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(Zigzagged Until Dark)

Zigzagged Until Dark

On Sunday night, the 29th of July, we had been zigzagging [evasive movement, making the vessel a difficult target for torpedoes fired from submarines] up until dark. We did not zigzag thereafter. We had intermittent moonlight, so I am told, but it was dark from about 2330 until sometime earlier the next morning.

At approximately five minutes after midnight [on 30 July], I was thrown from my emergency cabin bunk on the bridge by a very violent explosion followed shortly thereafter by another explosion. I went to the bridge and noticed, in my emergency cabin and charthouse, that there was quite a bit of acrid white smoke. I couldn't see anything.

I got out on the bridge. The same conditions existed out there. It was dark, it was this whitish smoke. I asked the Officer of the Deck [senior officer on duty] if he had had any reports. He said "No, Sir. I have lost all communications, I have tried to stop the engines. I don't know whether the order has ever gotten through to the engine room."

So we had no communications whatsoever. Our engine room telegraph [device used to communicate speed changes from the command bridge to the engine room] was electrical, that was out; sound powered phones were out, all communications were out forward. As I went back into my cabin to get my shoes and some clothes, I ran into the damage control officer, Lieutenant Commander Casey Moore [USN], who had the midwatch [midnight to 4 a.m.] on the bridge as a supervisory watch.

He had gone down at the first hit and came back up on the bridge and told me that we were going down rapidly by the head [i.e., sinking bow-first], and wanted to know if I desired to pass the word to abandon ship. I told him "No."

We had only about a three degree list [ship leaning to one side from perpendicular axis]. We had been through a hit before, we were able to control it quite easily and in my own mind I was not at all perturbed. Within another two or three minutes the executive officer [second in command on the ship] came up, Commander Flynn, and said, "We are definitely going down and I suggest that we abandon ship."

Well, knowing Flynn and having utter regard for his ability, I then said, "Pass the word to abandon ship."

As I had this word passed, I turned to the Officer of the Deck. This had to be passed verbally, [and] the man on watch, the boatswain's mate, had to go below. Two people did go below and the word was passed. However, I knew from past experience that we had had in Okinawa, since we had our blood bath, you never had to pass the word for anybody to man the general quarters station [battle station] or get on topside when something was wrong. The ship and crew sense it. They come to their stations immediately. So I am sure that everybody who could get up topside was up topside before we ever passed the word.

Then I turned to the Officer of the Deck, Lieutenant Orr, and said, "I have been unable to determine whether the distress message which I told the Navigator to check on has ever gotten out."

I had asked Commander (John H.) Janney, the navigator, when I first went on the bridge to make certain that he got a message out. He went down below and that was the last I saw of him. So knowing that it was absolutely essential that someone be notified where we were, since we were unescorted, I felt that was the most important thing to know at this moment and told the Officer of the Deck I was going to Radio Room One, below the bridge, to find out for myself if this message had gotten out. Also I wanted to take a look at the at a part of the main deck which some people had said had split near No. 1 stack. Also I could not yet visualize why we were going down by the head. Nobody had given me any report that we were other than just badly damaged.

I passed through the charthouse and picked up in my emergency cabin a kapok life preserver which I put on and stepped out on the after side of the bridge and Captain Crouch who was a passenger and who had been sleeping in my cabin said, "Charley, have you got a spare life preserver?" I said, "Yes, I have. I've got a pneumatic life preserver," and I stepped back into my cabin and picked this up and handed it to, I believe, a seaman quartermaster by the name of Harrison and asked him to blow this up for Captain Crouch.

I then stepped to the ladder on the bridge which leads down to the signal bridge and as I put my foot on the first rung [of the ladder], the ship took a 25 degree list to starboard [the ship's right side]. People started to slide by and I went down to the signal bridge. As I reached that platform, she [the ship] went to about 40 or 45 degrees [of list]. I managed to get to the ladder leading from the signal bridge to the port [left] side of the communications deck. As I reached the communications deck, she [the ship] seemed to be steadied at around 60 [degrees of list]. There were some youngsters there that were jumping over the side and I got to the lifeline on the communications deck and yelled at these boys to not jump over the side unless they had life jackets, or to go back by the stack which was just behind me and cut down the liferaft, or the floater net rather, and throw that over the side before they jumped.

Within another few seconds the ship listed to 90 degrees and I jumped to the forecastle deck and pulled myself up on the side and started to walk aft [the ship was laying over on her side and the captain was able to walk toward the rear on the ship's side]. She apparently stayed in this position for some time, at least long enough for me to walk from abreast the bridge to approximately No. 3 turret on the after deck, at that point I was sucked off into the water by what I believe was a wave caused by the bow going down rather rapidly, because I found myself in the water and looked above me and the screws [propellers], port screws, which by this time had been stopped, were directly overhead.

I immediately thought "Well, this is the end of me", and turned around and immediately swam away from the descending screws. Within a few seconds, I felt hot oil and water brush over the back of my neck and looked around and heard a swish and the shop was gone.

The sea at this time was rather confused. There had been storms up north and I was buffeted about quite a bit. We had a long, heavy, ground swell, the wind was from the southwest and force about two. We could still see nothing. I was still dark and I could hear people yelling for help.

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(Zigzagged Until Dark)