_Col Alan Shapley, in a post-war photograph taken while serving as an
aide to Adm William F. Halsey, Jr._]
_Oklahoma_, _Nevada_’s sister ship moored inboard of _Maryland_ in
berth F-5, meanwhile manned air-defense stations at about 0757, to
the sound of gunfire. After a junior officer passed the word over
the general announcing system that it was not a drill--providing a
suffix of profanity to underscore the fact--all men not having an
antiaircraft defense station were ordered to lay below the armored
deck. Crews at the 5-inch and 3-inch batteries, meanwhile, opened
ready-use lockers. A heavy shock, followed by a loud explosion, came
soon thereafter as a torpedo slammed home in the battleship’s port
side. The “Okie” soon began listing to port.
Oil and water cascaded over the decks, making them extremely slippery
and silencing the ready-duty machine gun on the forward superstructure.
Two more torpedoes struck home. The massive rent in the ship’s side
rendered the desperate attempts at damage control futile. As Ensign
Paul H. Backus hurried from his room to his battle station on the
signal bridge, he passed his friend Second Lieutenant Harry H. Gaver,
Jr., one of _Oklahoma_’s Marine detachment junior officers, “on his
knees, attempting to close a hatch on the port side, alongside the
barbette [of Turret I] ... part of the trunk which led from the main
deck to the magazines.... There were men trying to come up from below
at the time Harry was trying to close the hatch....” Backus never saw
Gaver again.
[Illustration: Pearl Harbor