From the Nov. 14, 2012, Sherman Publications, Inc..
Albert Anderson, 91, of Oxford was a Marine on the USS Pennsylvania BB-38 when a Japanese plane torpedoed it while anchored in Buckner Bay, Okinawa.
He remembers: "I just came out of the shower, I had a pair of white shower shorts on and Japanese wooden shoes. I just reached up to open my locker door and boy, that ship went sky high. I didn't hear anything. It just went up went up.
The date was August 12, 1945. Japan officially surrendered two days later.
The torpedo blew a 30-foot hole in the Pennsylvania, killing 20 and wounding 10.
The ship did not have any lifeboats, but fortunately, the flooding was brought under control.
Overall, however, Mr. Anderson remembers life on the ship was pretty good: "On board a ship, you've got a mattress and three squares--and you get to watch a movie at night." To him that was better than "living in a fox hole. He had only two duties. During battle, he loaded shells and manned 20 mm and 40 mm guns. The rest of the time he was one of eight men assigned to the captain's guard.
He enlisted in the Marines in 1944 at the age of 23.
--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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