Continuing with the Oops! that occurred with the USS Iowa when President Roosevelt was aboard. A torpedo was accidentally fired at the Iowa.
"We had to turn around and go to Bermuda and we were under arrest for two weeks. They thought we were an outfit that was going to be blowing up President Roosevelt. One of the chief torpedo men was supposed to go to jail, but then president Roosevelt said not to send him to jail because it was an accident.
They took the captain off our ship and gave us a better one. When you're young like that you don't think about what's going on. But as you get older you realize every minute you have a chance of dying--that's how close it was."
WHAT WAS GOING ON THE DAY THAT THE PORTER GOT HIT?
"June 10, 1945, at around 8 o'clock in the morning, we were trying to locate any [Japanese]. There were these kamikaze planes coming in. When we got hit it was by a plane made out of canvas and wood so we couldn't pick it up on the radar.
Fortunately the plane hit the water and missed the ship. The bomb that was on there went underneath the ship and exploded down there and lifted the boat three feet, made it start leaking. It took the ship three and a half hours to sink."
And, He's Still Not Finished. --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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