A TRIP TO THE DEPTHS OF HELL AND BACK

Thomas F. Mahoney

 

Thomas F. Mahoney aboard the USS Curtiss

It seemed like the whole fleet was in. The city was crowded with men fr all the services. The bars were packed and all the houses downtown were doing a landslide business. The long lines of men would block the main doors of the department stores and would disrupt business. SomeTimes we would go swimming at Waikiki beach. This was the first Time I swam in salt water. Once this lady invited us to her home at the base of diamond head mountain. She had her car pick up six of us and take us to her home. What a place…huge and with a large pool where we swam all afternoon. She also fed us. It could not get any better. We thanked her and never saw her again.

In November we started to load the ship with supplies, gas, etc., to go back to Wake or Midway Island. For safety, we were tied to a buoy away from the other ships. It was now December, 1941 and we are waiting for our orders to sail but it was never to be.

 

Thomas F. Mahoney

December 7, 1941 was a sparkling, bright day. Those of us that were going to church were in our dress whites, waiting for the launch to taxi us ashore. I was in the electric shop when at 7:55 a.m. we heard loud explosions and the ship began to roll. We rushed up one deck to the mess hall and I put my head out the port hole just in Time to see all these planes dropping bombs, torpedoes, and strafing everything. I saw a plane bank right in front of me and drop a torpedo which slammed into the old battleship Utah. It rolled over in less than five minutes. I said "Damn, the Japs are bombing everything, quick go to your battle stations. This is war." Little did we know the horrors this day would bring.

Our guns began to fire in about ten or fifteen minutes. They were firing duds, practice ammunition, which landed in the city of Honolulu about four miles away. We were doing the jobs we trained so hard for. I heard a loud explosion on the boat deck and rushed up there to give a hand. There was a Jap plane with its nose into the deck, burning gas everywhere, the plane, the boats, the whole area. A month before some of us had gone to fire fighting school. We would put on an asbestos suit, set a gas and oil fire and then walk into the blaze. With the use of chemicals, we put the fire out in no Time. But we did not have asbestos suits on board the ship. We did not have foam, only water, and putting water on gas or oil only spreads the fire. This is what was happening to us ... The more water we used, the more the fire spread. It was becoming an inferno. All the Time we were fighting fires, they were bombing and strafing us. The ship was rolling from bomb misses. Then a bomb hit about 25 feet away from us. This bomb was 1300 pounds and it went down four decks before exploding against our towing cable next to the hanger. It destroyed two sea planes in the hanger, several shops, shipfitters, instrument repair, battery locker and No.3 five inch handling room. Now everything was on fire and we were pouring so much water on them that the ship took on a thirty degree list to starboard. We were slipping and falling all over the place.

Some fellows were getting hit by bullets and some were hit by shrapnel. When the bomb exploded, the fellow next to me got hit by shrapnel and, when we moved him, it fell on the deck. I still have it.

It is getting so bad with gas, oil, blood and debris that our list is getting worse. Fatigue is setting in. We were losing the battle. Word came over the speaker system to abandon ship. The fire was not far from 180,000 gallons of aviation gas. If it blew, nothing around us would stand a chance. We continued to fight the fires. Then the speakers blared out "sub astern".

Because of the ship's list, a No. 4 five inch gun was pointing straight down so our gun opened up and shot a hole in the sub's conning tower just as it fired at us and missed. A few minutes later the destroyer USS Monehan came down the channel and saw what was happening. She rammed and sank the sub.

In the mean Time, more planes were trying to sink us. There were eight near misses port and starboard. A bomb hit our stern buoy causing damage it was like the end of a firework display. One big bang and it stopped as fast as it had begun. Everything went quiet. We continued to fight fires, carry off the dead and wounded. The raid lasted over two hours. 280 planes participated in two waves.

I stopped to look ... a couple hours ago the most beautiful place on earth was now an inferno of burning ships, docks, and buildings. We could not believe the death and destruction. Someone protected us and pulled us through. When the No. 3 handling room cooled down, we could open the door. We found five of our friends in a half circle with their arms around each other, burned to charcoal. We all said a prayer. This morning I had been to breakfast with them.

Little by little the engineering department was getting the ship on an even keel. The fires which we had fought for about nine hours were under control. When things started to quiet down, I started to think of my brother. There were three Mahoneys aboard, Tom, Tim and Harold. Tim was no relation to us. I heard my brother was wounded and he heard I was. That evening I was leaning against the rail looking out over the water with six other fellows. The sun was a huge red ball. I said, "you will pay for this." We were a sight … our dress whites were torn and covered with soot and oil. It was twilight.

I turned to the fellow next to me and asked him if he had heard anything about the Mahoney boys. He said,"hell, who are you?" I told him I was Tom Mahoney and "who are you?" He said, "Damn, I am your brother Harold." We embraced and cried like the kids we were.

Next we heard shooting on the starboard side, we all rushed over. Our PBY flying planes were trying to land. Every gun in the harbor was firing at them. They didn't stand a chance. All night ships were firing on planes even though they were ours. The fires continued to burn all night on a lot of ships. The harbor was covered with oil and debris. Bodies were everywhere. We were exhausted but everyone was talking about the Japs going to invade. If the Japs did land, the could have taken the island in a matter of hours. If they had two more raids, everything would have been destroyed. Thank God, they did neither and we lived to fight another day.

Decemeber 7, 1941, the Curtiss shot down three planes and one sub. We had a plane dive into us (the first kamikaze) 29 were killed, 4 missing and twice as many wounded. The fleet suffered 21 ships sunk or damaged. 2400 killed and 1300 wounded, 90% of our planes destroyed on the ground before they could take off.

Later, to a man, we felt that Washington knew we were going to war. We had sunk a sub and picked up their planes over one and a half hours before the raid ... plenty of time to man our guns and be ready. That morning a golf game was more important, and the officers needed their sleep. They did not take the warnings seriously and so we had our first blunder of the war, or was it?

For days we turned to cleaning the ship. Everything we loaded aboard had to be taken off. The smell of burning flesh always made me sick. This happened several times in the coming years.