ACTIVITY: World War II
CASE: GSAF 1944.10.25.b
DATE: Wednesday October 25, 1944
LOCATION: The south China sea off Samar, Leyte Gulf, Philippines
NAMES: William Clinton Carter, Jr, a gunners mate third class, and other crew men of the
USS Johnston (DD-557).
BACKGROUND
ENVIRONMENT: The 2,100-ton USS Johnston (DD 557) did not survive the battle of
Leyte.
NARRATIVE: The battle began at 06h45 and during the next three hours the USS Johnston
was hit 30 times. At 10h10 the USS Johnston rolled over and began to sink. A Japanese
destroyer came up to 1,000 yards and pumped a final shot into her to make sure she went
down.
Carter was captain of the Johnston’s gun crew, located at the extreme aft of the upper deck.
When it was clear the ship was doomed, men abandoned ship. Only three of the life rafts
survived. The first night survivors endured a 50-knot gale, and the sharks arrived. Of the 42
© Global Shark Accident File, 2003. All rights reserved. This report may not be abridged or
reproduced in any form without written permission of the Global Shark Accident File.
men on the rafts, only 13 were alive 56 hours later when rescuers found them.
INJURIES: Carter sustained numerous bites on his back. One of the men “had a leg
chewed off and he soon died.” Another man was pulled beneath the surface by a shark
“and never came up. This may have been the man in the water alongside Edward Block
who said “a shark got him and pulled him under”.
TREATMENT: Carter was hospitalized 17 days in New Guinea, then was sent home on a
litter.
SPECIES: Not identified.
SOURCE: The Abilene Reporter-News (Abilene, Texas), Friday December 29, 1944
© Global Shark Accident File, 2003. All rights reserved. This report may not be abridged or
reproduced in any form without written permission of the Global Shark Accident File.
© Global Shark Accident File, 2003. All rights reserved. This report may not be abridged or
reproduced in any form without written permission of the Global Shark Accident File.
Edward Block easily could have been one of the 2,400
American servicemen and women killed Dec. 7, 1941,
when Japanese forces bombed Pearl Harbor. Block, then a
22-year-old barber serving aboard the USS Medusa, said
his ship had been ordered to move the day before the
surprise attack that devastated much of America’s Pacific
fleet. “The berth we occupied the night before then had
another ship there that sunk,” recalled Block, 93. “They
moved us off to the point of Pearl City. That part wasn’t hit
as hard.”
La Grange area resident Edward Block,
Working as a barber since he enlisted in February 1940
93, talks about surviving Pearl Harbor
had its privileges, Block remembered, especially sleeping
in on Sundays. He had been stationed in Hawaii for nearly
a year, after completing training at the Naval Station Great Lakes. “I was asleep on the morning
of Dec. 7, and had the porthole open for air when I heard this noise going off,” he said. “Bombs
were going off on Ford Island. Planes were being blown up.” The Medusa was tied up on the
northwest side of Ford Island, which had an airfield in the center loaded with planes. On the
island’s southeast side was Battleship Row, where seven of eight battleships were sunk or
heavily damaged, beginning at 7:48 a.m. “You can’t imagine what a mess they made of Ford
Island and how fast they made it,” Block said. “I could feel the force and the heat of the
explosions.” The waters were churning beneath the Medusa and the USS Curtiss, a seaplane
tender, next door, Block remembered.
“Bombs were being dropped off the bow and then off the stern,” he said. “The ship rocked. After
we moved, I saw the Curtiss. She took a number of hits but wasn’t sunk. “I saw the airplane that
hit the Curtiss. After it hit the ship’s superstructure, it just kind of crumbled.” After about two
hours, the attack subsided, but not before the Medusa’s crew shot down four Japanese planes
and played a role in destroying a submarine that fired torpedoes at the Curtiss, according to the
commanding officer’s report.
“It took days for the fires to be brought under control,” Block said. The Medusa aided in rescue
operations and helped to salvage ships, an effort that continued for many months. Block said he
often wondered why military and political leaders didn’t know about the attack. “Just after the
bombs started, it looked a sham battle,” he said. “But I told the three guys with me, ‘Oh God, no.
It’s a war.’”
Block later was transferred to the USS Johnston, a destroyer involved in four Pacific invasions,
which were far more harrowing, he said. He nearly didn’t survive the Battle of Samar, where the
Johnston encountered a major contingent of the Japanese fleet attempting to halt the Allies’
invasion of the Philippines off the Leyte Gulf on Oct. 25, 1944. “Our ship got hit on the port side of
the bridge, and it blew me approximately 20 to 25 feet across the bridge,” he said, holding his
right shoulder. “I was laying on the deck when I heard someone say, ‘Block is alive, but
unconscious.’” Block remembered being helped downstairs to a mattress on the floor of the
officers’ quarters. As he rested, an 8-inch shell came through the ship’s bulkhead and exploded
nearby.
After he woke up again, someone gave him morphine for the pain and helped him get off the ship.
“As I drifted away, I came to a buoy. There was a man alongside of me who screamed,”
Block said. “A shark got him and pulled him under.”
© Global Shark Accident File, 2003. All rights reserved. This report may not be abridged or
reproduced in any form without written permission of the Global Shark Accident File.
Tamara Bell~Sun-Times Media
Pearl Harbor survivor recalls two close calls
Block said he made his way through the water to a rubber raft with another man aboard. “I got
into the life raft and spent 57 hours in the water,” he recalled. “A gun ship used a platform to bring
me up. I couldn’t climb up the ladder.”
Block spent the following 18 months undergoing reconstructive surgeries to repair his right
shoulder, left shoulder, part of his face and left elbow. He was awarded the Purple Heart on April
12, 1945.
Despite his shoulder injuries, Block worked again as a barber and also at a machine shop and at
Western Electric Co., where he met his wife, Irene. The couple married in 1946 and had a
daughter, Sharon, and a son, Ed, before moving to Countryside in 1962.
Block will be the guest of honor at a special Pearl Harbor observance at 7 p.m. Dec. 7 at the
Robert E. Coulter, Jr., American Legion Post 1941, 900 S. La Grange Road, in La Grange.
A member of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association, Block said there aren’t many members in
the Illinois chapter. “Just seven or eight of us left,” he said.
SOURCE: Jane Michaels [email protected], The Doings Weekly, November 23, 2011,
http://burrridge.suntimes.com/news/9010486-418/pearl-harbor-survivor-recalls-two-close-calls.html
Survivors of WWII's Leyte Gulf gather in SC
NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. — Almost seven
decades after the largest naval battle in
American history, a Utahn is among a handful
of aging veterans of the Battle of Leyte Gulf
who gathered Monday recalling the sinking of
their destroyers and the harrowing 52 hours
they spent in shark-infested waters without food
or water, praying for rescue.
Five survivors are attending this week's reunion
of the USS Johnston-Hoel Association. They
are among eight remaining survivors from the
two destroyers lost when they attacked a far
stronger Japanese force in October 1944 to
help cover the escape of six American escort
carriers in the Philippines.
The destroyers took on a Japanese task force
of 23 vessels, including four battleships.
John Oracz, 86, of Grand Rapids, Mich., who
served on the Hoel, said started it all started
Glenn Parkin, in wheelchair, of North Salt Lake,
unexpectedly. He was going to breakfast when
lived through the 1944 Battle of Leyte Gulf.
a star shell landed behind the ship. "I said
'Where the hell did that come from?" The next thing I realized there were salvos all around us. I
couldn't see any battleship or anything. They were 22 miles away over the horizon," he recalled.
© Global Shark Accident File, 2003. All rights reserved. This report may not be abridged or
reproduced in any form without written permission of the Global Shark Accident File.
When the order came for the crew of the sinking Johnston to abandon ship, Dusty Rhodes, 87, of
Winfield Kan., recalled helping get a float net over the side. The large net helped those who
abandoned ship stay afloat until they could be rescued. It wasn't until years later, at a reunion, that
he finally met the sailor who helped him get the net down. Without that net, Rhodes doubts he
would have survived.
The Hoel lost 252 crewmen while 89 survived the battle and ensuing ordeal. A total of 152 from
the Johnston were lost while 144 survived. "It never really occurred to me that we wouldn't be
picked up," said 86-year-old Larry Morris of Harrodsburg, Ky., who was aboard the Hoel. "But in
spite of that feeling, later when it developed we were picked up by accident, then I got scared."
There was no immediate search for American survivors because of worries that Japanese vessels
still controlled the waters in the area. "What made it bad was when a man would die there was
nothing you could do to help him," said Glenn Parkin, 89, as he fought back tears. "You
would take off their dog tags and they would float 3 or maybe 5 feet and then the sharks
would get to them," said Parkin, of North Salt Lake. George Miller, of Taylorsville, N.C., said
the group he was with would let the dead go at night to spare the agony of seeking sharks
take their comrades. "What was in our minds most of the time was that could be me," Morris
said. But none of the five survivors said they ever gave up hope they would be rescued. "I had a
rosary in my pocket and I was keeping up with that all the time," Oracz said.
The association plans to keep meeting, despite its dwindling numbers. The group is already
planning a 2012 reunion in the Midwest. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs estimates that
an average of 737 World War II vets die each day.
On Tuesday, the survivors and about 35 family members and friends attended a memorial service
at the chapel of The Citadel military academy.
SOURCE: Bruce Smith, Associated Press, Deseret News, Friday, Oct. 28, 2011,
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700192703/Survivors-of-WWIIs-Leyte-Gulf-gather-in-SC.html
© Global Shark Accident File, 2003. All rights reserved. This report may not be abridged or
reproduced in any form without written permission of the Global Shark Accident File.