The Dec. 6, 2008, LaCrosse (Wi) Tribune.
Don "Dutch" Albitz was a nineteen year old gunner on the USS Oklahoma in Battleship Row and had just come from Mass "when all of a sudden this plane came in real low.
The officer of the deck looked up and said, 'My God, those are Japs.' We were getting hit right and left by (aeriel) torpedoes. When the Oklahoma started to list, the word came to abandon ship." He jumped into the oil-covered water. "You couldn't swim in it. I was tired and fatigued." The crew of a small boat pulled him and other survivors and took them to the USS Maryland.
Four LaCrosse residents died in the attack: Helmar Hanson, Daryl Hess, and George Naegle of the Navy, and Lee Amundson of the Marine Corps. Albitz knew all of them except Hanson.
He had talked to Hess and Naegle the night before the attack. Hess, who was on the Arizona, said he'd just gotten married. Naegle was a signal man on the Oklahoma and had been on night watch before the attack began and asleep where a torpedo hit.
After Pearl Harbor, Albitz was assigned to the light cruiser USS Helena which had been damaged during the attack. It went to California for repairs where he got a ten-day emergency leave and went home. Next, he went to Norfolk and was assigned to the crew of the new USS Indiana and served on that battleship until 1945.
To this day, he refuses to buy any Japanese products.
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