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Phil
Hazard Helps Repair Mighty Battle Wagons
Phil
Hazard writes an interesting letter to his
sister, Mrs. Wm. Putnam, from Pearl Harbor where
he is employed as a mechanic in the ship yards.
Phil says:
I get up at 5:30 every
morning to get to work and I don't feel like
doing anything in the evening but rest, so I
don't get many letters written. You get in a
habit of putting things off her anyway as the
weather is just the same every day and you don't
have the pep you do at home.
I had a swell Thanksgiving
dinner on board a big carrier, turkey and all
the trimmings. We sure enjoyed it, too.
(This letter severely
censored for the next few sentences, telling
where they were as the Japs dove down on the
ship and wrecked their ship next to them.) The
ship sure was a mess. It was caught on the side
and there was a hole big enough to put your
house in. Didn't seem like it could stay afloat,
but it did and we patched her up and she is back
in line again.
Just to give you some
idea of that ship, if she was set on Main Street
in Chamberlain, her bow would be at the Taft
Hotel and her stern at the Mussman. You could
walk from her flight deck onto the highest
building on the street and the control
island would be that much higher. She was big,
but not the biggest we see come in here.
We cut 60 feet off the bow of
one "battle wagon" and made a new one and had
her back in the fight seven weeks after her
arrival. It was one that had been raised from
the bottom. We have all but two back in use so
we haven't done so bad. The Japs didn't know or
were too dumb to follow up that raid or it would
have been too bad for us.
There was a blackout and an
alert alarm (censored) night when bombers
were like a bunch of bees all over the sky.
There was plenty of shooting. It was a great
sight to see at night, the shells breaking like
stars and the shake of the guns sure feels
funny. We took to the air raid shelters and
stayed there for a while.
Phil writes Mrs. Putnam
that he has been trying to purchase something
and send it back home to her, but that the
servicemen have cleaned out everything . He
says he was in a Chinese place looking at a
tablecloth and napkins he thought she might
like and he asked the price, which was
$179.50. He thinks maybe after the Christmas
rush is over he can pick up a suitable
present.
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