After the attack, David Russell, 101, and two others went to Ford Island in search for a bathroom. While there, they found a dispensary and enlisted quarters that had been turned into a triage center and a place of refuge for hundreds of wounded. They found horribly burned sailors lining the walls. Many would die in the hours an d days ahead.
"Most of them wanted a cigarette, and I didn't smoke at the time, but, I got a pack of cigarettes and some matches. I lit their cigarettes for them," said Russell. "You feel for these guys, but I couldn't do anything. Just light a cigarette for 'em and let 'em puff the cigarettes."
Russell still thinks about how lucky he was. He ponders why he decided to go topside on the Oklahoma, knowing that most of the men who remained behind likely were unable to get out after the hatch was closed.
In the first two days after the attack, a civilian crew from the shipyard rescued 32 men trapped inside the ship by cutting holes in its upturned hull. But the rest perished. Most of those who died in the Oklahoma were buried anonymously in Honolulu graves and listed as unknowns because their remains were too degraded to be identified by the time they were removed from the ship between 1942 and 1943.
--GreGen
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