I Saw This Plane Flying in Low. . . .
December 7, 1941.
When the attack ended, the Nevada had lost 50 officers and crewmen and it sat beached and swamped at the side of Pearl Harbor's channel. Still, she had come through in far better shape than other battleships that had sat like ducks off Ford Island. More than 1,100 sailors perished in the massive explosion aboard the Arizona. The Oklahoma lay on its side and both the California and West Virginia were sunk. Across Oahu, the death count would reach 2,390. Blair at last received permission to come up onto the main deck at the rear of the Nevada. There, the 21-year-old petty officer gulped the fresh air and got a taste of what had happened that morning. "I could see blood all over the deck," he said. He came upon pallets waiting to be moved off the grounded ship. They were loaded with bodies and pieces of bodies.John Ford's December 7.