An instant later, a rising babble of voices in the secondary station
prompted Nightingale to call for silence. No sooner had the tense quiet
settled in when, suddenly, a terrible explosion shook the ship, as a
second 800-kilogram bomb--dropped by a Kate from _Hiryu_--penetrated
the deck near Turret II and set off _Arizona_’s forward magazines. An
instant after the terrible fireball mushroomed upward, Nightingale
looked out and saw a mass of flames forward of the mainmast, and much
in the tradition of Private William Anthony of the _Maine_ reported
that the ship was afire.[A] “We’d might as well go below,” Major
Shapley said, looking around, “we’re no good here.” Sergeant Baker
started down the ladder. Nightingale, the last man out, followed
Shapley down the port side of the mast, the railings hot to the touch
as they made their way below.
[A] Private Anthony, an instant after the explosion mortally
damaged the battleship _Maine_ in Havana harbor on 15
February 1898, made his way to the captain’s cabin, where
he encountered that officer in the passageway outside.
Drawing himself to attention, Anthony reported that the
ship was sinking.
Baker had just reached the searchlight platform when he heard someone
shout: “You can’t use the ladder.” Private First Class Kenneth D.
Goodman, hearing that and apparently assuming (incorrectly, as it
turned out) that the ladder down was indeed unusable, instinctively
leapt in desperation to the crown of Turret III. Miraculously, he made
the jump with only a slight ankle injury. Shapley, Nightingale, and
Baker, however, among others, stayed on the ladder and reached the boat
deck, only to find it a mass of wreckage and fire, with the bodies
of the slain lying thick upon it. Badly charred men staggered to the
quarterdeck. Some reached it only to collapse and never rise. Among
them was Corporal Bond, burned nearly black, who had been ordering his
crew to train out no. 9 5-inch/51 at the outset of the battle; sadly,
he would not survive his wounds.
Shapley and Corporal Nightingale made their way across the ship
between Turret III and Turret IV, where Shapley stopped to talk with
Lieutenant Commander Samuel G. Fuqua, _Arizona_’s first lieutenant and,
by that point, the ship’s senior officer on board. Fuqua, who appeared
“exceptionally calm,” as he helped men over the side, listened as
Shapley told him that it appeared that a bomb had gone down the stack
and triggered the explosion that doomed the ship. Since fighting the
massive fires consuming the ship was a hopeless task, Fuqua told the
Marine that he had ordered _Arizona_ abandoned. Fuqua, the first man
Sergeant Baker encountered on the quarterdeck, proved an inspiration.
“His calmness gave me courage,” Baker later declared, “and I looked
around to see if I could help.” Fuqua, however, ordered him over the
side, too. Baker complied.
Shapley and Nightingale, meanwhile, reached the mooring quay alongside
which _Arizona_ lay when an explosion blew them into the water.
Nightingale started swimming for a pipeline 150 feet away but soon
found that his ebbing strength would not permit him to reach it.
Shapley, seeing the enlisted man’s distress, swam over and grasped
his shirt front, and told him to hang onto his shoulders. The strain
of swimming with Nightingale, however, proved too much for even the
athletic Shapley, who began to experience difficulties himself. Seeing
his former detachment commander foundering, Nightingale loosened his
grip on his shoulders and told him to go the rest of the way alone.
Shapley stopped, however, and firmly grabbed him by the shirt; he
refused to let go. “I would have drowned,” Nightingale later recounted,
“but for the Major.” Sergeant Baker had seen their travail, but, too
far away to help, made it to Ford Island alone.
Several bombs, meanwhile, fell close aboard _Nevada_, moored astern of
_Arizona_, which had begun to hemorrhage fuel from ruptured tanks. Fire
spread to the oil that lay thick upon the water, threatening _Nevada_.
As the latter counterflooded to correct the list, her acting commanding
officer, Lieutenant Commander Francis J. Thomas, USNR, decided that his
ship had to get underway “to avoid further danger due to proximity of
_Arizona_.” After receiving a signal from the yard tower to stand out
of the harbor, _Nevada_ singled up her lines at 0820. She began moving
from her berth 20 minutes later.
[Illustration: