Jim McGill was kind enough to send me a brief narrative of his father's adventures on December 7, 1941, and with his permission I would like to share part of the story, in Jim's own words.
"Mac" McGill was a 19 year old kid assigned to the communications staff of the USS California. He had been "out with the boys" the previous night and had only gotten a few hours of sleep when he crawled out of bed, grabbed a quick breakfast, and went to the "comm shack" to go on watch. This was a few minutes before 8:00. Within moments, General Quarters sounded and all hands were ordered to their battle stations.
My dad had to wait in the comm shack until relieved and then made his way to his battle station, the powder room about four decks beneath triple turret #2. On his way to his battle station, he passed by the brig area. There was one man behind bars and a Marine sentry on duty. About 30 seconds after he passed that area, a torpedo struck the ship killing the sentry. The man behind bars survived. My dad made it unharmed to the powder room, though the torpedo blast lifted him and threw him the last few steps into that room. The triple turrets were not operating since they had no anti-aircraft role. During normal combat operations, my dad would have been part of a team lifting bags of explosive powder and placing them on a lift that would carry them up into the turret. My dad describes the lift as a massive rotating belt with tines protruding from it. The bags were placed on the tines and the belt carried them upward.
On this day, my dad and his crew mates in that powder room had nothing to do since the big guns were not in use. An order was finally given to abandon ship as she filled with water and began to settle toward the bottom. My dad and his crew mates were not aware of the order. All hatches were dogged down so that lift would be their only path of escape. Thanks to heroic efforts by men topside and tugboats, The California did not heel over like the Oklahoma, but merely settled straight down on the sandy bottom moored only dozens of yards from Ford Island. Her main deck was now approximately at water level.
My dad estimates it was about noon or maybe a little later when the OIC of his band in the powder room, a CPO, finally sent one of the men climbing up the lift to the turret to find out what was happening. The man put word back down that the ship was damaged and appeared abandoned. The chief then ordered his men to abandon ship and one-by-one they climbed up the lift and made their way out onto the main deck and off the ship. My dad was the last one to climb up. He dropped from the turret out onto the main deck by means of an escape hatch. When he tumbled down onto the deck, he found himself surrounded by flames and thick, black smoke that had drifted down from the USS Arizona and was blowing across the deck. He was able to make his way out of that mess and over to the side of the ship nearest Ford island. A huge rope had been used to secure the ship to a large concrete pier in the water between the ship and the island. That rope was one of the reasons the California didn't heel over. My dad climbed down that rope to the pier and then jumped into the water fighting through the burning oil until he hauled himself up onto the island. He was unharmed except for some minor burns. He was quickly reassigned to Admiral Nimitz's communications staff.
He retired from the Navy in 1961 after a 20-year career during which he rose to the rank of Chief Petty Officer. He never saw any other combat action. He married in 1947. I was born, his only child, in 1948. My daughter was born, also an "only", in 1977. Her two sons were born in 2000 and 2008. We are four people who got to be born because a green 19-year-old kid from a Sacramento hop ranch kept his head and survived despite several opportunities to become another tragic Pearl Harbor statistic.
