Ned DiMartino enlisted in the Navy early in 1941. On December 7, 1941, he was aboard the USS Maryland. It was a day he never forgot. This is his story. This is the way he remembered it.
We were all lined up on what they called Battleship Row. They had big cement pillars that went into the bottom of the harbor, called foxes, that we tied up to. The Colorado was ahead of us, and the Oklahoma was tied right beside us. The West Virginia was behind us, and then was the Arizona. We were lined up in that manner. That was battleship row. There were only battleships there, all the battleships of the Seventh Fleet. There were other ships in the harbor. Other ships at the submarine base, and Ford Island. All of us were getting ready for the holidays.
It was Sunday, December seventh, and I decided to go over to the Oklahoma. They had a Catholic priest over there. I’m Catholic and so I thought, I’ll go to mass over there. The Oklahoma and the Maryland we were tied side by side. The Oklahoma was on the outside of us. We were against the fox. They had a plank, like kind of a bridge, between the ships, so we could go over and board the Oklahoma.
It was about 7:45 when I started over the plank to go to church. The plank was on the aft deck, it’s called the quarter deck, or the half deck. The rear mast is there, the rear stack. I got to the plank and was just starting over, when I saw these planes lined up, coming in. I thought, what are they doing this early in the morning? We never had this kind of action in the morning, and we didn’t have any carriers in the area. I knew that. And they weren’t off the airfield at Schofield Barracks, you know, Schofield Field. All the aircraft there were on the ground. I couldn’t figure out who the heck they were. Then I see this big red deal on the wing. I was just 18 years old, had never been away from home before, and didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t know anything. A green horn. Green as can be. I said, what the heck’s going on?
I started to get on the plank, and all of a sudden I saw it. Four planes coming in and four fish dropped. At that time, I didn’t know they were torpedoes, but that’s what they were. I could see them in the water coming right at us. And I’m standing there on that plank trying to figure out what’s going on. The next thing I remember was that they hit the side of the Oklahoma. By God, she saved us. We would have been the ones that got it if the Oklahoma hadn’t have been there.
In a matter of minutes, the Oklahoma bellied up. Just bellied up. I just stepped back on the deck of the Maryland. And I just stood there and watched it. I didn’t know what the hell was going on. I stood there and watched it. Everybody was hollering and screaming. You could see guys jumping off the Oklahoma when she went down.
I looked up again and saw some more planes coming in. This time, there was a Marine behind the stack. I don’t know where he came from, or what he was doing there. He grabbed me by the seat of my pants and pulled me back behind the stack, when bup bup bup, right along the deck where I was, came these bullets. I wouldn’t even be here today if it hadn’t been for him. And I didn’t know the man. We got out of there fast. There were bullet holes in the stack and everything else. I wasn’t scared actually.
My gun station was up forward, in front of the pilot house. You might not believe it, but all we had were .50-caliber machine guns. Instead of going to my gun station, some of us went up the main mast on the back, on the half deck. There was a Marine up there with a machine gun and a couple of guys with rifles. With rifles. And I’ll tell you it was a party. They had the machine gun shooting. I was loading for that machine gunner, putting shells in for him, you know, holding the band for him. He got tore up. He got hit. I don’t know how I got by. There was blood all over me. Shit, I was drenched in it. I thought I was hit too. I didn’t know. I always heard you never feel it. I thought, hell, I’d had it too, but I kept feeling around and I was okay. But, that guy was gone. Hell, they just ripped him wide open. Hit one of the Marines, and there was an officer also. They killed him.
Somebody told us to get down off of there and get to our battle stations. We climbed down on the deck and went up to the pilot house. We went up the ladder there, me and another sailor, I forget who it was, and a big piece of shrapnel went between us, and it hit the side. It put a big hole right in the side of the ship.
We finally got to our station, and when we started shooting, half the damn shells wouldn’t go off. To this day somebody else claims that they knocked the first Jap plane down, but I think we were the ones that did it. The gunner that was on that 50-caliber, I was loading for him, was shooting, and he hit this plane, I know he hit it. It went down on and crashed on a tin can that was in dry dock, and blew it all to heck.
By now, the harbor was an inferno. An absolute inferno. It was blacker than night. The oil smoke, the debris, the hollering, the screaming, I mean it was horrible. It seemed like it lasted for hours, but it wasn’t long. It wasn’t long at all. It was like a tornado going through and that was about it.
We had some of our planes up. They had observation planes on the battlewagons, but they’re not armed. Every little noise that was heard, those guys on the guns would shoot. Oh, God. This poor guy up there, the pilot of one of our planes, was screaming, “For Christ sake, you damn fools, it’s me.” He told them it was our plane, it was our plane. He was coming in to land at Schofield Field. When he finally got landed, he came back aboard ship and he said, “Man, you guys are all crazy.”
Well, we weren’t crazy. We were just jumpy. We didn’t know what the Japs were up to. Nobody ever said, that was a Jap plane, or that was an American plane. We didn’t know anything. We shot down many of our own planes.
The funniest thing that happened for the whole thing, was that we had ammunition that was absolutely no good.
The powder magazines were all locked and nobody had the keys to them. We tried to get the locks off. We got axes, anything we could get, and busted the locks off. When we got them off, we got shells for the anti-aircraft guns, but when we put them in the guns, they wouldn’t even go off. We had to eject them, throw them in the damn bay, put another one in, and hope it would go off. Maybe one out of three would go off. Our ammunition was obsolete. It was old, deteriorated. As far as I’m concerned, we didn’t have anything to protect ourselves with. I don’t give a damn what anybody says, we just didn’t have anything to really fight with.
Most of the officers, I can’t say all of them, were off the ships. All they had on the California was one of the quartermasters. He ran that son-of-a-gun out of the harbor. At least, he tried to get out, but they nailed him. He had to back the California up on a rice paddy to keep it from sinking in the middle of the harbor. If he hadn’t, it would have blocked the harbor. Man, those screws were whipping up that harbor. It was something else.
It was just very, very bad. The worst thing was when the fires started clearing. When the smoke started to clear, we went out in the harbor with motor launches, whale boats, it didn’t matter what kind of boat it was. They had cleats, like what they call street car catchers, on the front of them, picking up bodies. Sometimes, a head, sometimes an arm. It was very gruesome I’ll tell you. Very gruesome. Over two thousand people were killed that morning.
When the smoke cleared, you couldn’t have seen a more pitiful, or a more disastrous thing, in your life, as the scene that was there. People can’t even imagine what the heck it was like. You would have had to be there. It’s hard to tell you, really, exactly how bad it was.
Ned DiMartino took part in the battles for Iwo Jima and Tawawa while on the USS Maryland. He also served on the aircraft carrier Lexington. He retired from the service after 20 years honorable service.
We were all lined up on what they called Battleship Row. They had big cement pillars that went into the bottom of the harbor, called foxes, that we tied up to. The Colorado was ahead of us, and the Oklahoma was tied right beside us. The West Virginia was behind us, and then was the Arizona. We were lined up in that manner. That was battleship row. There were only battleships there, all the battleships of the Seventh Fleet. There were other ships in the harbor. Other ships at the submarine base, and Ford Island. All of us were getting ready for the holidays.
It was Sunday, December seventh, and I decided to go over to the Oklahoma. They had a Catholic priest over there. I’m Catholic and so I thought, I’ll go to mass over there. The Oklahoma and the Maryland we were tied side by side. The Oklahoma was on the outside of us. We were against the fox. They had a plank, like kind of a bridge, between the ships, so we could go over and board the Oklahoma.
It was about 7:45 when I started over the plank to go to church. The plank was on the aft deck, it’s called the quarter deck, or the half deck. The rear mast is there, the rear stack. I got to the plank and was just starting over, when I saw these planes lined up, coming in. I thought, what are they doing this early in the morning? We never had this kind of action in the morning, and we didn’t have any carriers in the area. I knew that. And they weren’t off the airfield at Schofield Barracks, you know, Schofield Field. All the aircraft there were on the ground. I couldn’t figure out who the heck they were. Then I see this big red deal on the wing. I was just 18 years old, had never been away from home before, and didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t know anything. A green horn. Green as can be. I said, what the heck’s going on?
I started to get on the plank, and all of a sudden I saw it. Four planes coming in and four fish dropped. At that time, I didn’t know they were torpedoes, but that’s what they were. I could see them in the water coming right at us. And I’m standing there on that plank trying to figure out what’s going on. The next thing I remember was that they hit the side of the Oklahoma. By God, she saved us. We would have been the ones that got it if the Oklahoma hadn’t have been there.
In a matter of minutes, the Oklahoma bellied up. Just bellied up. I just stepped back on the deck of the Maryland. And I just stood there and watched it. I didn’t know what the hell was going on. I stood there and watched it. Everybody was hollering and screaming. You could see guys jumping off the Oklahoma when she went down.
I looked up again and saw some more planes coming in. This time, there was a Marine behind the stack. I don’t know where he came from, or what he was doing there. He grabbed me by the seat of my pants and pulled me back behind the stack, when bup bup bup, right along the deck where I was, came these bullets. I wouldn’t even be here today if it hadn’t been for him. And I didn’t know the man. We got out of there fast. There were bullet holes in the stack and everything else. I wasn’t scared actually.
My gun station was up forward, in front of the pilot house. You might not believe it, but all we had were .50-caliber machine guns. Instead of going to my gun station, some of us went up the main mast on the back, on the half deck. There was a Marine up there with a machine gun and a couple of guys with rifles. With rifles. And I’ll tell you it was a party. They had the machine gun shooting. I was loading for that machine gunner, putting shells in for him, you know, holding the band for him. He got tore up. He got hit. I don’t know how I got by. There was blood all over me. Shit, I was drenched in it. I thought I was hit too. I didn’t know. I always heard you never feel it. I thought, hell, I’d had it too, but I kept feeling around and I was okay. But, that guy was gone. Hell, they just ripped him wide open. Hit one of the Marines, and there was an officer also. They killed him.
Somebody told us to get down off of there and get to our battle stations. We climbed down on the deck and went up to the pilot house. We went up the ladder there, me and another sailor, I forget who it was, and a big piece of shrapnel went between us, and it hit the side. It put a big hole right in the side of the ship.
We finally got to our station, and when we started shooting, half the damn shells wouldn’t go off. To this day somebody else claims that they knocked the first Jap plane down, but I think we were the ones that did it. The gunner that was on that 50-caliber, I was loading for him, was shooting, and he hit this plane, I know he hit it. It went down on and crashed on a tin can that was in dry dock, and blew it all to heck.
By now, the harbor was an inferno. An absolute inferno. It was blacker than night. The oil smoke, the debris, the hollering, the screaming, I mean it was horrible. It seemed like it lasted for hours, but it wasn’t long. It wasn’t long at all. It was like a tornado going through and that was about it.
We had some of our planes up. They had observation planes on the battlewagons, but they’re not armed. Every little noise that was heard, those guys on the guns would shoot. Oh, God. This poor guy up there, the pilot of one of our planes, was screaming, “For Christ sake, you damn fools, it’s me.” He told them it was our plane, it was our plane. He was coming in to land at Schofield Field. When he finally got landed, he came back aboard ship and he said, “Man, you guys are all crazy.”
Well, we weren’t crazy. We were just jumpy. We didn’t know what the Japs were up to. Nobody ever said, that was a Jap plane, or that was an American plane. We didn’t know anything. We shot down many of our own planes.
The funniest thing that happened for the whole thing, was that we had ammunition that was absolutely no good.
The powder magazines were all locked and nobody had the keys to them. We tried to get the locks off. We got axes, anything we could get, and busted the locks off. When we got them off, we got shells for the anti-aircraft guns, but when we put them in the guns, they wouldn’t even go off. We had to eject them, throw them in the damn bay, put another one in, and hope it would go off. Maybe one out of three would go off. Our ammunition was obsolete. It was old, deteriorated. As far as I’m concerned, we didn’t have anything to protect ourselves with. I don’t give a damn what anybody says, we just didn’t have anything to really fight with.
Most of the officers, I can’t say all of them, were off the ships. All they had on the California was one of the quartermasters. He ran that son-of-a-gun out of the harbor. At least, he tried to get out, but they nailed him. He had to back the California up on a rice paddy to keep it from sinking in the middle of the harbor. If he hadn’t, it would have blocked the harbor. Man, those screws were whipping up that harbor. It was something else.
It was just very, very bad. The worst thing was when the fires started clearing. When the smoke started to clear, we went out in the harbor with motor launches, whale boats, it didn’t matter what kind of boat it was. They had cleats, like what they call street car catchers, on the front of them, picking up bodies. Sometimes, a head, sometimes an arm. It was very gruesome I’ll tell you. Very gruesome. Over two thousand people were killed that morning.
When the smoke cleared, you couldn’t have seen a more pitiful, or a more disastrous thing, in your life, as the scene that was there. People can’t even imagine what the heck it was like. You would have had to be there. It’s hard to tell you, really, exactly how bad it was.
Ned DiMartino took part in the battles for Iwo Jima and Tawawa while on the USS Maryland. He also served on the aircraft carrier Lexington. He retired from the service after 20 years honorable service.
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