John H. McGoran Many of the beleaguered seamen in Battleship Row struggled below decks as their ships were pounded and began to sink. Nineteen-year-old John H. McGoran was in an enclosure beneath one of the big guns on the USS California when the attack began. His narrative of his experiences in the hours that followed reveals a vivid picture of the size and complexity of such warships and the courage of their crews when under fire.

The morning of December 7, 1941, was typical of any Sunday morning aboard the battleship USS California. My billet for meals was the Marines' casemate #8 (an armored enclosure for a gun) located portside midship, just where the forecastle breaks and a ladder leads down to the quarter-deck. Breakfast over, I took my dirty dishes to the scullery below. Lamentably, that's the way peace ended. Just then a sailor...