"There was so much smoke in the harbor, it just blocked out the sun…" (Audio interview, 10:54)

Richard M. Paull

War: World War, 1939-1945 Branch: Navy Unit: 4th Division, USS Nevada (BB 36); USS St. Louis (CL 49) Service Location: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii; Pacific; Guam (Mariana Islands); Midway; Guadalcanal, and Bougainville Island (Solomon Islands);Okinawa Island (Ryukyu Islands); Great Lakes, Illinois (boot camp); Norfolk, Virginia Rank: Motor Machinist's Mate Second Class Place of Birth: Siam, OH

For Richard Paull, a Motor Machinist’s Mate Second Class on the USS Nevada, the shock of the attack helped him overcome the fear and panic that he might have experienced. Time passed quickly as he pulled wounded soldiers out of the water and wrapped the dead in shrouds made of blankets ripped from ship bunks. Two days later, conditions were still surreal. Finally able to take time to sleep, he found a makeshift barracks: the lanes of a nearby bowling alley.