Floyd Welch, Pearl Harbor Survivor on the USS Maryland, Dies at Age 99-- Part 1

From the August 18, 2020, West Hawaii  "Floyd Welch, survivor of Pearl Harbor, dies at 99" by Pat Eaton-Robb.

Floyd Welch, who is credited with saving  the lives of fellow sailors in the attack, has died at age 99 on August 17 in East Lyme, Connecticut.

He was born in February 1921 in Burlington, Connecticut and was serving on the USS Maryland that December 7, 1941.

He said he was coming out of the shower when he heard the first alarm and later the explosions from bombs and torpedoes.  Coming deckside, he saw a raging fire and the USS Oklahoma, tied up next to the Maryland, was turned over.  He first started helping pull Oklahoma survivors out of the water.

"By using blueprints of the Oklahoma, so as not to burn into a fuel void, we began the long and extremely difficult process of  cutting holes through the bottom steel plates of the Oklahoma," he said in his remembrance of the battle.  "When we could see the planes coming, we would try to find cover.  We would cut near where we heard the trapped crewmen tapping.  In all, I believe 33 men from the Oklahoma were rescued through these holes."

--GreGen