Alongside the white, square Moana was the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, gleaming purple-pink in the mid-morning sun, standing on the water's edge as though growing from the sea.
A little to the left, and beyond, rose the rooftops of the city of Honolulu, with the Aloha Tower prominent along the waterline. Backdrop to all this were the mountains of Oahi4 green and verdant, covered with sugar cane, pineapple, and other exotic semitropical plants. It was from here that the Jap planes attacking Pearl Harbor had swept down, over the mountains and through the mountain passes-on our unsus- pecting fleet at Pearl Harbor. There had even been, so the story went, wide swaths cut through the sugar-cane fields pointing in the direction of Pearl Harbor, and we had heard stories of clandestine radio stations hidden in the hills, broad- casting vital information to the enemy.
As we neared the Pearl Harbor Channel entrance, naval activity increased rapidly about us. On the horizon we could see the tops of two new fleet destroyers evidently on anti- sub patrol. Closer in, another destroyer, an old "four-piper" like the Semmes, cruised about aimlessly. Passing out between the entrance buoys as we neared them was a gray-painted tug, a mine sweeper, — with signal flags flying from her yard- arm, and, several hundred yards astern a float bobbed through the water carrying a small flag signifying the end of her tow.
And the closer we approached to the entrance buoys, the more aircraft there were flying about.
"They're sure putting on a show, aren't they, skipper?' said Jim, standing alongside me on our gently heaving bridge.
"Show is right," I returned, "Only I don't think this is just for appearances.
"Guess you're right. Wonder if the Japs have any submarines out here? Maybe we can find out when we get in."
I felt a pang of nostalgia as I swept the countryside with my binoculars, picked out the channel buoys, and surveyed the way into the harbor. It all seemed so much as I had remembered. We had operated from Pearl Harbor for months, and I had taken my turn as Duty Officer, getting the ship to sea and bringing her back again, so many times that I knew the harbor by heart. It was here that we had brought Octopus in that day the Yorktown had rammed us. It was through these buoys that I had taken her out for my qualification for command trials. On the day before I was detached and sent to S-16 I had done the same-and now, only a year and a few months later, I *as back again, now in command of a newer, finer version of the Octopus, a ship not even thought of then, and the Octopus and all my shipmates were gone beyond recall, numbered among the first sacrifices our submarine force had laid-on the altar of war.
There was something unreal about the scene near the harbor entrance. It was so much the same and yet so vastly different. The urgency of our escort-the determined manner in which the planes overhead flew. their search orbits-bespoke an entirely different atmosphere. I wondered what we would see after we reached the harbor itself.
Dave Freeman, Officer of the Deck, was standing along- side me. "Permission to station the maneuvering watch and enter the harbor, Captain?"
"Permission granted," I returned. The feeling of unreality was growing. Dave bent his head under the bridge conning and shouted at the open hatch at his feet: "Station the maneuvering watch! Line handlers stay below." Then a few minutes later, after taking a good look through his binoculars, "Right ten degrees rudder! All ahead standard!" I could feel the rudder take hold gently and ease the ship around into the channel. The black left-hand buoy at the channel entrance swam into my field of view. The forceful beat of our engines back aft subsided just a trifle, and there was a, different motion to the ship as the seas caught her from another direction. it still seemed unreal, too familiar; even the corkscrewlike motion of the ship, as Oregon fought to keep her on her new course, was exactly as I had expected. The unprotected channel entrance, at right angles to the line of the shore, permitted seas to sweep right across it, resulting at times in a peculiar heave to the ship and difficult steering. Once we were free of the ocean effects, however, and inside the sheltered headlands of the harbor itself, the channel was as smooth as a millpond. With her speed reduced, Walrus forged steadily onward past Hospital Point, around the next bend to the left, then to the right, and suddenly I gasped.
Nostalgia vanished, never to return.
There indeed were the old familiar landmarks: The Navy Yard with its huge cranes, Ford Island in the center of the harbor, ten-ten dock-so named for its length of one thousand and ten feet-extending rectangularly into the water and blocking view of the submarine piers beyond. And there were the dry docks and tanks and buildings as I had known them. But my brain encompassed none of these.
The stench of crude oil was everywhere. It struck my nostrils almost with physical pain. The shoreline, wherever it-could be seen, was black; filthy; and the water was like- wise filthy, with here and there a coagulated streak of black grease clinging like relaxed death to bits of oily debris.
But the worst was alongside Ford Island, to port as we came through, and it slowly unfolded itself as America's one-time battle line came into view. I had been prepared, but not enough. The pictures had showed a lot, but they could never show the hopeless, horrible desolation and destruction, the smashing, in an instant, of years of tradition and growth.
California's cage masts had seemed canted a bit peculiarly when we first caught sight of them, now we could see why.
Her bow was under water. Only a few feet of her stern were exposed. Clustered about her were boats, a small tug or two, and there was considerable activity going on alongside. repair work evidently. Astern of her lay the bulging side and bottom of a great ship with one huge propeller sticking out of the water. I knew from pictures that this was Oklahoma.
Some kind of a structure had been erected on her slanting belly and a few men seemed to be working around with hoses and other paraphernalia. I could see one large hole in the heavy plates, and remembered what we had heard about men trapped inside.
A little distance away from Oklahoma another shattered, sunken hulk showed its gaunt sides: West Virginia, once the pride of the fleet; winner of the Marjorie Sterrett trophy for excellence in battle practice more times than any other; and the Iron Man trophy for athletics likewise. A grimy, dirty waterline, now high out of water, showed how far she had sunk.
She was obviously now afloat again, but horribly mangled.
We could see some of the shattered side, gaping above the cofferdam built around it.
Abaft West Virginia, a single tripod mast stood in the water.
Below it a silent gun turret, water lapping in the gun ports and around the muzzles of the huge rifles. Nothing forward except a confused, jumbled mass of rusty junk. A flag floated from the gaff of the tripod mast, symbol that the United States Navy would never surrender. Arizona's forward magazines blown up by the uncannily accurate Jap bombing, nothing left of her except her iron will she could still serve as a reminder of the sacrifice war had demanded on its first day, and the huge reckoning we would someday exact in return.
Dave Freeman by this time had given permission to open deck hatches and some of the crew had come topside to get our mooring fines ready. But no one touched a line. All stood staring in awe at the spectacle of destruction. Here and there I could see some of them pointing. Perhaps they recognized something, a ship they had once served in-some recognizable bit among the twisted, shattered remains. We had been forewarned of this and yet the full realization of what the Japs had done to us that day last December had not struck home until now. Except for a few commands given by Dave as he conned us through the harbor, not a word was spoken for several minutes on Walrus' bridge. This was death, un- varnished. This was the holocaust; this the destiny of three thousand U. S. sailors and officers.