11/29/2023
USS West Virginia Sank In Pearl Harbor Attack With Trapped Sailors.
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The USS West Virginia sank during the attack on Pearl Harbor with three trapped sailors who fought to survive for sixteen days.
Clifford Olds, 20; Ronald Endicott, 18; and Louis “Buddy” Costin, 21, had been sailors on the battleship USS West Virginia, which had been hit by a series of bombs and torpedoes. The telegrams merely stated that the three young men “died at their duty stations.”
But during the ensuing years another story began to emerge—one so horrible that family members who learned the truth decided not to tell the parents in order to prevent them from suffering further.
Harland Costin, younger brother of Buddy, found out in 1942 when a chance meeting with a crew member of the now refloated West Virginia told a sad tale that by now has become legend. It was a story of three young men who had survived for what must have been 16 hellish days in the dark pump room of a battleship sitting on the bottom of Pearl Harbor. Costin, Olds, and Endicott had not died easily or willingly, as attested to by witnesses who remember.
Desperate Banging
“It was worse at night,” said Marine Corps bugler Dick Fiske. “You’d hear bang-bang-bang, then stop, then bang-bang-bang from deep in the bow of the ship. It didn’t take long to realize that men were making that noise.” To this day Fiske chokes up when he tells the story. “Pretty soon nobody wanted to do guard duty, especially at night when it was quiet. It didn’t stop until Christmas Eve.”
Bob Kronberger, who was a crewman on the West Virginia, says he knew all three of the young sailors. “I didn’t know them well because I was of a higher rank and couldn’t fraternize, but it was an awful way to die.” Kronberger is a good example of the fortunes of war. His brother and father were also part of the West Virginia crew. All three survived the attack.
The three entombed young men, who had only three years of service between them, probably did not know they were doomed. They wanted to live, and they had more on their side than their comrades knew. They had emergency food rations, access to the fresh water compartment, flashlights to enable them to see, and two other things—an eight-day clock and a calendar. And so they banged. At the end of each 24-hour period, they marked their calendar. No doubt they wondered, “Does anybody up there hear us?”
They were heard, but nothing could be done. The brass probably saw them as they did all the dead men below. They could not be helped, so efforts were concentrated on the living.
Despite all the remembrances, the story of the three trapped sailors might never have been released to the public without the salvage report filed by Commander Paul Dice during body-retrieval efforts in May 1942.
While many of the 106 deaths on the West Virginia were from drowning when compartment hatches had to be closed on those trying to escape, Dice immediately noticed that Pump Room A-109 was completely dry. Three bodies were found huddled together on the storeroom shelf. Then Dice saw flashlights and batteries strewn about, along with empty food ration cartons. The manhole cover to the fresh water tanks had been removed. Then salvage workers saw the eight-day clock and the calendar with a red X marked through each day through December 23. With this discovery, grown men broke down in tears.
Dice’s official report is matter of fact and devoid of emotion. “Three bodies were found on the shelf of storeroom A-111, clad in blues and jerseys. This storeroom was open to fresh water pump room A-109, which was apparently the battle station assigned to these men. The emergency rations at this station had been consumed and the manhole cover to the fresh water tanks had been removed. A calendar which was found in the compartment had an ‘X’ marked through each day from December 7, 1941, through December 23rd, inclusive.”
Dice kept the eight-day clock until, as an old man, he donated it to a museum in Parkersburg, WV, his hometown. He sent the calendar to naval headquarters in Washington. It has never been found.
World War II Navy lore is full of courageous yet sad stories that have been fully told. Yet the story of three young sailors and their heroic struggle to stay alive on the bottom of Pearl Harbor lives only in a few belated newspaper columns and the memories of some shipmates, most of whom have now passed away.
It is time to recognize them. They kept their discipline and a record as they tried mightily to live. They may have died not knowing what catastrophe had befallen them. Had they lived, no doubt they would have gone to war against the Japanese enemy with the same determination as their shipmates.
Louis “Buddy” Costin, Clifford Olds, and Ronald “Tubby” Endicott deserve more than a Purple Heart and an incorrect date on their tombstones.
by Don Haines
Source -
https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/16-days-to-die-at-pearl-harbor-families-werent-told-about-sailors-trapped-inside-sunken-battleship/
https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/
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