[Lowell Dean Cox] I'm better known as LD Cox.
I was born in Comanche County in
a place called Sidney growing out in
a livestock farm there at home in April the 12th 1926,
I went to high school and
graduated from Sidney High School.
That's S-I-D-N-E-Y (inaudible) the S-Y.
Graduated from high school and went
to John Tarleton Agricultural College in Stephensville.
I finished high school when I was barely 16,
so I had a little jump on nearly everybody else.
I went to college
and of course, I got some military training in college.
All I'm after I had
about three semesters,
I was getting close to 18 and
I decided that to just volunteer for the navy.
I'd seen the posters of how
the navy all of them had girls at every port.
I liked those uniforms.
I decided to test my luck with the navy.
The date I believe it was 1944.
The first plane ride I ever had,
I got on the plane at midnight in Comanche, Texas,
and went to Dallas to be turn in and
got up to Dallas and went through the line
and they gave him a physical and everything.
They stamped my papers,
and I walked a few steps and look down, it says army.
When I turned around and went back and I said,
Hey, I volunteered for the navy.
They checked again, oh yes, so you did.
They reached out my papers to navy.
I got on the train.
This is the second train that I've ever been on,
and went from Dallas to San Diego,
and that's where I had my boots.
It was quiet trying.
They gave you about
a four-month course in about two months.
They taught me everything
that they thought you just had to know.
The only thing they didn't teach swimming, very little.
They didn't teach if the ship sunk what to do.
But we got a little idea
what might be the best thing to do.
Then they asked me whether I wanted to go in
Seabees or the Navy CB.
I said, I want to see the old (inaudible).
Well, do you know where they put me?
Directly aboard ship.
I went directly aboard the USS Indianapolis.
At the time when I'm aboard,
they changed captains and Captain McVay
came on he ship same time that I did, same week.
We left in the port going back to
the Pacific and they said,
We're sorry, LD we don't have you a bunk.
You'll have to swing your hammock in the mess hall.
That was quite an experience.
Every night, I'd swing my hammock and of course,
everybody came to coffee all there in
the night in the mess hall.
I would always take
my bill fold out and roll up my pants.
I would take my bill fold and put it in a pillow.
One night, I forgot to do that.
I woke up the next morning,
I couldn't find my pants,
my bill fold or anything.
Somebody had (inaudible) my bill fold
and all what little money I had,
my dresses and pictures.
It really hurt.
I just had come aboard ship and then have that happened.
They put me in the largest division board ship,
which was number 7,
that gang number 7.
That was around 70 men.
Our DD was of course the toughest that you have.
You paint and you chip paint before it dries nearly,
and then you paint again.
You haul stores,
the packages,
then you go to the mess hall and you stand mess.
(inaudible) seem like they never got beyond me.
They all wanted me to go down there mess.
Well, after about a week,
they did find me a bunk and they put me
on the highest bunk right under
big 12 inch hot water line
that was coated with asbestos.
Every time that they shot the big guns,
it just filled with asbestos.
Every morning, I had to wrap
my bedding with a plastic cover.
Why I don't have cancer of the lung? I don't know.
But anyway, they put me aboard this number 7.
That gang and my beauty
at first was on the 40 millimeter gun.
Then they decided that I should be up at
the tallest man on the ship,
horizon forward to lookout.
I climbed up in that crow's nest
and that's where I fit all my life.
I was well above the bridge by 30, 40 feet.
The bridge was 81 feet from water line.
I was way up there and every sway that you made
at the top went a whole lot farther than the bottom.
[Clarence Bryk] Did you get sick or anything up there?
[Lowell Dean Cox] Never did throw up.
I got nauseated a lot but not too bad.
Anyway, there was one time while I was on (inaudible).
I was supposed to see everything
before anybody else naturally.
Sure enough, I saw what I felt was ships mass
in 30 miles out or so and report it to the bridge.
Our radar hadn't been picked it up.
Well, they checked it and about that time,
the radar had found it.
The captain called up and gave me well done.
Anytime you get a well done from a captain,
that's the ultimate compliment.
[Clarence Bryk] You know what you did.
[Lowell Dean Cox] Yeah.
We hit the first carrier raid on Tokyo,
while I was still horizon
forward-looking in the south division.
It was overcast, we couldn't see Tokyo.
We could see the luminous sky,
but it was so soaked in,
you couldn't see even the top of our ship.
You could be on deck and look up and you couldn't
see the radio antennas.
Well, I was on duty one day and
I heard a motor, an engine.
I didn't know whether it was
our plane or Japanese plane or what.
Finally, I looked the stern where
the noise of motors was coming
from and it was one of ours except it was
about 20 feet below our ship,
coming right toward where I was standing.
Well, he saw the ship and tried to pull up,
but he didn't get high enough.
His landing gear hit our superstructure,
and tore up our antennas and part of his landing gear,
and he went on to land on the carrier
right in front of us and then
turned upside down on that gear.
It hurt his landing gear.
I also saw the first Japanese up
close with somebody had sunk
a boat and there was about 15 Japanese,
we brought aboard to our bridge.
That was the first time I've
had a closer look at Japanese.
[Clarence Bryk] How did that feel?
[Lowell Dean Cox] Well, I just looked at him and of course,
I didn't like him very much,
I'd heard too many stories of what they had
done to our people.
But then the next thing that came about was Iwo Jima.
Now, we were carrying the admiral on the 5th fleet.
Of course, the 7th fleet was Raul Javi's fleet.
Then there was another fleet,
I think the 3rd fleet, Michener,
and then our fleet was the 5th fleet
and we carried Spruance.
Now, we were the Command ship at Iwo Jima.
Of course, Spruance,
he needed to be up close to the island.
We sail for about a week or so,
sailed the island and you would think
there would be a living thing left on it.
But come to find out we weren't hurting
anything like the Japanese were all in the mountains.
They had four levels of caves in the Mount Suribachi.
They had tracks laid and they would take
their big guns on railroad tracks, the things,
and run those guns out to
the opening and fire and then roll them back in,
so you could take
a dead shot on the caves and not even do any damage.
We hung mostly right in.
[Clarence Bryk] At the South end?
[Lowell Dean Cox] Yeah. Above here,
most of the landing started here.
Just below Mount Suribachi
and we were out here shelling.
We were within the machine gun.
[Clarence Bryk] Then you were close.
[Lowell Dean Cox] Fifty-millimeter range.
We were hitting while we were shooting
but it wasn't doing any good.
[Clarence Bryk] What you were shooting at?
Can you show the size?
[Lowell Dean Cox] Oh, we used eight-inch,
that's the biggest (inaudible) we had.
We had nine eight-inches and then we had
a lot to five inches.
Then we had 40 millimeters and then five.
[Clarence Bryk] But you didn't see anything?
[Lowell Dean Cox] No, we didn't see anything.
They were in the holes.
That's small steps.
It didn't phase them hardly.
Well, then after all the shelling and bombing,
and everything,
right in front of us was the landing craft again
to hit the beach.
[Clarence Bryk] How far away from you?
They say you could hit them
with machine guns, so you weren't really far.
[Lowell Dean Cox] Yeah, we weren't far at all.
You could see them with your naked eyes,
if you put your binoculars on and you could see
everything going on in vigilant.
But I don't know
how many they used to wave after
wave and what was surprising to us,
there wasn't any opposition, no fire hurting.
We thought, well, we've done a great job.
Then when they begin to hit the beach
with some of the heavy equipment,
they couldn't move because it was just sand.
Just all black volcanic sand and then
that time, they all,
one time we got aboard that island, rain hit.
Then they began to open up,
motors, old Canada,
small arms, everything.
Aboard the ship, we all wore helmets.
We've kept in more if the shells from the airplanes
coming over straight then it'll hit where the enemy is.
One day, I was back toward the
stern and we'd been told not to use the head.
We had a head there on main deck,
right in front of the eight-inch battery.
They said, don't use it during battle.
But I got thuds and I decided I'd
slip in there and use that head.
Well, we were shelling with those eight-inch guns,
we were shelling broad side.
I went in that head and used it and when I stepped out,
all three of those guns,
they fired together,
and they had chained positions,
ship positions and it was just nearly far as
those eight-inch blew me
pull them back in through the door,
back into the head and I couldn't
hear anything but a ring for three days.
I never used that head again.
I believed in what they told me from then on.
[Clarence Bryk] You did not get a reason and you wanted to.
[Lowell Dean Cox] Yeah. Anyway,
some of the things that happened after
we spent several days there,
we went outside 20 miles,
and so 40, 30 miles,
maybe, to take on ammunition.
We got out there and the sea was real
rough and we got tied
up to that ammunition ship and we
began to climb up on top of it.
We were beating.
We took all the lifelines off the side, the left.
We crushed one lifeboat on it,
and the two ships were just beating one another up.
[Clarence Bryk] (inaudible)
[Lowell Dean Cox] Yeah.
You have never heard as
many orders given by captain trying to separate
those things because one little spark in
the wrong place on that ammunition ship and there
wouldn't have been either ship left.
But we didn't take on ammunition that day.
We waited until the next day.
[Clarence Bryk] (inaudible) .
[Lowell Dean Cox] Yeah. Just before Iwo Jima,
I saw more ships than you could ever imagine,
as far as I could see was ships, every kind.
Everything from the stories on earth.
It was pre-invasion of the Iwo Jima.
Since our ship was flagship,
all we had a meeting one day and I
counted over 70 admirals.
Well, our captain to that (inaudible)
whole fleet. Teamed our ship.
[Clarence Bryk] All of them in one ship?
[Lowell Dean Cox] All of them on our ship.
I'm not for sure about Nimitz,
whether he was there or not,
but everybody else was.
[Clarence Bryk] They hadn't started to come on (inaudible)
[Lowell Dean Cox] No.
[Clarence Bryk] That came with Okinawa, is it?
[Lowell Dean Cox] You are right.
[Clarence Bryk] You guys were safe that way,
otherwise, it could have been a real mess.
[Lowell Dean Cox] Well, we would have
intercepted anything 50 miles
out because we had so many ships.
[Clarence Bryk] They were in your zone?
[Lowell Dean Cox] I know I was on watch duty,
and a British commander
came up and he wanted
to use my binoculars to look at the fleet.
I never will forget,
he looked and he said,
Quite some fleet you've got.
I said, yes, quite some fleet.
But then we went to Okinawa.
That's where over 5,000 kamikazes team
trying to kill us.
[Clarence Bryk] They did a lot of damage, didn't they?
[Lowell Dean Cox] They did lots of damage.
We shot down about five or six,
the first two or three days.
[Clarence Bryk] Your ship alone?
[Lowell Dean Cox] Yeah, our ship. That's it.
Then the day before the invasion, earlier that morning,
we were out alone close to
the shore and I was eating breakfast.
All of a sudden, instead of whistling,
or giggling, or anything,
for general quarters,
a voice came over the loudspeaker system saying,
all men, man your battle stations,
man your battle stations, all men.
I just lay my tray down,
ran up the ladder behind me,
headed forward to get to the GQ station.
I got mid-ships and I
saw a shadow or actually it wasn't a shadow,
it was playing at the corner of my eye.
Then I heard a ton of metal (inaudible) up on our ship.
It was a kamikaze,
and they had hit us on the stern.
It had delayed action bombs.
One bomb went down nine decks.
That's how many decks we had.
Went through the nine decks.
Went through a table in the mess hall,
and it didn't go off till it hit the bottom.
It knocked off two propellers.
It had enough force
from when little things went off
would start those bombs.
They threw the stern of that ship
up high enough when it came down,
water completely washed across the deck,
and that was 18 feet from the water.
That's how high the deck was, normally.
It threw me up high and I came
down and hit on the stomach, and looked up,
and we carried two observation planes,
pontoons on the cabin.
I looked up just in time to see one
of the planes falling and
a man fall off the plane
and hit the deck not far from where I was.
I went on to the battle station.
Then we still had power in the two.
[Clarence Bryk] I'm just going to stop. I'm just going
to check (inaudible) I'm convinced it's working.
[Lowell Dean Cox] One thing I might mention,
because it's pertinent.
After I got off duty from my battle station,
I went back to where the plane had hit,
surveying some of the damage,
and they'd serve the airplane
into the water, that plane.
I looked down and I saw a little piece
of wing tip balloon.
I picked it up and brought it home.
I donated it to (inaudible) museum and
it's on display now in the Okinawa section.
[Clarence Bryk] But the plane itself didn't blow up?
[Lowell Dean Cox] No.
[Clarence Bryk] Didn't have much gas
or it just didn't blow up?
[Lowell Dean Cox] I don't know. It didn't blow.
[Clarence Bryk] Yet there were bombs there?
[Lowell Dean Cox] Both of these two bombs,
one went on the outside of
the ship and one on the inside.
I suppose they both went off because it blew
the (inaudible) power blew knocked
two screws off completely off the ship,
flooded the rear compartment,
drowned nine of the sailors, wounded 26.
The nine sailors were mostly
from the navigation division.
[Clarence Bryk] You knew those people?
[Lowell Dean Cox] I knew them. Anyway,
we went on our own power over to a little inland,
they called it suicide harbor.
Anytime one of our ships
got hit and it could still float,
they put into this inland.
Now, even though the land wasn't secured,
but they'd put us in there and they'd get
fire from the land,
and then constantly, the Jap airplanes
coming over trying to
bomb us because we were just threatened up.
[Clarence Bryk] They knew you were down there?
[Lowell Dean Cox] Yeah. What happened is that at night,
they would come in,
the Japs would in their airplanes,
and we were using 20 millimeters and 40 millimeters,
as well as five-inch guns.
Well, they made us quit using anything but five inches
because the other guns had
tracers and those Japs and those airplanes would follow
those traces down to the ships.
[Clarence Bryk] Follow traces down to the ships.
[Lowell Dean Cox] They quit using anything,
but just the five-inch.
Then one night, I was off duty down in the compartment,
and that's second or third night we were in the harbor,
and they were putting a concrete bottom
in the bottom of our ship.
It took them about a week or 10 days to do this.
We were just sitting there and
one night over the loudspeaker it said,
All men remain in your compartment,
there is a Jap aboard.
There is a Jap aboard.
Well, everybody of course, stayed in the compartments.
Finally, they gave it all clear, we'd move about.
We carried a detachment of marines,
about 30 aboard our ship,
and one of them had been hit
in the head and knocked out.
Now, the best that we could produce
some navy men who didn't like the marines,
and he found the opportunity, a score card.
We never found the Jap.
Anyway, we got along good with
the marines and they were very nice folks.
Of course, they did just mostly
guard duty and ceremonial,
and to guard the bridge from the Japs.
But anyway, we got to repair it and
then we headed to the United States
(inaudible) to be repaired.
We were with about 15 ships, in all.
Most of them were tankers
or maybe some that had been hit, disabled.
We had three destroyers with us,
now we got firepower.
These destroyers keep several of those, of course.
We came in and finally got to (inaudible) to be fixed,
but all the way over.
By the way, I went from my horizon forward lookout,
my number seven
division that I was in.
One day, I was down doing mess duty,
washing pots and pans, had steel wool.
I'd been down there about two days and actually,
my fingernail was bleeding because of steel wool,
and so I couldn't hold a pan.
I still don't do many dishes at home.
But anyway, I was down
there and then the letter came and I was
certainly keen to meet (inaudible) .
Are you Lowell Cox? I said, Yes.
He said, how would you like to
switch division to the man division,
the navigation division?
He said, we're short of man and we see you
have some colleagues and if you
would like a transfer we will transfer you.
I said I'd like that very much because
that was the smallest division aboard the ship.
We had 17,
and the other had 70.
Well, he said, If you want to drop
that pan and follow me,
and I dropped it right on the field day.
Then as he went up the ladder,
I was just licking his boots, every step.
I was right behind him.
From then on I enjoyed
my duty a lot more because I got to
steer the ship and I got only the earphones,
be the lookout.
[Clarence Bryk] You said you would steer with
both your hands and your feet, is that right?
Can we look at your feet?
[Lowell Dean Cox] People say Navy men walk with swagger,
and they do.
It can take nearly a week to get over him because,
you walk a normal walk
aboard ship is your legs and feet are a little
farther apart and it's
not like one foot directly in front of the other.
But you get used to walking so you don't fall
and you're bracing yourself every step.
I got to actually run up
those ladders and never touched the handrail,
just run straight up.
The other guys did too.
On our way back, we had
to give it three degree rudder at
all the time because we had two propellers knocked off.
Two-port props were gone and to keep
us straight course we had to (inaudible) .
We got to the Golden Gate Bridge
and there's always a terrific
current underneath that bridge.
When we get there,
we had a headquarter master who always
took over the wheel.
He took over the wheel just before we got to the bridge.
When we hit underneath that bridge,
the current hit us and hit us on the wrong side.
It swung us to the port,
the bow went to the port
and there's no screws over there.
All we had is two starboard props.
Well, immediately he swung full rudder he
had and asked for more full power.
We nearly went underground
underneath that Golden Gate Bridge.
[Clarence Bryk] That would've been a good end
[Lowell Dean Cox] and a great honor.
But anyway,
he straightened it out and went to Mare Island
and then they began repair.
[Clarence Bryk] How long did that take you?
[Lowell Dean Cox] Well, it's supposed to take about three months.
It took less than two.
They really got up on the bow.
[Clarence Bryk] What did you do in the meantime?
[Lowell Dean Cox] Oh, I got a leave.
I got to go home,
and that was nice.
That's how I got the little piece of art,
airplane tip that I picked up on the way home.
We had orders to
do gunnery practice up and down the coast,
but instead, we were asked to come over to
the Hunters Point and pick up a box.
I stood up there on the main deck
and watched this box being loaded.
It was quite real nice.
I'm talking about the wood
was pretty and it was well built,
and it had the bolts and all the counter stuff.
Just a nice box.
[Clarence Bryk] Did that get your suspicion up?
[Lowell Dean Cox] Well, we had no idea, what in the world.
A lot of scuttle dirt went around.
The Navy said, I wonder what that is we're taking.
One of them thought it was
some secret supplies that
we was going to take in the best,
it was the box full of standard toilet paper
for General Douglas MacArthur.
That made more sense than anything.
[Clarence Bryk] They better believe that one, huh?
[Lowell Dean Cox] Yeah. Because if you knew MacArthur,
if he want it then he got it.
That's just how much power he was.
But we took off,
went under the Golden Gate Bridge,
hit flank speed over 30 knots and held it.
We still own the speed record,
still own for a circus vessels between here and
Guam, none steam days.
We were traveling, we averaged over 29.5 knots.
[Clarence Bryk] You had taken a lot of fuel during that route.
[Lowell Dean Cox] We were full of fuel, we didn't have to.
When we go to Hawaii we took on some.
But everybody was wondering,
what in the world we were doing here,
traveling this fast.
One of the little things that happened,
I was down in the mess hall.
I was going to get some coffee and
about that time that ship
just went to the Star Bridge and
I run over and hit the bulkhead
and everything and the plates in
the officers quarters fell
on the floor and the radio captain
fell off from the deck.
I'm talking about it nearly swamped that thing.
Captain called up the bridge and
I learned this after when I went on watch,
learning what happened,
there was officer on deck,
we had an unusual wave and all this.
Come to find out what it was,
we had taken on a new sailor
that never had been aboard ships
and there he was letting him steer.
When we gave the change of course,
he didn't think to give a degree rhetoric.
That little boy,
he gave it about five degree rhetoric,
traveling to 30 knots and it just swamped it.
Anyway, that's what really happened.
But then we got to Tinian,
that's where we took this box.
Still didn't know what it was,
and we delivered that
and they picked it up off the ship.
They put it in a floater net type thing
that had cargo in it.
Put the box in it and just as it was going up
and started over to this other ship
that we were transferring it to,
some of that netting broke.
We thought it was going to fall off.
We didn't know.
If it would have been toilet paper, it'd float.
It didn't fall so they got it on board this barge,
little ship and then they went on in there,
to the Island of Tinian.
[Clarence Bryk] You saw the whole loading and unloading?
[Lowell Dean Cox] Yeah, saw the loading and unloading.
I don't know whether the captain knew or not.
[Clarence Bryk] They told you it was important?
[Lowell Dean Cox] Yeah. What we learned later was
that they had taken a container,
a smaller container,
five-gallon bucket size maybe a little larger.
Two Marines had taken it up and welded it
to the deck of this Admiral. (inaudible) .
That was the annoying part.
[Clarence Bryk] Is that (inaudible)
[Lowell Dean Cox] Of course, we didn't know that
until later on.
We also didn't know,
they said they didn't even know it would work.
The bomb in New Mexico hadn't been set off,
until we were already underneath
the Golden Gate Bridge on our run.
[Clarence Bryk] It was on its way and they didn't know.
[Lowell Dean Cox] They didn't know but it worked.
[Clarence Bryk] Was there a lot of important people around
with civilian suits on and stuff,
did you see any of them?
[Lowell Dean Cox] Aboard, off in the shore, yeah,
there were a lot of people standing around
but we thought, well,
it's probably somebody standing (inaudible) .
But we didn't have anybody come aboard,
civilian maybe one or two.
[Clarence Bryk] (inaudible) .
[Lowell Dean Cox] Yeah, Actually, well, before.
I didn't see that I heard about it.
[Clarence Bryk] Did they (inaudible) or something
or they just welded the bottom.
[Lowell Dean Cox] They just welded at the bottom,
the way I understood it.
[Clarence Bryk] (inaudible).
[Lowell Dean Cox] Either way, we delivered the bomb and
went back to Guam overnight,
took on supplies,
then we headed to the Philippines.
We were due to join the Idaho battle wagons
and prepare for the landing of the invasion of
Japan that was coming up.
Our captain asked for an escort.
We had no sonar equipment.
We couldn't tell, it could have been
ten subs under us and we never would have known this.
But they didn't have anything to stand with us.
Also they forgot to tell us that we
had the USS army here five days
before had been sunk on the same route.
[Clarence Bryk] (inaudible)
[Lowell Dean Cox] They should have told the captain
that to be aware, that it's dangerous.
They should have given us an escort.
[Clarence Bryk] Now the controversy really grows wild.
Didn't they accuse you also of not zigzagging?
[Lowell Dean Cox] Oh yes, you see and what happened was.
[Clarence Bryk] Do tell us about that.
That's critical because you were there.
[Lowell Dean Cox] I believe it was the second night out,
I had midnight watch. I went on duty.
[Clarence Bryk] (inaudible).
[Lowell Dean Cox] No, I was on the bridge.
[Clarence Bryk] You were on the bridge so you were not as
high as the guy up there.
[Lowell Dean Cox] No, I looked down below
about 30 feet below the horizon (inaudible)
[Clarence Bryk] Yeah.
[Lowell Dean Cox] I was getting to that night
beyond the engine rooms' phones,
I wasn't steering but I was standing by the hand,
and of course, what you have is an officer of the deck,
if he wants more speed or less speed in the engine room,
that's my job to relay the message.
Then we had another one on the other side of the hand.
[Clarence Bryk] You were the other guy back here, that says
all forward so much,
you're the guy on the phone.
[Lowell Dean Cox] Yeah.
[Clarence Bryk] Calling downstairs.
[Lowell Dean Cox] Yeah.
[Clarence Bryk] Saying all forward full or that.
[Lowell Dean Cox] Yeah that's it.
[Clarence Bryk] Also you identify with these movies?
[Lowell Dean Cox] Right.
[Clarence Bryk] Did they do it like the movies?
[Lowell Dean Cox] We had things that hung around our neck.
We didn't have to have our hands used,
it was the microphone that we match-button and
give the order and then release it and
then we'd hear back from the engineer.
[Clarence Bryk] (inaudible).
[Lowell Dean Cox] Yeah.
[Clarence Bryk] Okay.
[Lowell Dean Cox] But the other man that was on the
other side of the house would be the one to the lookout.
He was supposed to periodically hear what was going on,
as far as you look out.
The Captain, retired early,
I say early,
I don't know for sure, but before midnight.
He left the man in charge,
Officer of the deck and told him if there's
any changes to wake him up.
He stayed up in
the little cubicle up
on the bridge, right after the bridge.
That's where the captain had a bunk,
where he stayed sometimes and that's where he slept.
It was dark as pit,
I'm talking about distant black as pit,
no moon until got up there and every
now and then there was a break in
the clouds and you could see,
the moon was bright we could see.
At that time, we'd quit zigzagging
because when the Captain retired,
it was so dark and all and
we were traveling probably 17 knots,
which a submarine would have to lay in
late first because we're too fast, they couldn't move.
[Clarence Bryk] He's underwater, he's no moving that fast.
[Lowell Dean Cox] Right. What happened was
and there's been lots of books and articles written,
and one magazine said,
the moon sunk the USS Indianapolis.
In reality, I guess it did,
because this submarine was on top of the water
and looked back several miles
into where the moon was
and it was reflecting off the water.
[Clarence Bryk] (inaudible).
[Lowell Dean Cox] He saw the reflection.
[Clarence Bryk] You weren't zigzagging?
[Lowell Dean Cox] No. Of course by then,
there was very little
(inaudible) given to zigzag any away,
and it was strictly by
the order or the discretion of the Captain.
It was not a standing order.
[Clarence Bryk] It wasn't an automatic.
[Lowell Dean Cox] No. When the Captain retired and he had all of
the ship open because we'd been on
a speed run and it was so hot,
that ship was hot and he opened up
everything so we can get air in and then sleep better.
I went up, started to take the phones over,
and at that time,
an explosion went off and I went up in the air
probably five feet and came down on my stomach,
looked up and started to get up and there
was water and debris and fire.
[Clarence Bryk] It's a (inaudible) pretty much or?
[Lowell Dean Cox] Well, the first one knocked off
about 60 feet of the (inaudible).
[Clarence Bryk] Really?
[Lowell Dean Cox] We had two torpedoes hit us.
Just as I was seeing all this happened
and starting to get up, another one hit,
and I did the (inaudible) out there again,
and it hit mid ships and hit the ammunition store.
It blew everything plump up in that ship.
Well, it blew hard enough,
jolted the captain out of his bunk.
[Clarence Bryk] Yeah, I imagine.
[Lowell Dean Cox] He had his pajamas on and came out on
the bridge wondering what was wrong
and the officer of the deck,
he'd asked to contact the lookouts and the engineers,
although couldn't get either one,
power was dead, it didn't reach.
You would think that we'd just be sitting there,
but the engine room never
lets off power off power
until they have a command to do it,
and it just kept going and we were still plowing ahead,
taking in millions of gallons of water in left side.
Front end of the ship gone.
[Clarence Bryk] But the motors are running?
[Lowell Dean Cox] Motors are running. We couldn't.
[Clarence Bryk] (inaudible).
[Lowell Dean Cox] That's it.
[Clarence Bryk] They had no idea whether
equipment of the ship made all that noise.
[Lowell Dean Cox] Oh, yeah. I don't know
what they thought in that the engine room but you got to
remember that that ship was
two football fields long, 610 feet.
That's a big gap.
[Clarence Bryk] Sixty feet off.
[Lowell Dean Cox] That's two blocks. Yeah.
Anyway, they asked the Captain to call for
the fire control officer to
check and he went down and
in two or three minutes he ran back up to say,
captain, I can't get to the engines room, said,
we're burning all below,
there's fire down there.
He said, there's no way to get to them.
Well, the captain was reluctant to abandon ship,
so asked the fire control man to go back
and check again.
This time, by the time
the fire control officer got back towards the bridge,
we were on such a list he's having to hold to stand up,
and you can nearly walk down
the smokestack on that thing.
We were getting sunk in 12 minutes
from the time we were hit.
You can imagine how fast we were sinking.
He controlled us.
He said, captain,
I recommend abandon ship, we're sinking.
Well, the Captain
told all of us on the bridge, well, first,
when he came out on the bridge,
the first time in his pajamas,
then he grabbed his pants and his shirt.
Somebody said get to captain a life preserver.
Well, I knew where they were and we
had some brand new tea pots,
(inaudible) we call them,
and I knew where they were hanging.
I went to get the Captain and
two or three other preservers,
including one from the sale,
put it on, the Captain would get his Captains' on,
and by this time were the captain said
we go down to the main deck
and pass the order to abandoned ship.
We were one deck above the main deck
whenever he said pass the word to abandoned ship.
I was right behind him,
and I had read stories and
heard about captain going down with the ship.
[Clarence Bryk] Yeah.
[Lowell Dean Cox] I didn't want any part of that.
I thought I'd better follow orders,
he said abandon ship and that's what I did.
I worked my way pulling myself up to
the high side of the ship, to the port side.
It was listing laying down so
that I couldn't jump into the water.
[Clarence Bryk] You'd jump down on the ship.
[Lowell Dean Cox] I'd to jump down and hit the ship.
What I did, there was a hook that had
held some gas it was a steel hook and I reached over,
grabbed that hook and then swung
as hard as far as I could,
and I missed the
second and the first deck and hit the whole of the ship,
and then bounced in the water,
which is probably 40 to 60 feet.
Didn't break anything when I hit the whole, went down,
had my mouth open as usual,
came up and I've drunk a bunch of oil and salt water.
[Clarence Bryk] Oh, God.
[Lowell Dean Cox] Well, first thing I thought of is my navy cap, lost it.
I don't know how far down under I went
but I went considerable ways.
Came up and then I started to swim away from the ship as
hard as I could because of the suction on those ships.
[Clarence Bryk] The other section (inaudible).