Donald Gordon of San Diego, Calif. was on the battleship Arizona. "General Quarters sounded and I went to my battle station which was gun captain of the center gun in number four turret," He explained. "We started to get the guns ready for firing while being tossed around by bombs hitting the ship. There was a big explosion and the ship raised up and settled down. The last man to leave the handling room was knee deep in water. He climbed straight up three decks to the gun pits and was still knee deep in water."

"We then got word from the turret officer to evacuate the turret and assemble outside the turret under the overhead. The order was given to abandon ship.

Whenever the enemy planes would strafe the deck, we waited till they passed over and three or four men would run out and jump over the side in between being machine-gunned. We then swam ashore in oil. The oil was burning about 50 feet to our left; we swam to Ford Island, we went to an air raid shelter."

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