"We took so many hits, and not just our ship. From a hatch, I watched Japanese planes circling before coming straight down Battleship Row. The entire fleet was being destroyed before my eyes. Great billows of black smoke were eating up the blue sky. Torpedoes slammed against our hull, spewing geysers of water. Ships were taking on water, listing, capsizing. From those ruptured ships spilled oil that congealed when it hit the water and caught fire. It seemed the whole harbor was in flames. The hellish sight of blacks and reds and yellows, devouring everything. The sulfurous smell of burning fuel. The acrid smell of exploding gunpowder.
The screams of our men, their bodies engulfed in flames. And the fury of our own antiaircraft guns reverberating inside our metal cubicle so loudly, I felt my eardrums would burst. Zeros strafed the ship, their bullets ripping up the deck and shredding any sailors on it. With each pass, the Japanese pilot smiled or waved. The whole lot of them were cowards and murderers. Without a declaration of war, they waged war on us. Without warning. Without mercy. Without conscience. On the deck, men stumbled around like human torches. Others jumped into the water, and when they did, you could hear them sizzle. These people were zombies, in essence. They were burned completely white. Their skin was just as white as if you’d taken a bucket of whitewash and painted it white. Their hair was burned off; their eyebrows were burned off. Their arms were held away from their bodies, and they were stumping along the decks." Seaman First Class Donald Stratton, USS Arizona, Dec 7th, 1941, Pearl Harbor #ww2 #neverforget #pearlharbor #infamy #war #america