Dec. 20, 2012
Bob Knight: At one time I started sliding down the deck — this was on the starboard side. The water was coming over the scuppers — in other words the deck was underwater. I’m sliding down and didn’t know what the hell to do. I had my hand up in the air like this. Well they had put up an inside lifeline before it got too rough — just for people to even be able to walk down the deck. As I’m sliding down, the lifeline hit my hand and I grabbed it. If I missed, I’d gone right over the side. Once I grabbed the line and the ship rolled back to level, the guys formed a handline and the last guy grabbed my hand and I was able to get back up. That was just an instant thing that happened, and you don’t think about it then, but you do think about it when you get older and you realize how lucky you were to have gotten out of that one alive.
As the winds and seas abated late in the day on December 19, six ships were unaccounted missing. Later, to everyone’s shock, the men discovered that three destroyers had sunk, taking almost 800 sailors. The ships spent all day and night Dec 20th searching for survivors. Only a handful were found.
steve