REFLECTIONS ON USS ARIZONA INTERMENTS “It was just a sense of complete peace” Frances Goldsberry, daughter of the 45th USS Arizona sur vivor who chose interment
by Rebecca Schwab
On the rainy morning of December 7, 2021, a small group gathered at the USS Arizona Memorial for the 45th interment of a crew member and survivor of the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. On this 80th anniversary of that devastating event, U.S Navy Lt. Harvey Milhorn returned to the ship as his final resting place. Milhorn was a 20-year-old Gunner’s Mate 3rd Class aboard the USS Arizona on the morning of December 7, 1941. He and his best friend and fellow crew member Russ Tanner were discussing plans to see A Yank in the R.A.F. at a Waikiki theater later that day. Their conversation was suddenly interrupted by the sound of gunfire. “We kind of thought it was a drill,” Milhorn told WAVY TV in a 1991 interview. “About that time, a torpedo plane dropped a torpedo into the Oklahoma. We saw the meatballs of the rising sun on the wings, and we knew it wasn’t a drill then.” Milhorn and Tanner parted ways, running to their respective battlestations - Milhorn to the birdbath, a platform with .50-caliber machine guns 147 feet above the ship, and Tanner to the .50-caliber machine guns on the forward bridge. It was the last time Milhorn saw his best friend. Minutes later, a 1,760-lb. bomb struck near USS Arizona’s gun turret no. 1, setting off the ship’s forward magazine and causing a massive explosion so strong it lifted the ship partially out of the water. Hundreds of USS Arizona crew members in nearby sleeping quarters were killed instantly. Those on deck suffered the effects of the resulting fireball that would burn for more than two days, reaching temperatures as high as 8,000°F. The force of the blast blew Milhorn hard into the handrail. Intense flames and hot metal made exiting through the front 12
REMEMBRANCE SPRING 2022
of the birdbath impossible, so he made his way down the rear ladder to the main deck port side. Dazed, injured, and realizing the Arizona was lost, he asked for and was granted permission to abandon ship. He jumped overboard and swam through oil-slicked waters to nearby Ford Island. “I can close my eyes and … see the ship burning and the explosion,” Milhorn said in the 1991 interview. “I guess it’s burned in my mind, in my memory. I’ll probably never get over it.” In spite of severe burns to his hands, Milhorn immediately volunteered to go aboard the USS Tennessee to continue the fight. He fought throughout the Pacific in the months and years following the attack and chose to stay in the military even after the end of World War II. By the time he retired as a lieutenant in February 1970, Milhorn had given more than 30 years of dedicated service to the U.S. Navy. “My career was very rewarding, and if I could, I would do it all over again,” Milhorn said. But his daughter, Frances Goldsberry, said he struggled dearly throughout his life to deal with his memories of the Pearl Harbor attack. “He would talk about it - not very often, but when he did, it was like he was reliving it,” she said. “I guess he just had to get it out. You could see it in his eyes. He’d get so upset.” Milhorn, who passed away in 2002 at the age of 80, had signed a letter of intention expressing his wish to be interred
