Oregon Public Broadcasting

Virgil Taylor enlisted in the Navy in 1938 when he was 20 years old. The day before Pearl Harbor he was notified that he’d just made first class.

He wrote his mother to say he would be going back to school after his final six months of duty.

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Taylor worked in the engine room of the SS California. He was there when the first bomb hit the ship.

Taylor remembers what it was like coming up from the engine room to the deck after the blast.
 

“Really surprised because where everything was it just all evaporated. It all went up in smoke. That 500 pound bomb took everything. Took my bunk and everything else,”
 Taylor says.

One of the bombs was dropped right next to his bunk and locker.

Taylor says he managed to jump from the ship and swim to a ferry that took him to shore.  

Over the 70 years since the attack, Taylor admits some of his memories have gotten fuzzy.

He served in the Navy for 20 years. The 95-year-old veteran lives in Keizer.