off to swim toward the raft. He had to swim; he had no life jacket.
"I sat for a few moments, watching until he got to the raft, then—becoming aware that it was farther away each time it appeared—slid off to paddle my way to it. I found Mr. Hunt sitting on one end of the elliptical shaped raft and holding Lt. Cusick's upper body in his arms. Carl was holding onto the opposite side from where I held on, and Morrison was hanging on the end opposite Hunt. I remember the lieutenant telling Hunt, in a weak-sounding voice, our approximate location, and most particularly that we were about 200 miles from the nearest land. I don't recall much else, if anything, being said—what was there to say? until Hunt announced that the lieutenant had died, then, 'I am going to remove his gold wings, his cap, his wallet, and his watch. His wife might like to have them. I will let his body over the side and one of you can get on the raft.' I was thinking, 'How strange. Does he really think we are going to be getting out of this to give her those things?'
"Then he was saying, 'I'm not much of a praying man, but may God rest his soul,' and the body was committed to the sea.
"After a bit Carl said he was going to try to slip aboard, which he managed to do. That seemed logical; he had no life jacket. In the meantime I had been noticing a trickle of blood running down the left side of Morrison's forehead from under his cap, but had never heard him say even one word.
"Maybe about now is when I heard someone calling plaintively from the direction of the plane, the tail of which was still visible, sticking straight up but several hundred feet away. The words I heard were, 'I'm over here, fellows! I'm over here!' I looked each time we crested but saw no one. Who it was I do not know, but there are times I hear those desperate words ringing in my ears to this day. At least we had each other; that poor soul had nobody."
With that, tears welled from Brown's eyes and he sat down to cup his face in his hands. I was trying to jot notes but had to quit—tears prevented me from seeing even my notepad.
A lengthy silence, marred only by soft sounds of grief, was broken when Hunt said, "I remember that."
Brown, composure recovered, went on then, "Suddenly, just as we crested a wave, Morrison was slipping away and I recall yelling, 'Catch him!' but he disappeared while we were dropping into the trough and I never saw him again. We were down to three and I was thinking, 'Who will be next?'
"I could feel my strength ebbing and knew I couldn't hold on much longer hanging almost submerged in that icy water, so I said to Hunt and Carl, 'When we crest the next wave and the raft tips in the opposite direction, I'm going to slip aboard and lie crosswise between you two. That way my pulling out of the water won't cause the raft to flip over, and my weight will be equalized.' It was a risky proposition, but worked.
"I was soon aware of a problem, one that has plagued me on occasion through all my years—my big feet."
For a change, those around the table chuckled while exchanging knowing glances. Brown continued, "I was lying in water that had splashed in, with my head resting on one side of the raft but those big feet in heavy shoes dangled into the water on the other side and they were feeling mighty cold. I would raise them up out of the water but couldn't keep holding them up there, so I said to Hunt, 'I am going to take my shoes off so my feet will not be so heavy.' He advised me to not do that—'You might be needing them,' he argued. I thought he had gone out of his mind; his feet were in the water inside and he had on no shoes or boots. Now he was telling me to keep mine on! Another thing—why was I going to need them?
"I'm going to shut up pretty quick—for a while at least. We drifted for a time, who knows how long or short, until I heard somebody holler , 'There's a ship!' I kept raising my head to look every time we crested a wave until finally there they were—yes, several of them, away off on the horizon and partly obscured by fog. Then I heard Hunt—yes, I think it was him—saying, 'They are enemy ships, but maybe they will give us something to eat.' Again I was mystified, 'Something to eat? I wasn't hungry. He has sure enough gone out of his mind!'"
Again chuckles rippled around the table.
"I recall looking at my watch then, but my eyes were so out of focus that I couldn't be sure where the hands pointed, until deciding it was about 9:20. Mr. Cusick's fine Longines gold watch had long since quit. That is all I remember until the next day when I came to, found myself still alive, and aboard a Japanese warship."