Pearl Harbor

I am attempting to get as many Pearl Harbor stories as I can collect before it is too late.

Tjhe December 6, 2008, LaCrosse (Wi) Tribune, had an article about Don "Dutch" Albitz, who was on the USS Oklahoma when the attack began. He had just come from Mass "when all of a sudden this plane came in real low." He was a 19-year-old gunner at the time.

"The officer of the deck looked up an said, 'My God, those are Japs.' We were getting hit right and left by (aeriel) torpedoes. When the the Oklahoma started to list, the order came to abandon ship." He jumped into the water covered with fuel oil. "You couldn't swim in it. I was tired and fatigued."

The crew of a small boat pulled him and other survivors out, 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 Marines. He had talked to Hess and Naegle the night before the attack. Hess, of the USS Arizona had told him that he had just gotten married.

To Be Continued. --Coot