"That was the day. Total devastation, total amazement, dazed. But we were doing our job. We had to do our job, didn’t think beyond just that." (Audio interview, 25:15)

Norwood Teague

War: World War, 1939-1945 Branch: Navy Unit: USS Tennessee Service Location: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii; San Francisco, California; Seattle, Washington; Newport News, Virginia Rank: Ensign Place of Birth: NC

Commissioned as an ensign in the Navy in 1940 and assigned to the battleship USS Tennessee, Norwood Teague found himself in the thick of the action on December 7th. Surrounded by fires burning on the USS West Virginia and the USS Arizona, he was ordered to the second deck of the Tennessee to investigate conditions; he found it so hot that the paint was smoldering, giving off waves of thick, toxic smoke. Here, he gives an intensely detailed account of the attack as he experienced it: amidst the chaos of Battleship Row.