Carl Carson

One sailor on the ill-fated Arizona, Carl Carson, was lucky to escape alive, for he had earlier been working in the area where the fatal bomb hit. As it was, even though he was standing on the ship's deck hundreds of feet farther forward, the concussion of the great blast ruptured both his lungs. Carson's graphic, chilling narrative of his experience, recorded shortly before his death in January 2001, follows.

Well, I was out on deck doing the morning chores, which you did every morning . . . all of a sudden, this plane come along, and [I] didn't pay much attention to it; because planes were landing at Ford Island all the time. And all of a sudden, the chips started flying all around me and the plane—it was strafing me . . . They went between the ship and Ford Island, and I...