Stern of USS Abner Read Found-- Part 4: A First Hand Account

Seaman First Class Daryl Weathers, 19, from Los Angeles was in the radar room on the bridge, standing the mid-watch --  midnight to 4 a.m..  "Everything was peaceful," he said, and the exhausted skipper, Cmdr. Thomas Burrowes, had just gone to his quarters for rest.

Burrowes had already lost one ship, the USS O'Brien the year before and was reluctant to leave the bridge.

"I got a responsibility here for everyone of these kids' mothers to bring them back home again," Weathers remembers him saying.

"I was very touched by that, he said.  "But he went down to his cabin and about 30 minutes later, 'Bam!'"

--GreGen