George Coburn and those others that he escaped with were the luckyones of the battleship. Because 429 of their shipmates remained trapped inside and died.
Coburn continued to serve in the Navy after that in many of the Pacific Campaigns He was aboard the heavy cruiser USS Louisville afterwards and received a Purple Heart during a kamikaze attack on his ship during the Battle of Okinawa.
The Louisville was struck by two kamikazes on consecutive days. The first one struck on 5 January 1945 and hit the No. 2 main battery (turret) of 8-inch guns, knocking it completely out of commission. It killed one and injured/burned 17 others, including the ship's commander Captain Rex LeGrande Hicks.
The second kamikaze hit the starboard side of the signal bridge 6 January 1945. Rear Admiral Theodore E. Chandler, commander of Cruiser Divisin 4, was fatally injutred while helping the sailors to man fire hoses to put out the massive fires. Forty-two were killed and 125 wounded.
George Coburn left the Navy in May 1946, but then worked as a civilian with the Navy doing contractor and electrician work. He and his wife Jenny settled in San Diego.
--GreGen
