Steve Waite: Machinist's Mate 1/c

We were at G.Q. and my station was in the after crew head and the passageway to the after berthing area. Some of the repair party were Ensign Sheets, Lt. Flavel, ship fitter George Logan, myself and others.

Soon after G.Q., we were attacked by a (Soui-Loue) kamikaze that came in strafing and hit No. 3 turret and some of the after part of the ship.

The repair party took a young shipmate out of No. 3 that was shot in the head and killed. The medics took him to the hospital area and we went back to stations.

We soon had smoke coming up through the hatch. George Logan and I went below to check it out. We found a bed burning in the second berthing compartment. It started when we were strafed.

We returned to the forward compartment and started getting a fire hose out of the rack. The rack was in under the ladder going up to our station. While George was getting the hose back to the burning bed, I was back to turn on the water. POW. An airplane engine came through the hatch and got stuck there.

This plane killed the rest of the after repair party. It also caught Mount 53 more or less about the time the gun had to be abandoned.

Some fire came in and ignited the beds. We could not get up the ladder. Trapped below, George and I got to the after diesel generator room. The smoke was pretty thick and got worse as the paint on the door started smoking.

We went to the shaft alley, but it was not much better. I went back to the generator room and used the telephone to talk to the after engine room. We told them we were trapped and getting low on fresh air.

John Michels drilled or chiseled a hole and put a piece of copper tubing through to us. He hooked it to an air hose. The midship repair party soon attempted to save us. With a portable cutting torch, they cut a six-by-six inch hole in the deck. The hole was just above a maze of pipes. Using the phone to give them directions, we moved them ahead two feet. They then made an 18-by-20 inch hole. George climbed on me, got a hand from above and got out. Two long arms came down and lifted me to fresh air.

The hole can still be seen in the overhead of the generator room as it was patched but not permanently repaired. Also, over the shaft in the after engine room is a weld spot as big as a nickel where they fixed the air hole.

Logan also was awarded the Bronze Star.

We went about cleaning up. We found crewmen throwing bodies over the side. Two of them were Jap pilots, but some of them were our own repair party. We don't know for sure how many of the crew were buried without ceremony, but some were.