USS Oklahoma remembered
Ship's veterans praise exhibit

Garlen Eslick doesn't need a museum to remind him of Dec. 7, 1941, but he's pleased the Oklahoma History Center is here for members of younger generations who do.

That bloody day, 429 men died on the battleship USS Oklahoma. Eslick, originally from Bristow, and another man were preparing food when bullets pierced the ship, killing the other man.

"It splattered blood all over me, Eslick, 83, said of the Pearl Harbor attack. "You don't forget that.

The next day, the United States declared war on Japan and officially entered World War II.

Twenty-seven USS Oklahoma survivors were honored Friday as part of a preview into the USS Oklahoma Exhibit at the Oklahoma History Center, which opens today.

Eslick said as the Oklahoma capsized, he bumped his head and was knocked unconscious.

He was trapped with about a dozen other men in the submerged vessel. They waited in waist-deep water for 28 hours.

"I know that Oklahoma has overdone themselves when they built this, Eslick said of the exhibit and the history center. "It shows they are for veterans.

Posing with ship model At the ceremony, veterans wearing USS Oklahoma hats, pins and shirts took pictures with each other, hugged, laughed and cried while about 175 friends, family and admirers watched. They looked at old pictures tucked in scrapbooks and posed with a model of the battleship. Some even wore old uniforms. Paul Goodyear, 87, of Arizona said the crew needs each other now as much as they did during the attack. "We were a damn good crew back then and we're still a damn good crew, he said.

Goodyear was on the ship when he saw several planes approaching. Although he saw a bomb drop, it was not unusual for Americans to drop extra explosives before landing. Then another plane dropped a bomb. And another. They came closer and closer until U.S. ships were struck.

Goodyear jumped into the water and swam to another ship, from which he was rescued. "All of a sudden, I noticed white spots, he said. "They were bullets hitting the side of the ship.

The men said there were other heroic acts deserving remembrance, like Wes Potts and another man rescuing about 200 sailors.

When the bombs and torpedoes struck, the 85-year-old Colorado man said, he and another sailor commandeered a life raft and cruised through flaming water.

When Potts talks, he doesn't seem comfortable saying he actually prevented death. "Some of them would have (died), some of them wouldn't, he said.

Those heroics need a spot in Americans' memories, said Max Essery, an 87-year-old USS Oklahoma veteran from Iowa. He called the new museum beautiful and said many residents need to visit it. "They need their memory jogged, he said. "That (heroism) is why we're not speaking Japanese or German.

Archive ID: 2799142