Pearl Harbor
7 December, 1941
As the list increased and the oily, wet decks made even standing up a chore, Oklahoma’s acting commanding officer ordered her abandoned to save as many lives as possible. Directed to leave over the starboard side, away from the direction of the roll, most of Oklahoma’s men managed to get off, to be picked up by boats arriving to rescue survivors. Sergeant Thomas E. Hailey, and Privates First Class Marlin “S” Seale and James H. Curran, Jr., swam to the nearby Maryland. Hailey and Seale turned to the task of rescuing shipmates, Seale remaining on Maryland’s blister ledge throughout the attack, pulling men from the water. Later, although inexperienced with that type of weapon, Hailey and Curran manned Maryland’s antiaircraft guns. West Virginia rescued Privates George B. Bierman and Carl R. McPherson, who not only helped rescue others from the water but also helped to fight that battleship’s fires.
National Archives Photo 80-G-32549
Along Battleship Row, beneath a pall of smoke from the burning Arizona (BB-39) lies Maryland (BB-46), her 5-inch/25 antiaircraft battery bristling. Oklahoma (BB-37) lies “turned turtle,” capsized, at right. This view shows the distance “Okie” survivors swam to the inboard battleship, where they manned antiaircraft batteries and rescued their shipmates.
Sergeant Woodrow A. Polk, a bomb fragment in his left hip, sprained his right ankle in abandoning ship, while someone clambered into a launch over Sergeant Leo G. Wears and nearly drowned him in the process. Gunnery Sergeant Norman L. Currier stepped from Oklahoma’s red hull to a boat, dry-shod. Wears—as Hailey and Curran—soon found a short-handed antiaircraft gun on Maryland’s boat deck and helped pass ammunition. Private First Class Arthur J. Bruktenis, whose column in the December 1941 issue of The Leatherneck would be the last to chronicle the peacetime activities of Oklahoma’s Marines, dislocated his left shoulder in the abandonment, but survived.
Naval Historical Center Photo NH 102556
Sgt Thomas E. Hailey, 18 May 1942, one month after he had been awarded the Navy Cross for heroism he exhibited on 7 December 1941 that followed the sinking of the battleship Oklahoma (BB-37).