Ashore At Pearl Harbor-- Part 3: Welcome to the "Mosquito Bowl"

Jim Downing then boarded the USS Tennessee, next to his ship, the USS West Virginia and, grabbing a fire hose, slid down the barrel of a gun to his ship.

"With one arm I tried to put out the fire so it wouldn't reach the ammunition." With the other hand, he fished for dogtags. After the battle, he visited the hospitals in the afternoon and wrote about fifty letters to parents of the wounded.

Unable to sleep aboard his ship, he and shipmates gathered mattresses and blankets and spent the next several nights at the newly-built boxing areana which they renamed "Mosquito Bowl" due to its lack of nets and abundance of the insect.

He spent his time volunteering anywhere he was needed.

-- GreGen