by Vicki Hyatt
Staff writer, The Enterprise
Mountaineer
The
82-year-old
“A torpedo
hit straight below me,” he recalled. “Then came the
announcement ‘General Quarters. This is no drill.’ That meant to go to your
battle stations.”
For
Fulbright, the battle station included climbing to the highest point on the
ship--a lookout station on the forward mast.
“Nine of use
climbed that ladder. Only two lived,” he said.
Fulbright
and a man from
All nine
sailors made it safely to the tub, but they found they had no ammunition for
the machine gun. Seven left to get it, but never returned, Fulbright said.
“There we
were with no weapons. We couldn’t even throw a spud at them,” he recalled.
The
battleship, which was about half a mile from shore, took steady firing for two
hours and 10 minutes before the abandon ship siren sounded. The ship had taken
so many torpedo hits, it could no longer stay afloat.
Luckily, the crew was able to control the way the ship sank by opening opposing
flood gates, which ensured the ship sank down straight to the bottom, Fulbright
said.
Oil flowed
out of the damaged battleship and the heavy fire turned the water into a blaze.
“Sweetwater
and I decided to just stay where we were and see what happened,” he said.
It was
As if by
fate, a fire boat happened by and put out a patch of fire, allowing Fulbright
and Sweetwater to swim to shore. The crew members on the USS California were
luckier than seamen on other battleships hit that fateful day. About 270 of the
USS California crew members were killed, compared to the USS Arizona which was
blown up and lost most of its members, or the USS Oklahoma, which capsized, he
said.
Fulbright
was shot through his calf at
“The
hospital was full of tore-up people, especially with burns, so I decided not to
bother,” he said. “I found a gallon can of kerosene, and Sweetwater and I
healed it.”
The attack
on
“If they
would have come back, they could have taken out all of us,” Fulbright said.
“The island was full of wounded sailors and we didn’t have so much as a .22
pistol.”
Attack no surprise
Americans
were outraged by the attack on
“It was no
surprise to sailors on the USS California,” he said. “We had been practicing
for weeks and had seen Japanese submarines a week before the hit. We knew it
was coming but didn’t know when. Washington (officials) knew when it was
coming.”
President
Franklin D. Roosevelt knew from British intelligence when
But even if
“If our
fleet would have met them head on, we would have lost,” he said. “Their ships
were superior. We were wide open to attack and there was no place for use to
go. We lost less lives there at
Fulbright’s
next assignment was on a tug boat where his job was to circle the
Fulbright
recalls the battle of
The ship was
only hit badly on one occasion when a suicide plane dove through the deck and
killed one man.
Fulbright
remained on the ship until January 1946, after the war ended.
A naval career
His naval
experience during WWII led Fulbright to stay the course, and he eventually
worked his way up to the rank of commander before retiring with 31 years of
service. He served during three wars, including
“I knew
Hitler was going to cause a world war,” he said. “It was so obvious. I didn’t
want to get drafted into the Army. I wanted three meals a day and a bed at
night. That didn’t happen in the Army or the Marines, either.”
The appeal
of the Navy never waned but once, when he decided to retire after putting in 20
years. He was talked out of the notion with a promotion offer too good to
refuse. Ironically, he ended his naval career also on
Through the
years, Fulbright married three times. His first wife, the mother of his four
children, “turned hippie” on him, he said. His second wife, a Sylva native who
drew him to the mountains of
He met his
current wife, the former Caroline Ensley of Candler, who he calls “Foxy
Granny,” while doing a favor for his cousin.
“I always
had a good time,” he said. “The way I look at it, if you woke up every morning,
the previous day was good.”
[Editor’s note: Thanks to Caroline Fulbright for sending this
article. She writes, “Bob is doing fairly well, he has had more eye surgery
this summer, and some days are better than others for him to see....We will be
moving off the mountain here into