That "Infamous" Morning on the USS Oklahoma-- Part 3: The Fate of the Book and USS Maryland

This is quite an interesting story. Personally, I think I would have not gone back for that stupid book. Continuing with the story.

By then the Oklahoma was listing 45 degrees and he crawled to the starboard side, grabbed the ship's life line and pulled himself over the hull "still carryiing that damned secret publication."

He then crawled over to the ship's roll bar where he saw the ship's executive officer and tried to give him the book. "He looked at it and said, 'I don't want it.' I looked at it and said, 'I don't want it either,' so I threw it in the water."

The ship continued to roll over and Paul Goodyear dropped 50 feet into the water and swam to the USS Maryland where he rested on a torpedo blister. A crew member threw him a line. As he was pulled up, Goodyear saw white spots between his face and arm, "Oh my God, those are bullets."

Japanese plaes were strafing the ships and he let go of the line and dropped back into the water, by now full of bunker oil and human waste, "It was not a very sanitary place to be swimming." (That's something you don't hear about, the human waste in the water.) When the strafing stopped, the sailor pulled him out.

More to Come. --GreGen