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UNITED STATES NAVAL ACADEMY

SIXTIETH GRADUATION ANNIVERSARY OF THE CLASS OF 1940

This is a transcript of "The Long Voyage of the Class of Forty-U. S. Naval Academy" taken from the book The Class of Forty After Fifty Years © W. M. Carpenter 1990. Original text by C. H. Hall and W. D. Lanier.

0755, Sunday, December 7, 1941. Roman Brooks, officer of the deck of WEST VIRGINIA, sees an explosion on Ford Island and orders "Away fire and rescue party," bringing most of the ship's company on deck, and ready to man battle stations when the word is quickly changed to "General Quarters." Tom Nicholson, OOD of CALIFORNIA, sees planes diving and bombs hurtling downward, and sounds General Quarters. Hank Davison, OOD of ARIZONA, sounds GQ, but the ship is almost immediately rocked by torpedo and bomb hits. Seconds later, ARIZONA's forward magazines explode, blowing Hank over the side, and leaving ARIZONA a blazing wreck. Among the 1,103 killed are Eddie Cloues, Frank Lomax, Howard Merrill, Orville Smith, Carl Weeden, Monty Whitehead and Eric Young.

Irv Davenport, OOD of OKLAHOMA, sees torpedo planes coming in from the port side. One flies directly overhead, close enough to see the pilot and gunner peering down at their victim. There are explosions as five torpedoes strike home, and the ship begins to capsize. Irv walks around the hull as the ship goes over and continues his watch on the bottom. Trapped below in OKLAHOMA and lost are 415 officers and men, including Marshall Darby, Joe Hittorf and Igloo Thompson.

CALIFORNIA takes two torpedoes and two of those 2,000 pound bombs made from 16-inch armor-piercing shells and settles into the mud. Campbell Hall empties his .45 pistol at a string of dive bombers, one bullet per plane. WEST VIRGINIA, blasted with six torpedoes and two bombs, also settles to the bottom. TENNESSEE is hit by two bombs and Don Kable, at AA Control, is seriously wounded.

NEVADA takes a torpedo that rips a 40-foot hole in her side, but gets underway and stands down the channel, guns blazing, as Japanese dive-bombers plaster her with five hits and numerous near-misses. Tommy Taylor, severely wounded, continues to direct the AA fire as NEVADA is purposely grounded at Waipio Point to avoid blocking the channel. Along with his Purple Heart, he earns our first Navy Cross.

Others are busy in these shattering hours. MARYLAND takes two bomb hits. PENNSYLVANIA, in dry-dock, is hit by two bombs. RALEIGH takes a torpedo and a bomb. HELENA is target for a torpedo, and HONOLULU is bombed. Near misses are beyond counting.

Crosswell Croft, when CALIFORNIA abandons ship as burning oil sweeps down on her from the WEST VIRGINIA and ARIZONA, swims ashore and takes over the Ford Island ferry. Ignoring the frantic displaced ferry crew, he rams it against CALIFORNIA and takes ashore many of those abandoning ship. Then, when CALIFORNIA’s captain decides to call the crew back aboard to try to save the ship, Crosswell uses the ferry to bring them back.

As the long, fearful day draws to a close, with boats fishing dismembered bodies from the oil-covered water, the survivors pause to take breath. We are tired, sore, shaken, and drained. We mourn our dead classmates, shipmates, friends, all who have gone down with colors flying or died fighting to the end. Because the dead are our fellow professionals and this is in a sense a requiem for the old, peacetime Navy, the words of A. E. Housman come to mind:

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These, in the days when Heaven was falling
The hour when earth’s foundations fled,
Following their mercenary calling,
And took their wages, and are dead.
Their shoulders held the sky suspended
They stood, and earth’s foundations stay.
What God abandoned, they defended,
And saved the sum of things, for pay.
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Our mourning adds to our resolve. We have taken a beating, but we are not beaten. We have been hurt, but we remain strong, and unflinchingly determined. What they have started, we will finish. As the exulting Japanese withdraw to the west, our eyes follow. That way lies our course.