Notes
Gives an account of the attack on
USS Helena
.
Text from Interview Excerpt(s)
[Where was the
Helena
during Pearl Harbor?]
Right alongside 10-10 dock, just aft of the dry dock where the
Cassin
and
Downes
were bombed and the ship we were in got
hit. . . . I was officer of the deck . . . that Sunday morning. There
was a signalman named Flood who was an old China-hand. He had the duty up
on the signal bridge. I was standing on the quarterdeck. . . . He called
down and said that there were Japanese planes overhead. He could see the
"meatball" and he recognized them because he had seen them bomb Shanghai.
I watched and, as the first plane went into a dive, my first thought was
that he was pulling a mock attack. Then I saw a bomb come off, going
toward Ford Island.
. . . I ran in there and announced something to the effect that "Japanese
planes are bombing Pearl Harbor! Man your battle stations!" I didn't say,
"This is no drill." But I did say, "Break out service ammunition."
. . . Immediately after I made the announcement, a torpedo hit . . .
in the forward engine room. . . . One thing I distinctly remember was
seeing a torpedo plane go across our ship towards battleship row. The
cockpit in the plane was open and the pilot was leaning out first one side
and then the other, sighting-up. He couldn't have been over fifty feet in
the air. My recollection is that I fired my forty-five automatic at him,
but that might be colored by what I wished I had done.
By this time, there were a lot of burned people coming up on deck.
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| Citation : | William W. Jones Interview, Oral History Collection , February 6, 1988. |
| Location : | Special Collections, Joyner Library, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC 27858 USA |
| Call Number : | Oral History No. 101, p. 6-10. Display Collection Guide |
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