Sailor recalls his personal day of infamy

Most people think of Dec. 7 as Pearl Harbor Day, but my memories are tied to May 21.

That was the day in 1944, when an explosion rocked the deck of LST (landing ship, tank) 353 in Pearl Harbor’s West Loch at 3:08 p.m. A chain reaction of explosions and fire killed 163 men, with 396 wounded. Six LSTs sunk, and several more were severely damaged. It was Pearl Harbor’s second greatest disaster, in terms of casualties.

I thought I had long ago buried the event deep in my memory bank. Yet as I think about it now, it comes back with clarity of detail that surprises me.

I was an 18-year-old sailor, S.2/c, assigned to an outfit called Acorn 33. We were housed on West Loch, waiting to be deployed (I later learned) to Guam – which had yet to be invaded. Our job there was to occupy a captured Japanese airfield and convert it into a Naval base as quickly as possible. We did, and it became Naval Air Base, Guam.

Chaotic scene

On May 21, eight fully loaded LSTs – the largest sea-going crafts ever built – were tied up on West Loch, ready to sail off for the invasion of Saipan. When fires broke out, every able-bodied man on West Loch was rushed to the dock adjacent to the burning ships to remove tons of various stacks of live ammunition that had been off-loaded from an ammo ship tied up nearby. We were working in teams of 10-20 guys, loading ammo into trucks to be taken somewhere safe for storage.

This was a super-secret operation. We only talked about it among ourselves, and the incident was classified until 1960. We called it “the Second Pearl Harbor.”

My group was loading a truck when the first explosion hit. It was the loudest boom I ever heard. I watched, transfixed, as parts of the ship shot up high into the clear blue sky, twisting, turning, burning, smoking – like a cloud spreading out. Then, chunks of ship came raining down around us. We all took off to find shelter, but I was too late. I got down and curled up in a fetal position, covering my head with my hands and arms.

I heard something hit the pavement, landing within arm’s reach of my head. It looked like an electric motor, about two feet long and a foot thick. The hot, smoking metal landed with a “thump” and sunk in a few inches, without ever bouncing back.

Dangerous recovery effort

After things quieted down, we all went back to work – rushing to get the ammo safely onto trucks and out of the way. I spotted an air raid shelter and figured I could run fast enough to get there if the ship blew again.

The next big blow came soon enough, and I took off running full speed for the shelter. There were a bunch of guys running ahead of me, when I saw a large smoking chunk of ship come down, spinning around. I saw it hit one of the guys just ahead of me. I was pretty sure he was killed, but I didn’t stop to find out.

I made it to the shelter and went in head first, behind about five other guys. Parts of the ship were still falling around us. When the noise stopped, we got up and looked around. One of the guys lit up, and offered me a smoke. I took it, but I couldn’t light it because my hand was shaking too much.

I recall seeing a bunch of guys crawling out from under the truck we had been loading. Then, we went back to work. After about 18 hours, we were relieved. We went back to our housing on West Loch, where we were fed.

That night we watched a movie on a temporary screen. While watching the movie, another LST blew up with another enormous boom.

The war must go on

We all worked on the dock for the next few days. They had put out the fire on the ships that were still floating. Tugs had removed the ammo ship, so we helped off-load a supply ship. I was down in “the hold” stacking cases of Blatz beer onto platforms, to be pulled up and off onto the dock. And, we didn’t crack open a single beer.

Though the incident could have caused a serious operational delay, replacements of ships and men were quickly rounded up. The LSTs got underway only one day late, and the invasion of Saipan took place on schedule.

All that is left as a reminder of that fateful day is the rusted hull of LST 480, standing silently off Waipio Peninsula. In 1994, the National Park Service, in conjunction with the U.S. Navy, placed a wayside exhibit across from LST 480 to commemorate the event.

A Naval inquiry couldn’t pinpoint the exact cause of the explosions. The accident, along with the Port Chicago disaster two months later, led the Navy to change weapon handling practices.

Eventually, Acorn 33 left Pearl for Guam. I went over the side of our transport ship and down a rope ladder onto a small landing craft. This was 20 days after the first Marines invaded Guam.

I helped set up the Naval Air Base and became a striker (apprentice) in the photo lab, earning a Photographer’s Mate Second Class rating.

If you ask what I did during World War II, I would tell you “not much, really.” I went where I was sent and did what I was told. I was never assigned to a ship, but I was still a sailor.