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USS Portland

Sailor:

Roger A Hargraves EM2C

 

 

I guess my three scariest watches during General Quarters is all I could add to the thorough narrative of the ships battle stars in the accompanying piece. My first was on the searchlight deck as the electrician in case of searchlight an electrical malfunction. Two seaman manned the searchlight and were given instructions to aim the light at the pilot of the airplane attempting a Kamikaze attack
on our ship blinding the pilots vision. We were never hit, had a couple of near misses. My other General Quarters station was in aft steering. That
happens to be as far aft and as far down in the ship as one can get. It was
here that some men were sealed in to die with no escape during the battle of
the Coral Sea where the ships rudder was badly

 

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