[The following is in regards to the return of the American aircraft carrier to Pearl Harbor a day after the infamous sneak attack by Japanese forces during World War II.]
To Scouting Six gunner Don Hoff, the Big E’s return to Pearl was a somber affair. His carrier entered the channel at Pearl Harbor near dusk on December 8 and moored to her usual berth just ahead of the Utah. No brass bands awaited. The men who stood on the flight deck stared in silence at the devastation around them in the falling darkness. As Enterprise approached her berth, Hoff realized there was some resentment that their mighty carrier had not done more to stop the Japanese attackers. He heard a sailor on the dock shout up, “Where were you?”
Ed Anderson was equally stunned by the wreckage at Hickam Field as Enterprise eased into port. He spotted the remains of Ed Deacon’s 6-S-14 Dauntless lying in two feet of water near the entrance to the main channel of Pearl Harbor. The sobering realization of war continued to sink in as his ship passed the twisted steel corpses of battleships, destroyers, and other vessels that were still upside down or largely submerged in many cases. “It was a terribly disheartening sight,” he wrote in his private diary.
Source:
Moore, Stephen L. “I Was Really Upset.” Pacific Payback: The Carrier Aviators Who Avenged Pearl Harbor at the Battle of Midway. NAL Caliber, 2014. 58-9. Print.
Original Source(s) Listed:
Hoff oral history, 13.
Anderson, Edward Rutledge. “War Diary of Edward Rutledge Anderson, RM3/c U.S.N.R., Bombing Squadron Six, USS Enterprise,” 3-4.
Further Reading:
USS Utah (BB-31/AG-16): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Utah_(BB-31)
USS Enterprise (CV-6) / “The Big E”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Enterprise_(CV-6)
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