Bill Steedly Although all the ships in Battleship Row were vulnerable and many suffered terrible damage, the USS Vestal turned out to be in a particularly dangerous spot—right alongside the USS Arizona. The Vestal ended up taking numerous hits intended for the much larger Arizona, and when the fatal bomb struck the latter, the explosion blew the men standing on the Vestal's decks into the water. There, many experienced a horrendous ordeal as they fought to keep from drowning as well as being burned to death by the oil fires that raged on the water's surface. Chief Petty Officer Bill Steedly, whose testimony follows, was one of the lucky ones who escaped and lived to tell the tale.

On the morning of 7 December, I got out of my bunk in the chief petty officers' quarters and went to...