But when he began his ascent, the two sailors told him, “Swede, this ship is only going to go over so far and we’ll be okay.” He yelled to grab their attention and said he and the two mates were coming up. I said, ‘Come on, let’s get out of here.’”Ībove Swede, he saw two sailors getting ready to shut the main hatch. “I went to this ladder leading up to the second (deck) and when I got up there, two of my shipmates were standing there and one was clutching his stomach,” he said. Unable to see from the substance covering his entire surface, he tried to wipe the gunk off his eyes only to realize he was all alone. “It sprung that door and hit a fuel tank and I was completely covered in oil,” he said. Just when he slammed the last dog down on the final door, the Oklahoma took another torpedo. He ran out to the third deck to his battle station and began closing the watertight doors between compartments. All hands man your battle stations,’ there were five of us in the pay office,” Swede said. “I knew everybody and everybody knew Swede,” he said. “My father was in the Swedish navy and he served on four-masted schooners and they were completely armed,” he said.Ībout seven years into his naval service, Swede was assigned to the USS Oklahoma in 1938 and he was aboard the ship for three years before the attack. That was when he pointed at his chest and said, “that was Swede.” Swede said his father had desired and hoped one of his five sons would join the navy just like him. “It took my ship less than 15 minutes to capsize to 151.5 degrees.”īorn Jin Minneapolis, Swede enlisted in the U.S. “These torpedoes were 8-feet-long and packed with 400 pounds of explosives,” he said. The Japanese brought in 143 aircrafts and the Oklahoma took nine torpedoes. “It dropped the first torpedo for our ship,” he said. There, he saw the rising sun symbols on a Japanese “Kate bomber” aircraft when he was running past a porthole. 7, 1941, he went down to the pay office of the USS Oklahoma at 7:15 a.m. Swede was only 21 years old when the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service launched a surprise attack on the American naval base in Hawaii. He is one of the few living veterans today who are survivors of the Battle of Pearl Harbor. Sitting on an armchair in his room with his USS Oklahoma BB-37 hat on, Swede took a long pause to gather his thoughts before he continued retelling his story. Also, the site occasionally loads slowly, but it will load.“I lost 443 of my shipmates,” said retired Navy Chief Warrant Officer 4 Roy “Swede” Boreen. If anyone has trouble with the links, please let me know. What happened to the ship, would be the same as person taking a shotgun blast in their torso at point blank range. This link ( ) is different views after the ship was raised, and there are pictures of when they took her into dry dock where you’ll see the massive damage to her port side. You can click on each photo to view a larger image. The link below will take you to a page on “navsource” that will take through the attack and how the ship was raised (similar to Costa Concordia being righted). Those second round of hits blew out her entire port side, gutted the insides of the ship and the armor belt, which is why the ship was never repaired and sent back to war. But, it wasn’t Hollywood exaggeration, that’s actually what happened. It’s the only movie I’ve seen that does so. The movie “Pearl Harbor” depicts that happening to the ship. As she began to roll over, the Japanese dropped more torpedoes which is why she took several more hits that actually struck her main deck instead of the side of the ship. She likely would have capsized even with only one torpedo hit. It wasn’t just the attack itself that doomed Oklahoma, it was her total lack of water tight integrity. In port, at sea, out of the water in a dry dock, doesn’t matter. Where the ship, no matter where it is always maintains a basic state of water tight integrity at all times main deck and below. One Navy-wide change that came out of Pearl Harbor was something called material condition Yoke. In those days, watertight integrity was not a priority in a home port where the ship was felt to be safe. USS Oklahoma was set for a ship wide inspection by the Captain, so all watertight doors and port holes were open when the attack came in.
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