The attack on Pearl Harbour - Memory book: we were there

It was early on a beautiful Sunday morning, perfect time for a little rowing exercise. I and eight shipmates climbed aboard a Navy whale boat, the kind battleship crews used for recreational rowing competitions. It was tied up next to our battleship, USS Maryland. We were just settling in when the Japanese planes were spotted.
The first planes we saw came right over the ship, and they looked like dive bombers.
Then we saw a black bomb drop, headed for seaplane hangars. Still, we thought it might be a water bomb, the kind often used in training exercises. Then we saw the explosion and the fire, and we thought, 'Oh hell!”
At the same time a Japanese torpedo plane flew over the channel, attacking Battleship Row, and then the strafing started.
We leapt out of the whale boat and raced up to the Maryland . I headed for my battle station.
There were splinters flying and bullets hitting the armor.
I ran into turret two, waking some sailors who had been trying to sleep late.
I was falling over some of them, hollering, getting them up.
A sailor writing a letter up, immediately, threw down his pencil, grabbed some ammo and began firing. He got a plane. It was chaos.
We couldn't do anything. We just heard wild reports.
I and another sailor were sent out to remove canvas from the guns.
I got out there, and I couldn't believe it. It was all just fire and black smoke everywhere.
Ultimately the crew managed to fire all its anti-aircraft batteries.
The battleship USS Oklahoma, moored next to the Maryland, had been badly hit and turned over; sailors had to cut ropes tying the two ships together so the Maryland wouldn't be turned over, as well. During the attack, I wasn't as scared as I was later. That night, we were in such a state of confusion and at about 10 p.m. we heard some planes coming in. I thought, 'Man, this is it.' But they turned out to be our planes. They killed a lot of people. Fleet Hamby

I had just got off midnight watch the morning of Dec. 7. I finished breakfast and headed for my bunk for a little sleep.
It was just about 8 o'clock and guys were standing around yakking and we heard this noise, like bombing. We looked out the porthole and saw four planes coming right at us, strafing us. We just stood there and watched. Nobody realized what was really happening. And then general quarters sounded.
The Rigel was in the Pearl Harbor Navy Yard was without ammunition.
My battle station was in radio room two. I climbed up a ladder towards the room. "I hadn't really thought about what was going on, and then I saw some blood dripping down the ladder, and that scared me.
I arrived at the radio room, where I had worked the night before. There radiomen took down messages received in Morse Code and typed them up.
The second I arrived, I was handed a bunch of typed messages and told to take them to the commanding officer.
That became my job that morning. I ran from the radio room the ship to the quarterdeck, delivered the messages to the captain, who signed them, then ran back to the radio. Most of the time I was out in the open.
It was just a constant go, I don't know how many trips I made. And from where I was, I could see most of the things happening.
I saw the battleships being bombed and torpedoed. I saw USS Oklahoma capsize. He saw USS Arizona ruptured by a massive explosion.
The Arizona just shook and broke in two.There was so much black smoke it almost turned daylight into night. It was just chaos over there. At one point I saw a bomb headed for my ship.
Two bombs struck near the ship, one of them striking just underneath the Rigel.
It exploded underneath and just lifted the whole ship up out of the water Though the Rigel was damaged no one was killed or injured. Jorgen Tweiten