Remembering the 'Okie'

Sixty-six years ago, Paul Goodyear had to run to save his own life.

A Petty Officer Third Class assigned to the USS Oklahoma, Goodyear had enlisted in the Signal Corps, believing that, after four months worth of training, he would return to a civilian life.

“When the training ended, they wanted me to sign a request for a year’s sea duty,” he said.

Shortly thereafter, Goodyear found himself stationed at the Pearl Harbor Naval Base in Hawaii.

And on this particular Sunday — Dec. 7, 1941 — the job was easy.

At Pearl Harbor, Sundays usually were.

Sure, the miliary brass was concerned: In 1937 China and Japan had locked horns and two years later, Hitler had invaded Poland. But so far, the United States had stayed neutral.

And even though then-President Franklin Roosevelt had signed the Lend-Lease act in March of 1941, American soldiers had seen little conflict.

But the country was on high alert.

“We knew before long we were gonna get involved in that deal in Europe,” Goodyear said. “It was gonna happen.”

Still, if he was going to serve, then being stationed at the Pearl Harbor Naval Base “was paradise.”

“We were certainly enjoying Honolulu,” he said.



Day of infamy

Sunday morning started slow.

“I began (that) Sunday morning with only the activities of a secretary,” he said. “We were there, just kind of walking around the signal bridge trying to look and locate what ships were in.”

With several battleships safely in port, Goodyear and his colleagues spent most of their time looking at a beautiful blue Hawaiian sky and relaying messages back and forth between officers.

“In port, all of our responsibilities were to make sure Ensign So-and-so made his connection with Lt. So-and-so for a tennis game,” he said. “That was our main obligation on the morning of Dec. 7.”

Just before 8 a.m. all hell would break loose.

From his perch atop the Oklahoma’s signal bridge, Goodyear began to watch a small, single engine airplane about a mile-and-a-half away.

“That first one dropped a bomb, but that didn’t set off any alarms,” he said.

Since the Oklahoma was anchored next to a naval station, many small U.S. planes came and went. And for those planes practicing their bombing runs, the island was the perfect spot to drop that remaining practice bomb which wasn’t used.

“If they went off and, for some reason, didn’t expend their practice bombs, then rather than land with the bomb strapped to the fuselage of those little planes, they just dropped them on the little island,” he said. “Then the practice bombs were recycled.”

The scene, Goodyear said, seemed perfectly normal.“We just thought it was our guys.”

Paul Goodyear was wrong. It wasn’t a practice run. And the small planes weren’t American.

“When the third plane dropped its bomb, we saw the wheels, they were retractable,” he said. “Then we saw the mushroom cloud.”

At that point, Goodyear said something that he, later, wished he’d copyrighted.

“I said, ‘it’s the goddamn Japs.”

By the time he’d completed that expression, Goodyear watched the first of several Japanese torpedos speed through the water.

“The first torpedo was headed right at us. I said, ‘hang on, here comes the fish.’”

Those fish killed the USS Oklahoma.

“About eight or nine of ‘em hit us,” he said. “The torpedos obliterated about 250 feet of the port side of the ship; water came pouring in there.”

The damage was extensive, he said, because the Oklahoma had been preparing for an admiral inspection and all of its watertight compartments were open.

“We weren’t a watertight ship. We were an eggshell.”

About 11 minutes later, the once proud USS Oklahoma would roll on her belly, going from straight up to 151 degrees down.

“Many of our men were trapped inside,” he said. “Most of them were running to get to their battle stations.”

About one third of them never made it.

Of the Oklahoma’s 1,200 member crew, 429 died.

“The Oklahoma sailors were trapped in pitch black,” Goodyear said.

“You can’t imagine how pitch black it was. And at some point in time, realization sets in — there ain’t no way out.”



Looking back

For Goodyear, the trauma was almost unthinkable.

“Can you imagine the fear you’d have if you were in that position, and you know that every breath you took, every breath that every occupant of that compartment took just shortened your own life?”

Before the morning was over, more than 4,000 soldiers would die.

On the USS Arizona, 1,177 were killed mercifully, Goodyear said. “They had no pain, no trauma. They were just vaporized.”

The attack would devastate the Navy. Of the ships in Pearl Harbor, five were destroyed — the USS Arizona, the USS Oklahoma, USS Utah, the USS Cassin and the USS Downs; 13 other ships were damaged.

Yet, somehow, Goodyear survived.

“When the Oklahoma started to roll we just decided that discretion was the better part of valor and ran down the ladder to the deck below,” Goodyear said.

After returning back to the signal bridge to grab a secret signal code book, Goodyear, still riding the Oklahoma as it rolled, dropped into the sea and swam toward the USS Maryland.

“When I got there, they threw me a weighted rope,” he said. “I reached up with my right arm and grabbed it on my wrist.”

As he was being pulled out of the water, bullets flew overhead.

“I looked up and saw white spots appearing inches above my head. I realized that was not what I wanted up there and immediately dropped back into the water.”

Eventually Goodyear would make it onto the Maryland and, he said, return all the marine fuel he’d swallowed.

But the fight would continue.

The United States would quickly enter the war.

And the world would change, again, for Paul Goodyear.

Today

At 89, Paul Goodyear is spry, engaging and easy to talk with.

His knowledge of his place in history is deep and he enjoys answering questions.

Speaking recently at the Cleveland County Republicans’ noon luncheon, Goodyear talked reverently about those soldiers who died on his ship, the “Okie.”

“Those soldiers, all 429, made the ultimate sacrifice,” he said. “And I believe, because of the way they died, their sacrifice was great. That’s why we’re going to dedicate a monument out there. That’s what we’re trying to do now.”

This year, Goodyear has traveled across the country to raise money and support for a memorial to the USS Oklahoma and the 429 men who died there.

“This memorial isn’t about us. This is about our 429 shipmates,” he told the Oklahoma State Senate in November 2006.

“The boys on the Arizona died instantly — they never even knew what was happening, but on the Oklahoma, they had a horrific death, drowning in dark compartments before they could be rescued,” Goodyear said. “It isn’t right that they had to go that way, and it isn’t right that we’ve had to deal with so much red-tape and federal bureaucracy just to get this far — but I’m grateful we’re finally on the verge of getting this memorial completed while some of us are still alive to see it.”



Going back

Two years after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Paul Goodyear went back. He returned to the Oklahoma — now salvaged and in dry dock — because he wanted to retrieve some personal items.

“I wanted to go over there and get my girlfriend’s wedding ring and the $130 I’d left on the ship.”

Stepping around the crew working on the former battleship, Goodyear borrowed a flashlight and went below deck.

“It was as pitch black as I’ve ever seen,” he said. “I put my right foot into the compartment and I had the light in my left hand.”

Then, as he moved his other foot, Paul Goodyear stopped.

“That was as far as I could go,” he said.

The deck was covered with bones.

“There were two divisions in that room. I have no idea how many men were trapped in that compartment. Their bones were just piled up there, just commingled together.”

Paul Goodyear never retrieved his ring or money.

But he has worked to return the remains of many a lost USS Oklahoma sailor to their families.

“Just last month the Army finally returned the 39th man, a man from Indiana, to his family,” he said. “He was returned without any use of DNA or dental records. He was returned solely based on the information on his death certificate. We have 27 more Okie sailors in exactly the same condition.”

Sailors that Paul Goodyear has spent a lifetime remembering