Curator’s Corner

By Scott Pawlowski, Curator at Pearl Harbor National Memorial

Pearl Harbor National Memorial loves to collect And I says, “Time to get Pacific War photo albums. A number of them have the hell out of here.” And been donated to us by veterans or their families. we didn’t know at the time, We collect albums from veterans stationed on other but that’s about the time the Pacific Islands, ships and shore installations across shipped turned over. And the Pacific. there’s only two of us come stationed aboard the battleship USS Oklahoma on the morning back out. The other three, One that is of particular interest is Walter Staff’s photo album evidently were panicked from his time aboard the USS Oklahoma (BB-37): and drowned when they-- Walter F. Staff, Carpenter’s Mate 2nd Class, was a 20 year old the top, you know. and of course, you make for of December 7, 1941. Like most sailors, he found life in the U.S. Anyway, after we calmed Navy exciting and adventurous with the opportunity to learn down, which how long I a trade, participate in many different shipboard functions and don’t know. Hour, maybe, or activities, and visit far-away and exotic places. These memories whatever. I saw something were preserved with the keeping of photograph albums and shining on the bulkhead scrapbooks. Photo albums in many cases had fancy leather over there. I made my way over there and it was a phone on the covers with embossed ship names and a photo and/or artwork bulkhead. The phone’s upside down... and then we realized that on the cover. The photographs they contained would be a mix we were upside down and we were just resigned to the fact, we of those they or their shipmates took with their own cameras, thought the air would go bad and that would be that. The ship stock photos purchased ashore, and of family and friends sent wasn’t actually upside down. It was on a little angle, so you had from home. a kind of corner where you, we could hover on that corner and be out of water. We could hear the Maryland was inboard and Oral history interview with Walter Staff on December 4, 1986: they had these new 1.1 guns, you know, pom-pom, “Pom, pom, pom, pom.” We could hear them firing and that was evidently I just came down from breakfast and I was in, standing inside the the second wave that came over. Well, like I say, you got no idea Carpenter’s shop. GQ went, general quarters, and everybody was of time, but it must have been early Tuesday morning or late grousing, you know “Sunday morning, why are they bothering Monday night, we heard some tapping. So then it gave us new us?” And nobody moved, and the chief, the bosun mate, over the life. I found a little open end wrench with--we tapped. Neither P.A. system, he says, “Jesus Christ, this is a Japanese air attack. one of us knew the code because we weren’t signalmen. We were No ****. Get moving.” And the first explosion, I thought, “What pounding on one of the bulkheads. It took them about an hour, in the hell are they firing the turrets in the harbor?” Well, the ship talking to them later, to work their way down through the double kind of jumped out of the water, you know,…and the whole thing bottoms. It took ‘em about an hour to cut a whole big enough shook, just like picking it up ten feet and dropping it back down. I for a man to get out through the plate. The water was running came out of my hole and there was five of us down in there. And out, like I say, the hull wasn’t right flat. And that, the rescue team by that time, you could see it was listing. And we got another left because they were afraid of getting flooded, and that was the hit and it knocked all the lights out, I mean just shattered them. worst feeling, ‘cause you’re that close and then...and unbeknowing One that last hit, when it got black. I was the senior petty officer. to us, they were going to come back on a little different route. And that’s when we really felt the worst. ‘Cause, I mean you’re that close to getting out and then you see ‘em leave. This Cxxxx was, tried to drown himself and I pulled him up. And I says, “We’re not quite ready yet.” And then you could hear ‘em tapping again. They came back on a little different direction. This is Tuesday morning. And finally we came out. I know this Thomas, the ship fitter, he asked if we’d heard any more tapping, ‘cause he was—in, they tried for, I think, another day and a half, there was still more tapping, they just couldn’t locate ‘em.

It was a sickening scene when I came out and saw all the fleet on the bottom. The Arizona was smoldering and, and all the battleships sitting on the bottom. We knew we were sunk.