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Golden knew that the bridge would want maximum power. Already
Main Engine Control had an all-engines-ahead-flank bell from
the bridge that they could not answer. Flank speed was
seventeen knots, but Golden had taken one boiler off the line
just ten minutes earlier so that it could cool for repairs.
Without that boiler the best speed he could provide was about
twelve knots. He immediately put the cooling boiler back on
the line and started to bring it up to pressure.
Even with both boilers on the line, the engines were limited
by a governor to eighteen knots. For years Golden had carried
the governor key in his pocket so that he could find it
quickly in just such an emergency as this. He switched the
governor off, permitting the ship to reach twenty-one knots.
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As machine-gun fire and aircraft rockets battered the ship,
the main engine room began to take on the appearance of a
fireworks display. Most lighting was knocked out in the first
few minutes, leaving flashlights and battle lanterns as the
only illumination in the room except for a skylight six decks
above. In this relative darkness, men worked on hands and
knees, operating valves, checking gauges, starting and
stopping equipment, bypassing broken pipes; and all the while
above them danced white, yellow, red and green firefly like
particles. Some were small. Some were huge and burst into
pieces to shower down upon them. All entered the room with a
tremendous roar as they burst through the ship's outer skin.
Golden glanced at the scene above him. It reminded him of
meteor showers, except for the noise, or of electric arc
welding. Most of his men were here now, having safely
descended the ladders through the fireworks to reach their
battle stations. Boiler Tender Gene Owens was here and in
charge of auxiliary equipment on the deck below Golden.
Machinist Mate Chief Richard J. Brooks was here. Brooks was
petty officer in charge of the engine room, and he was
everywhere.
Golden realized suddenly that far above them, directly in the
range of rocket and machine-gun fire, was a hot-water storage
tank. Five thousand gallons of near- boiling water lay in that
tank, ready to pour down upon them if it was ruptured, and it
would surely be ruptured. The drain valve was at the base of
the tank, so it would be necessary to send a man up more than
three decks to open the valve.
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Golden quickly explained to a young sailor what had to be done
and sent him on his way, but the frightened man collapsed on
the deck grating and refused to move.
Chief Brooks overheard the exchange. "C'mon, you heard the
lieutenant. Move!" he cried, jerking the panic-stricken
teenager to his feet.
Terror was written on the young man's face. Tears started to
flow as his face contorted in a grimace of fear.
With a snarl of contempt, Brooks gave him a shove that sent
him sprawling. Then Brooks mounted the ladder leading to the
vital drain valve. Two decks above, perhaps fifteen feet up
the ladder, a tremendous explosion occurred next to Brooks. In
a shower of sparks and fire, he was torn from his place on the
ladder and thrown into space to land heavily upon the steel
grating below. Brooks was back on his feet before anyone could
reach him. Back up the same ladder he headed until he found
the valve, opened it and drained the water only moments before
the inevitable rocket hit the storage tank to find it newly
empty.
In a few minutes, most of the battle lanterns had been struck
by rocket fragments or disabled by the impact of nearby
explosions. The room was nearly dark. By working on hands and
knees, men could remain below the waterline and thus below
most of the rocket and gunfire, although they were still
vulnerable to an occasional wildly aimed rocket and to the
constant shower of hot metal particles from above.
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When fresh-air fans sucked choking smoke from the main deck
into the engine rooms, Golden ordered the men to cover their
faces with rags and to try to find air near the deck. When the
smoke became intolerable, he sent a message to the bridge that
he would have to evacuate; but just before Golden was to give
the evacuation order, McGonagle ordered a course change that
carried the smoke away from the fans. Fresh air returned at
last to the engine room.
The first airplane had emptied the gun mounts and removed
exposed personnel. The second airplane, through extraordinary
luck or fantastic marksmanship, disabled nearly every radio
antenna on the ship, temporarily preventing our call for help.
Soon the high-performance Mirage fighter-bombers that
initiated the attack were joined by smaller swept-wing
Dassault Mystyre jets, carrying dreaded napalm- jellied
gasoline. The Mystyres, slower and more maneuverable than the
Mirages, directed rockets and napalm against the bridge and
the few remaining topside targets. In a technique probably
designed for desert warfare but fiendish against a ship at
sea, the Mystyre pilots launched rockets from a distance, then
dropped huge silvery metallic napalm canisters as they passed
overhead. The jellied slop burst into furious flame on impact,
coating everything, then surged through the fresh rocket holes
to burn frantically among the men inside.'
I watched Captain McGonagle standing alone on the starboard
wing of the bridge as the whole world suddenly caught fire.
The deck below him, stanchions around him, even the overhead
above him burned. The entire superstructure of the ship burst
into a wall of flame from the main deck to the open bridge
four levels above. All burned with the peculiar fury of
warfare while Old Shep, seemingly impervious to man-made flame
and looking strangely like Satan himself, stepped calmly
through the fire to order: "Fire, fire, starboard side,
oh-three level. Sound the fire alarm."
Fire fighters came on stage as though waiting in the wings for
a prearranged signal. Streaming through a rear pilothouse
door, they carried axes, crowbars, CO, bottles and hundreds of
feet of fire hose. The sound of CO, bottles and fire-hose
sprinklers added to the din as the smell of steam overtook the
smell of nitrates, smoke and blood. Men screamed, cried,
yelled orders and scrambled to duty as the ship struggled to
stay alive.
TOP
On the forecastle, Gunner's Mate Alexander N. Thompson fought
his way relentlessly toward the forward gun mount. Only
moments before, Thompson had remarked to me on the bridge: "No
sweat, sir. If anything happens I just want to be in a gun
mount." Now he was repeatedly driven away by exploding
rockets. Weakened, with duty waiting in that small gun tub, he
tried again.
His radar disabled, Radarman Charles J. Cocnavitch left his
post to man a nearby gun mount. "Stay back!" Captain McGonagle
ordered, knowing that the gun would be ineffective and that
Cocnavitch would die in a futile attempt to fire. Meanwhile,
Lieutenant O'Connor, still lying near the ladder where he had
fallen, was robbed of any latent prejudices by huge black
Signalman Russell David, who braved fire, blast and bullets to
move the limp and barely conscious officer from the bridge to
safety in the now-empty combat information center.
The pilothouse became a hopeless sea of wounded men, swollen
fire hoses and discarded equipment. Men tripped over
equipment, stepped on wounded. In front of the helmsman a
football-size glob of napalm burned angrily, adding to the
smoke and confusion. Smaller napalm globs burned in other
parts of the room, refusing to be extinguished.
Again I thought of duty. My duty was on this bridge, amid the
flame and the shrapnel, driving this ship and fighting to
protect her. Already I was weak from loss of blood and from
the shock of my wounds. A sailor tripped over me, stepped on
Seaman Wilson, and fell on other wounded as he dragged a CO,
bottle across the room. I decided that duty did not require
that we all lie here and bleed. It may even require that we
get out of the way, if we can, so that others may fight.
Relinquishing Wilson's tourniquet to Wilson, he released mine.
Acutely conscious of my retreat from the heart of battle, I
raised an arm toward some sailors huddled nearby. Seaman
Kenneth Ecker pulled me to my feet and I resumed my one-legged
hopping.
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