Three Sailors at Pearl

At 1005 on Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941, the 33,000-ton battleship West Virginia sank in Pearl Harbor's waters, victim of half a dozen Japanese torpedoes. The attack had come so suddenly, the great ship was crippled so quickly, that 66 crewmen were caught below deck and went down with the West Virginia. Last week, 19 years after the disaster at Pearl Harbor, the U.S. Navy finally released a harrowing report on the ordeal of three sailors who were aboard the West Virginia.

It was a salvagers' report, dated 1942 and made after the West Virginia had been refloated to be refitted for battle.

The salvagers had found "evidences that some of the men had lived for consider able periods and finally succumbed due to lack of oxygen." The three seamen, names unknown, had been trapped in a storeroom in the forward section of the ship, starboard side. With all power destroyed, they had no way to communicate with the world outside, to let anyone know they were still alive. They had access to fresh water and emergency rations, and they kept alive while the oxygen lasted. They had a calendar, and as each long day passed, bringing no help or hope of help, the men crossed it off with an X. The days lengthened into a week, then into two weeks, then two days more. And that was all. The bodies of the three men were found in the storeroom. The last day they had marked off on the calendar was Dec. 23--16 days after the West Virginia went down.

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