EYEWITNESS REPORT OF
MELVIN C. SCOTT, Ptr3/c
[
Taken from a newspaper article]
"I was in the sick bay" he said. "There were four or five other fellows there. We were just finishing breakfast when we heard the sound of an explosion. I looked out a porthole. High up in the sky I saw a couple of planes in a dogfight. One of them caught fire and started falling.
It must have been just seconds afterwards that the first planes came past our ship, machine gunning the deck. they were so close you could see the pilots grinning and the sun emblem on the wings as they banked.
The first torpedo hit us about then. It jarred the ship so hard the mirrors fell off the bulkheads and paint flaked off the overhead. It's hard to try to estimate time, but I'd guess all this happened within a minute or minute and a half. Things went fast on the Utah that day for she was sunk seven minutes after the first torpedo Struck."
Over their initial surprise, Melvin and his mates in the ship's hospital raced to their battle stations. Melvin's job was to close hatches in the vessel's magazine.
"I did this and then started topside," the 21 year old sailor continued." On the third deck the water already was ankle deep. There were several fellows waiting there, undecided whether to go up. The Japs still were machine gunning. I yelled "I'd just as soon be shot or drowned. Let's go up!"
The men clambered up the ladder to the topside and dived overboard. "I looked around in the water for Ralph [his brother]* as I swam away, but didn't see him." Melvin was picked up by a motor launch. "Most of us were very fortunate," he remarked, calmly.
"And we haven't forgotten --- and we won't forget." The day's coming---."
The Japanese attackers "were very great until we got firing; then they weren't worth a damn. They're no good under fire," Melvin said. "It was wonderful the way our men fought when they got started."
One of those fighters may have been Ralph Scott. The youth, who enlisted in the navy a year and half ago, was member of a 5-inch gun crew. Melvin, whose four year hitch was due to expire in May is a painter, second class.
*[Ed. note: Young Ralph E. Scott was one of the 58 USS Utah sailors who gave his life for his country that day]
