From the September 14, 2010, San Diego News.
James C. Bounds was buried at Riverside National Cemetery and had been one of the 32 "cut out survivors" on the USS Oklahoma that tragic day. "Cut Out Survivors" refers to those who were cut out ofthe hull after the ship turned over.
At age 19, he was of eight rescued from the ship's steering room compartment and said that he felt the ship shake three times in rapid succession as it started to keel over.
He remebered, "I could see nothing, but knew what was going on. I could hear bullets hitting the hull and explosions. Water kept coming in so the sailors used everything they could find, including their clothes, to plug the vents. I came down to my last item of clothing. I decided to hold onto that."
He was always very thankful to Shop 11, the name of the shipyard workers who rescued him from the dark and oily water. The Shipyarders broke through to his compartment around 4 PM, December 8th, after 32 hours of being trapped. A total of 429 others on the ship weren't so lucky and died during the attack.
Afterwards, Bounds shipped out on the cruiser USS Helena which was blown in half at the Solomon Islands and again he was rescued. I don't know, but after two ships I was on were sunk, I might have called it a day, but not him, he went on to serve 27 years in the Navy.
When he boarded his third ship in the war, he met fellow Pearl Harbor Survivor Bob Ruffalo who gave him a hard time about him sinking this new ship.
Another of the Greatest. --GreGen
The USS North Carolina (BB-55) My all-time favorite warship. As an elementary school student in North Carolina, I donated nickels and dimes to save this ship back in the early sixties.
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