Werner Klemm Pearl Harbor Survivor

HOWELL LIBRARY IS AT 314 W. GRAND RIVER AVE. HOWELL MICHIGAN   PROGRAM STARTS AT  7 PM COME EARLY TO SEE MEMORABILIA.   

 

I have interviewed about five men who were at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7th 1041 but Werner gave me the best description of that day’s events that I have ever heard.  Werner was stationed on the USS Dobbin a destroyer tender which was also attacked with the death of several of her ships company (including three of Werners men on his gun) moored only 200 yards from the USS Arizona as well as all of “Battleship Row”.  He tells about when the USS Arizona, USS Oklahoma( capsized or turned Turtle),  USS Shaw  and USS Nevada which was the only ship to get underway that “Day of Infamy” when attacked by Japanese fighters.  Some were sunk, some  horribly damaged and burning.  Werner spent the next five days in a Whale Boat picking up burned and dead sailors  out of the burning water.  He literally did not sleep for the entire five days.  He also took cutting torch’s and other equipment to the USS Oklahoma which was turned completely over with her keel out of the water.   A lot of men were trapped in the Oklahoma with some taking over a week to die of lack of oxygen, they slowly suffocated while all the time they were tapping on the bulkheads and decks with brass tools so that the men on the outside knew where they were.

 

LIBRARY IS AT 314 W. GRAND RIVER AVE. HOWELL MICHIGAN   PROGRAM STARTS AT  7 PM COME EARLY TO SEE MEMORABILIA.   

Where: Howell Michigan Library

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