Tuesday, December 7, 2021

101-Year-Old USS Oklahoma Pearl Harbor Survivor Returns: David Russell

Continued from my Saw the Elephant:  Civil War blog.

Today, I will be posting about Pearl Harbor in all but one of my blogs.

David Russell is traveling to Pearl Harbor with the Best Defense  Foundation, a nonprofit founded by former NFL  linebacker Donnie Edwards that helps World War II veterans visit  their old battlefields.

"Those darn torpedoes, they just kept hitting us and kept hitting us.  I thought they'd never stop.  That ship was dancing around."

He remembers clambering over and around toppled lockers while the battleship slowly rolled over. "You had to walk sort of sideways."

Once he got to the main deck, he crawled over the ship's side and eyed the battleship USS Maryland moored alongside his ship.  He didn't want to swim over to it because leaking oil had caught fire in the water.  Jumping, he was able to catch a rope hanging from the Maryland  and escaped to that battleship without injury.

He then helped pass ammunition to the Maryland's anti-aircraft guns for the rest of the attack.

--Old B-Runner


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