I Remember Pearl Harbor
Bill Fomby was in a tight spot 56 years ago today (Sunday, 07 December 1997).
That Sunday, just before 8 a.m., Seaman First Class Fomby, then a mess cook, was cleaning up after serving breakfast on the battleship USS Oklahoma. The ship was neatly lined up with all the other American warships at Pearl Harbor.
"I wouldn't take anything for the experience, but I sure as hell wouldn't want to do it again," Fomby said Friday while seated in the den of his Hamlin home where he lives with his wife Vie.
Fomby, now 77, and a Hamlin, TX area native, was just 21 and a Seaman First Class that day at Pearl Harbor.
On top of a bookcase in Fomby's den is a plastic model of a battleship that is similar to the ill fated Oklahoma. Fomby used the model to demonstrate his story. He was one of the ship's 1,300 man crew.
"Four-hundred and twenty-five of them didn't make it," Fomby said.
The mess tables that Fomby was clearing on the Oklahoma, Dec. 7, 1941, shared space with the rear portion of the ship's 5-inch guns. Fomby was assigned to one of the guns. The tables, which could be hoisted to the ceiling when not in use, were still on the floor when the first of 353 Japanese war planes arrived strafing, bombing, and dropping torpedoes.
The first order came. "Man the antiaircraft battle stations!"
Fomby headed below, for it was his job to send up antiaircraft ammunition from below. Then another order came. Instead, he was to man the 5-inch guns. So, Fomby started back up a ladder.
It was then that several torpedoes smashed into one side of the Oklahoma. It immediately began to list. By the time Fomby arrived back at the 5-inch guns, the ship's deck slanted so badly that the young sailor had to climb over the mess tables hand over hand. As the ship rapidly took on more water through the huge holes in her sides, she rolled, beginning to capsize. Fomby, escaped through a gun port and walked around the sides and bottom of the ship as it rolled. It was just as if he had was walking on a huge log rolling in the water.
The ship stopped rolling when uppermost structures of the ship, now under the harbor's shallow water, stuck in the mud. Fomby found himself sitting on the ship's bottom and the bottom slanted toward the water. The USS Maryland, so far not seriously damaged, lay 150 feet away across fiery and oily water.
Fomby slid down the barnacled hull, scraping off a lot of skin as he slid, and swam through the oil for the Maryland. As for the fire, Fomby said, "You could sort of swoosh it away with your arms. But there was not a lot of fire where I was."
While he swam the battle raged, but Fomby did not hear it.
"You don't pay much attention to that when you're just trying to survive," he said.
While he swam the battleship USS Arizona, blew up and sank with 1,177 fatalities. Fomby heard that. While he swam, the Japanese strafed the water, trying to kill swimming sailors.
"I don't know how long I swam. It couldn't have been long, but it seemed like it was forever," Fomby said.
He made it safely to the Maryland. He later became sick from drinking oil and saltwater, but was safe. During the next couple of days Fomby carried a rifle and was an armed guard in a van that carried some of Pearl Harbor's 1,178 wounded from aid stations to the hospital. Fomby does not know how that happened.
"It was just so confusing you'd take orders from anybody," he said.
By Wednesday, Fomby was reunited with other USS Oklahoma survivors. They went out to the Oklahoma and cut holes in the hull, trying to rescue sailors trapped inside the ship and who were running out of air. The same thing was happening on the Arizona.
"We got some of them out," Fomby said.
Fomby saw stacks of American bodies wrapped in sheets.
"It takes all the glamour out of it. You see the movies and stuff, but what you really get in war is a stack of dead people," he said."
At Pearl Harbor, 2,403 Americans were killed.
Fomby said he did not really enjoy talking about it to reporters, but he does.
"I lost a lot of friends there. I think I owe it to them," he said.
William Fomby, Seaman 1c, Deck Division

Webmaster Note: William Fomby and his wife Vie now reside in Hamlin, TX.

Longest Day Of My Life
Retired Navy Captain Herbert Fox Rommel of Newport, RI, then a 26-year-old ensign, was eating breakfast in the wardroom of the battleship USS Oklahoma (BB-37) when explosions were heard on Pearl Harbor's nearby Ford Island 55 years ago this month (December 1996).
Rommel leaped up immediately and raced "topside."
"I saw this torpedo plane coming in with two red balls (insignia) on the wings," he said during a recent interview at his home.
Reacting quickly, Rommel ran to the intercom near the ship's stern and yelled into the speaker, "This is a real air raid - no shit!"
Later, when his ship rolled over into the mud after taking several torpedo hits during the sneak Japanese attack, Rommel dove into the oil-soaked water in his full dress white uniform. After swimming to safety, he was eventually picked up by a motor launch.
Rommel escaped injury, but his ship was doomed. Although he and 935 other shipmates survived, the remaining 443 were killed. His only souvenir of the attack is an oil-soaked rating insignia he was wearing on his full dress whites.
Only one of the eight battleships berthed at "Battleship Row" that fateful day, the USS Nevada, was able to get underway, Rommel said. Despite some damage, the Nevada was able to maneuver to a spot where she would not block the channel.
During the attack, the Japanese did not hit the U.S. destroyers, submarines or the many fuel tanks in the area, which, according to Rommel, "would have really put us out of action."
Never known as a shrinking violet when it comes to being outspoken, Rommel noted that in 1941, the Japanese had "better torpedoes, better night tactics and even better binoculars."
Rommel leaped up immediately and raced "topside."
There were two air raids at Pearl Harbor-the first was around 8am and the second approximately two hours later, Rommel said. He believes that if the Japanese had followed up with a third attack, "they would have wiped us out." Further, Rommel theorizes that the only reason a third attack did not occur was because the Japanese feared the U.S. aircraft carriers and they did not know where the carriers were at the time.
Rommel feels strongly that his country's Navy should have been better prepared for the attack. He blames top Navy brass for the disaster, noting that a warning had been sounded as early as 6:30am on December 7 after an American destroyer reported that it had fired on an enemy submarine just outside Pearl Harbor.
As for the Oklahoma, after a Herculean salvage job, the ship was decommissioned on September 1, 1944 and sold as scrap for $46,000 on December 5, 1946 to the Moore Drydock Company.
Ironically, as the ship was being towed to the west coast, some 500 miles out to sea, she began to list dangerously. It was decided to turn around and return to Pearl Harbor, but after covering almost 100 miles, the big battlewagon snapped her tow line and sank to the bottom, a victim of an accidental sinking.
The Oklahoma, incidentally, never "fired a shot in anger" spanning a period of 25 years that included two world wars. Its demise was almost as dramatic as the capsizing of the ship at Pearl.
As recorded by Walter Lord in his book "Day of Infamy", "There was no time for counterflooding on the Oklahoma, lying ahead of the West Virginia and outboard of the Maryland. Lying directly across from the Southeast Loch, she got three torpedoes right away, then another two as she heeled to port."
Lord continues, "Around the harbor...all eyes were glued on the Oklahoma. From his bungalow on Ford Island, Chief Albert Molter watched her gradually roll over on her side, 'slowly and stately...as if she were tired and wanted to rest.' She kept rolling until her mast and superstructure jammed in the mud, leaving her bottom up-a huge, dead whale lying in the water. Only eight minutes had passed since the first torpedo hit."
By the way, Herb Rommel never did get to finish his breakfast aboard the battleship Oklahoma, a half century ago, on one of the longest days of his life!
Herbert Fox Rommel, Ensign

Webmaster Note: Herbert Fox Rommel was born in 1915 and enterd the navy through the Naval Reserves in 1940. He married the former Mary Heins on 14 January 1945. He retired in 1970 as a Captain, USN. He and his wife Mary live in Newport, RI.

Virtues Of Being Married
GETTING MARRIED didn't just change Bill Carpenter's life—it saved him from almost certain death at Pearl Harbor.
Carpenter was a young ensign aboard the battleship USS Oklahoma in December 1941. He had just returned to the Hawaiian island after two weeks of training and was scheduled for leave on Saturday, Dec. 6.
Had he been a bachelor, he probably would have gone to Honolulu for some fun, then come back to the Oklahoma. And, he might have been below deck the next morning, when torpedoes ripped through the ship. Carpenter probably would have died in a watery grave, as did more than 2,300 Americans when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. But because Bill and Mary Carpenter had gotten married 10 weeks earlier, the sailor wasn't aboard that fateful morning, 59 years ago today. He'd spent the night on-shore with his wife, in a small home they were renting.
By the time Bill got back to his post—two hours before he was supposed to go on guard duty—"the good ol' Okie" had capsized. "The whole port side had been ripped out," he recalled, sadly.
Bill Carpenter, an 84-year-old resident of Aquia Harbour in North Stafford, often has wondered why his life was spared during the attack, which catapulted the United States into World War II. When he listens to other Pearl Harbor survivors, he feels "a bit strange that they were on board, and I was not." But Bill was merely taking a scheduled day of liberty. Being away from the ship wasn't an issue; being married was.
Bill graduated from the Naval Academy in 1940 and, at the time, young ensigns were not supposed to wed for at least two years. Bill and Mary didn't plan to break the rules, but Bill had been with Mary longer than he'd been with Uncle Sam. The two grew up in Indiana and went on their first date as young teen-agers. They learned to do the two-step together and got engaged in 1939, when Bill was an academy junior. That was the same year Mary graduated from nursing school.
They planned their wedding for June 1942 and made all the arrangements. But when Mary visited Bill in San Francisco in September 1941, "we kind of looked at each other and said, 'It's now or never,'" Bill said. That was a Saturday night, and Bill's ship sailed on Monday. The couple couldn't wait three days for a California marriage license, so they drove to Nevada. They found a preacher, who squeezed in their ceremony between Sunday school and church. They had one day together, then Bill went off to his assignment in Hawaii.
He kept the marriage a secret. Another ensign who had gotten married told a senior officer about it, and was sent packing. A military job was a good one to have in those days, Bill said, and he didn't want to lose his.
When Mary moved to Hawaii in October 1941, she got a job at the children's hospital and lived in a small rental home in Honolulu. "Hawaii was nice then, much nicer than it is now," Mary said. Bill joined his wife whenever he was on leave. Drills typically took him out to sea for two weeks at a time, then he'd have a day or two of liberty. He was on such leave on Sunday, Dec. 7, when the bombs fell. He could see smoke, but thought it came from farmers burning sugar-cane fields.
He heard a radio report about the attack and got to his ship as fast as he could. His battle station was four decks below, so he probably would have drowned there—as did the 429 men who died on the Oklahoma.
Bill and other sailors whose ships had been bombed were reassigned to other posts. Bill worked at the command center, tracking planes, until he was dispatched to the USS San Juan in March 1942.
Meanwhile, Mary and other civilian nurses weren't allowed to leave Hawaii. She tried to join the Army or Navy as a nurse, but neither branch would take her because she was married. She didn't lie to the military about her marital status, but she hadn't told anyone on the hospital staff. When Mary realized she was pregnant, she knew she had to go back home to Indiana. She finally confessed to being in the family way to her hospital supervisor, who was horrified because she thought Mary was single.
"In those days, nice girls didn't do that," Bill said.
William Milner Carpenter, Ensign

Webmaster Note:Mary went home, and Bill spent the next four years on the San Juan, on duty in the Pacific. He advanced quickly through the ranks and was a lieutenant commander by war's end, in 1945.
Bill spent 30 years in the Navy and retired 01 August 1966 as a captain. But the events of 07 Dec. 1941—and those leading up to them—have never been far from Bill's mind.
After he left the Navy, Bill worked for a think tank based in Northern Virginia. He traveled the world, examining the actions of other countries, sharing his knowledge with travelers and investors and recommending ways to avoid war.
Today, he's still a consultant and heads north just about every day, when he's not speaking to soldiers or sailors. He tells young military minds that tactics bring short-term results while strategies win wars, he said.
"Pearl Harbor was a brilliant tactical move, but it was the greatest strategical mistake ever made," he said.
Meanwhile, Mary, now 82, continued her nursing work wherever the Carpenters lived. When they moved to North Stafford in 1972—theirs was one of the first 10 houses in Aquia Harbour—she worked at Mary Washington Hospital.
She has since retired, but stays just as busy as her husband. She volunteers at a homeless shelter in Dumfries and in Stafford County's Head Start program. Both are active members of Lake Ridge Baptist Church.
The Carpenters have four children, 10 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
When Mary celebrates their wedding anniversary on Sept. 28 of each year, she doesn't dwell on the world-changing events that came after the ceremony.
Bill does. He can barely think of his wedding date without remembering Pearl Harbor. If Mary hadn't agreed to marry him in September, he probably wouldn't have been alive the next June.
"As I like to tell people, there are many virtues of being married," he said.

I Remember
Unlike many of the veterans who fought in World War Two, I joined the service before the United States had officially declared war. In June of 1941, I was a Junior at the University of Missouri, studying business. The war was already raging in Europe, and it looked like it would be just a matter of time before the US would become involved. When I learned I was next in line for the Army draft, I decided to enlist. I signed on with US Marine Corps in June 16, 1941. The Marines appealed to me because I was young, and I thought they looked pretty sharp in their uniforms. They also had a great reputation as the toughest soldiers in the Armed Forces.
Just three weeks after enlisting, I left my home in Kansas City, Missouri, to begin boot camp training in San Diego, California. Boot camp was a strenuous introduction to army discipline, physical fitness, and weaponry. Each day we heard the timeless Marine refrain, "Your rifle is your buddy," After leaving boot camp in August of 1941, I attended a few additional weeks of Sea School to receive further instruction in Marine combat duties aboard ship.
On September 17, 1941, now stationed in San Francisco, California, I was assigned to the Marine Detachment on the USS Oklahoma. When I arrived, the Oklahoma was in dry dock for maintenance and retooling. It wasn't until late September that we went to sea. Our destination: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
The USS Oklahoma was a proud ship, carrying a crew of nearly 1,300 devoted men. One of the largest ships in the United States' fleet, she had an overall length of 583' and a beam of 107'11". Though first launched in 1912, the ship had been refitted with many of the latest innovations in military technology. She was one of the first ships to carry a three-gun turret, and boasted anti-torpedo bilges which were said to provide extra resistance to torpedo attack.
My duty aboard ship was primarily to stand guard. Each watch lasted 4 hours, with 8 hours in between. Sometimes it was 12 hours on, 12 hours off. It didn't matter to me, because didn't have any place to go anyway. At first, I was assigned to Life Buoy watch, walking back and forth from port side to starboard, or guarding the gangway while we were in port. My job was to keep unauthorized persons from coming aboard. I also worked the Brig Watch, keeping an eye on guys who had broken the law or acted up. The brig was a special hold in the ship, something like a cage. We weren't allowed to speak to the prisoners, and it was tiresome duty spending so many hours down there. After some weeks, I was assigned to the Bridge Watch. I liked this job better, because the bridge is where the action is, it's the brains of the ship. I looked out to sea for the enemy, and rang the ship's bell on the quarter hour. There was less marching back and forth, and it was interesting to see the high-ranking officers at work.
Every man on the ship was assigned a specific battle position during combat. My position was in ammunition handling, working below decks placing ammunition on conveyor belts running to the gunners on deck. It was vital to keep the ammo moving.
On the morning of December 7, 1941, the USS Oklahoma was moored outboard the USS Maryland in the calm waters of Pearl Harbor. It was 7:55 on a Sunday morning, and I was below decks in my bunk. I had just been awakened by my buddy, Ted Hall, who had dropped by to ask if I wanted to join him at breakfast. Suddenly, a sharp voice on the loudspeaker ordered, "MAN THE ANTI-AIRCRAFT BATTERIES! MAN THE ANTI-AIRCRAFT BATTERIES!" Like many of my crew men, I thought it was a typical Sunday morning Navy drill.
Moments later, there was a great thud as the USS Oklahoma took her first torpedo hit. "THIS IS NOT A DRILL! MAN YOUR BATTLE STATIONS!" As I leapt into my khaki trousers, I could feel the ship already beginning to list to the starboard side. As she listed, the torpedoes kept coming, each hitting higher and higher up in the superstructure, causing terrible damage to the housing above the main deck. We took five more torpedoes in rapid succession.
I raced to my battle station, but by the time I reached the ladder going down to the ammo handling compartment below decks, I saw water gushing in. It was rising fast, and would soon fill the entire chamber. Just then, I heard the hammering sound of Japanese planes strafing along the deck just above me. The choice was clear: drown or get shot! It was strange -- I didn't panic, but became suddenly calm, knowing that if I lost it now I'd never make it out alive.
I climbed up the nearest hatch, and found myself on deck at the base of the third turret. The deck was at a severe angle and I saw nothing but smoke, fire, explosions, and men running every which way. As I looked amidships, I could see people scrambling to get over the side. I reached for a metal link of the life line surrounding the deck, crawled over, and jumped.
As soon as I hit the water, I swam for the USS Maryland. Within minutes, I reached her blister ledge -- an extra amount of steel armor about 4 ft. wide, reaching from bow to stern. As I climbed onto the ledge, I could see that other men were swimming towards me. Many were half-dressed and covered with oil. I found that by calling to them and hanging my legs over the ledge, I could help them climb to safety.
That's when the oil on the water caught fire. Everyone who had made it to the blister ledge had to abandon rescue efforts and go above. There was nothing else to do.
We climbed a ladder onto the USS Maryland. A bomb must have hit the scullery, because the walkway was covered with potatoes – round russets, to be precise. We had to get those potatoes out of the way, so we just chucked them overboard. Later, it was reported that the US Marines were defending the Maryland by throwing potatoes at the Japanese planes.
By this time it was about 10:00 a.m., and I had gone amidships to hunt for something dry to put on. Suddenly, the Japanese were back, and the Maryland was hit with a 500 lb. bomb. Instantly the ship filled with smoke, and we scrambled for our masks, fearing a gas attack. Luckily, it wasn't. Although the Maryland was badly hit, she was protected from torpedo hits by the capsizing Oklahoma, and didn't sink.
By 11:30 a.m., it was all over. The USS Maryland was moored at Ford Island in Pearl Harbor, so we simply went down gangplank. Ford Island was chaos. On one end of the island was a station for PBY flying boats, which was now nothing but smoking wreckage. Emergency stations had been set up for survivors to report to, and I checked in five different times, wanting my mother to know that I had made it through alive.
Later I learned that my buddy Ted Hall had been killed. During an explosion aboard the Oklahoma , a gear locker had flown loose and crushed him. The ninth, and final, torpedo had created a sort of water wedge which succeeded in flipping the Oklahoma over onto her beam end. About 20 more survivors had to be cut out of the capsized ship by cutting a hole through the hull.
On Ford Island, we hastily prepared for an invasion. Rumors flew that the Japanese fleet was on the way. I was put to work cleaning greasy rifles that has been kept in storage – many left over from the First World War. But the Japanese didn't show.
A few days later, the surviving Marines from the Oklahoma were put onboard the Maryland. Everyone was tense and we couldn't get along with the Maryland's crew, so we were soon returned to Ford island.
On Friday, we were sent to live in the Marine barracks on the other side of the harbor.By Saturday evening, things were looking brighter. Finally, I had had a good night's sleep and a decent meal. The very next morning, we were called to form outside the barracks. We had all been assigned to new ships. I was to join the crew of the cruiser Chicago, which had fortunately been at sea during the Pearl Harbor bombing.
"We're glad to have you aboard," the captain said. "Now we're going to go chase the Japs out of the Pacific."
Mine was one of three task forces heading for reinforce Wake Island, an isolated dot on the map where there was already fierce fighting. Our task force included the cruiser Chicago, the cruiser Indianapolis, the aircraft carrier Lexington, and several destroyers. On December 14, 1941, just one week after the Pearl Harbor bombing, we sailed out for battle. We were just four hours away from our destination when Wake Island fell to the Japanese. The Navy had decided not to risk any more of its depleted fleet, and our ships were ordered to turn back. We were all stricken to know that we couldn't rescue the American infantrymen left on the island, and without our help they were left to die or became prisoners of war.
On returning to Pearl Harbor, I worked for a few miserable weeks in an anti-aircraft battery situated in cane field by the town of West Loch, near Pearl Harbor. The field was hot, muggy and mosquito-ridden, but we needed to stay alert to be ready to man the guns at a moment's notice.
Luckily, I knew how to type. This skill earned me a transfer to the main Marine barracks next to Hickam Field, near Pearl Harbor. I spent the next few years there, doing office work and keeping records on "casual companies" -- men who were unassigned to particular units.
I was still working at Hickam when the USS Oklahoma was raised from the harbor. I asked to go onboard to empty my locker. That was probably the most traumatic experience of the war. I was issued a hard hat equipped with a miner's lamp, and descended alone into the darkness and stench. As I waded through the thick, oily water, I knew I was sloshing through the bones of the dead. Even today, certain smells will send a shiver down my spine.
In March of 1944, with the war still raging, I was sent to Camp La Jeune, North Carolina, to be reassigned. I quickly learned that the Army wanted to send me back to fight in the Pacific, but I had seen enough of the fighting. Instead, I enrolled in a 16-week Scout Sniper training camp on the edge of a nasty swamp. I managed to complete my stint with the Marines as an instructor at the Officer Candidate School, and by providing secretarial and technical support for the war effort.
The Army offered to make me a Second Lieutenant, but I was perfectly happy with just three stripes. I never returned to combat. However, I consented to remain in the service for a few months even after the war was over, because our office was busier than ever processing discharge papers for the returning soldiers.
Finally, on October 15, 1945, I received my discharge. It was one of the happiest days in my life.
I have been asked, "Was the war worth it?" As far as I'm concerned, no war is worth the price of friends dying. There must be some reason why I returned home, and so many of my comrades didn't. To this day, I wonder, "Why me? Why did I come out alive?"
Don Lowery, Private USMC, 7th Division

Last Updated 31 May 2001

rise out of the ashes like the Phoenix

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