[Ed. Note. The following eyewitness reported received from Rick Lee, son of Carl Lee on June 27, 2002. In an e-mail, Mr. Lee said "I am attaching the eyewitness account of my father, Carl E. Lee. He wrote this down in 1980 for a school assignment of a neighbor. I have transcribed it exactly as he typed it , correcting only the misspelled words."]
To whom it may concern;
On December 7th 1941, I was Carl E. Lee S2c U.S.N. serving aboard the U.S.S. Utah BB31 as a messcook. The ship was berthed at keyes on the opposite side Ford Island from battleship row at Pearl Harbor. Having boarded the Utah in March of 1941, for gunnery training and regular duty. The ship had been converted from battle ship to auxiliary service. This included experimental guns, gunnery training and to serve as a target ship. The guns we had at the time of the attack were covered with stee dog houses and our decks with heavy timbers to protect them from the dummy bombs our planes had been dropping on us during the recent exercises we had been going through. During these practice runs we had been assigned bombing quarters which were our living quarters three decks below.
At a minute before 8 a.m. my shipmate and I were making small talk as we stood looking out the porthole at Ford Island and preparing to clean up our mess. We had just finished feeding our crews (family style). As our eyes were drawn upward to the sky, we saw some high level bombers dropping their bombs. My shipmate asked if it was a dummy raid, but the question was answered as the bombs hit the PBY hanger on Ford Island. At the same time the Utah had been hit and we felt the ship shudder. Bombing quarters was sounded and we headed for the 3rd deck. As we reached our area, rumors and questions were everywhere. I went down to the 4th then the 5th decks where the magazines were and I had that area as my battle station, which had also been sounded. A line of other men had followed me. By this time, the ship had received other torpedoes and bombs and was listing severely toward the port side. Abandon ship was sounded and everyone turned and started scrambling toward the ladder and moving up.
Upon reaching the 3rd deck again we saw the extra mess tables and benches (which were stored in over head racks) and lockers around the bulkheads had fallen and slid down and had pinned some men under and behind them. We freed all those men and went for the ladder. As I climbed it, I looked down and saw my locker had fallen against the ladder and jarred open and my mothers picture was looking up from the deck. I moved on up also forgetting the six bucks I had in my locker. On the ladder to topside the man in front of me just started to step out on the timbers on deck when before my eyes the machine bullets started chewing up the timbers and the man ducked back and missed being killed by that one more step. I turned and went back to the second deck passing the others going up. On to the hatch leading to the mess compartment I had started from, I found the hatch was so warped from bomb damage that I could barely squeeze through. There was no one in the compartment and all the tables, benches, dishes and pans had slid to the port bulkhead. I remember thinking, as I view the scene that this was one mess I wouldn’t have to clean up. I made my way cautiously toward the last hatch aft. The deck was soapy and wet from our dishwater and a slip now would be the end. So I climbed the ladder to topside.
The sight before me was indescribable, unbelievable and unforgettable. Smoke covered the sky from burning everything and antiaircraft fire. Through it all planes were flying every direction bombs falling, machine guns firing, men running. An officer standing 10 feet from me yelling, “G-G-G Get below!” Twice he said this before he fell face down on the listing deck, I ran upward to the starboard side of the ship where men were lined along the edge then jumping and diving over the side. Some were climbing down the line that moored the ship. I could wait no longer and jumped over and swam the few feet to a motor launch that was picking up the men.
Aboard the launch I looked again toward the sky and with the planes diving and strafing I didn’t think the overloaded launch was any place to be so I dove out and swam on to the shore. There I looked for some cover of some kind. All I found was stack of barbed wire and I crouched beside it until I saw a lot of men lying in a pipeline ditch and I ran to that and got in. This proved to be not too good an idea either because just as we saw a plane crash in the edge of the water another was seen apparently heading right toward the ditch we were in. All eyes turned toward that plane and just about the time he would open fire (if indeed it was his aim to strafe the ditch) he exploded. You can imagine how long it took to vacate that ditch.
By this time a truck came by and all of us that could get aboard squeezed our way in, and were taken to the bachelor officers quarters on the island. There we got more rumors and the realization of what was taking place began to set in. The rumor that shook us most was that the Jap fleet was waiting outside the harbor to come in and bombard the island. Benson, our chief cook aboard the Utah, came up to me and said, “Boy if you think drowning is an easy way to go, think again!” By this time I recognized who he was, for he was covered with oil and his head had knots all over it. I said, “Benson, what happened to you? I didn’t know you!” He said he had been trapped under the timbers that had floated off the ship after it capsized, and every time he tried to surface he bumped his head on the timbers. After several bumps he finally put his hands up first and managed to separate the timber enough t where he could get his head up.
The Red Cross was there with drinks and donuts and we were told to go to the shower and then find any dry clothing we could find. Back in the assembly room the call came for machine gunners to man the guns set up in damaged planes around the air strip, then for riflemen to lay around the field and try to pick off low flying planes. Then a call for volunteers to fight the fire on the Arizona and West Virginia.
I went with this group. Arriving at the sight, it didn’t take much to determine that nothing could be done about the fire and all we could do was to do what we could to help those coming off the burning ships. And come they did in every condition imaginable, oily, wounded, sick and some already dead being towed ashore by shipmates, some on fire. It was one hell of a job. For an eighteen year old boy, lucky enough to live through such a holocaust, I grew up that day. Yet not knowing then that the worst was yet to come.
When we done all we could at the Arizona we returned for muster and reassignments. We were given cards to fill out that were to be sent airmail special delivery to our loved ones to let them know we were alright. (My mother received my card February 1942.) We were assigned to various ships and stations for the night and possible reassignment. I drew the U.S.S. Sacramento which was tied up at the Navy yard dock. There I was assigned the 10 to 12 dock watch. While on this watch, I saw 3 planes fly over with their running lights on, they were still in sight when every gun in the harbor opened up and I was under a tent of tracers and star shells. An anti aircraft gun behind me would fire and I thought it was a bomb. I took cover under a crane at the end of the dock. I fired my Springfield as fast as I could at the sky, I guess to be shooting at something. I heard later that 2 of our own had been shot down.
The next day I was asked if I wanted to stay aboard the Sacramento for duty, but being used to a larger ship I tuned that down. (Later I heard that the Sacramento disappeared while returning to the states.)
On Monday I was sent to some barracks to join other survivors. There we were assigned to burial parties and went by trucks to the cemetery in Honolulu. Pine coffins were brought in everything that could carry one. As we started handling the boxes we couldn’t overlook the stench and blood still running from the boxes. We placed 49 of these boxes to a trench (dug by bulldozers) and covered them with the American flag, then a chaplain would say a prayer. Then in the quiet and peaceful calm of the day came the most mournful and never to be forgotten sound I have ever heard before or since--TAPS. I don’t remember how many trenches we filled that day. The next 2 days we went to a place called Red Hill where we were confronted with piles of bodies. There we placed the bodies and pieces of bodies in sheets of burlap and then into pine boxes and sent off for burial. The first lunch break we had the first day of this, we were taken to a school where food had been prepared and was in plates on the tables. We marched in, sat down, looked at the food and to a man, got up and marched out without touching the food.
After that, Pearl Harbor was finally over for me, except for the ever lasting memory that haunts me to this day. As you can see I was no hero. There is nothing heroic about surviving such a catastrophe. Call it Luck, the Grace of God, or what you will, I was there and I survived.
I was then assigned to the U.S.S. Detroit and arriving in `Frisco, I sent a telegram to my mother wishing her a merry Christmas. I learned later, that was the first she knew I was still alive. I went on the serve on three other ships and was discharged in December 1946.
I hope this will help you in your project, I’m sure there are other thoughts and feelings I could mention, but I think I’ve covered by Pearl Harbor as I remember it.
Signed
Carl E. Lee
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