On the morning of 7 December 1941 in Pearl Harbor, then-Ensign Charles Merdinger awoke to alarms and stepped through his socks in his haste to get to his battle station on board the battleship USS Nevada (BB-36) as she came under attack. In this audio clip, Captain Merdinger gives a vivid account of the near-disastrous situation he found himself in while in the Nevada‘s plotting room during the surprise Japanese strike. To read more about the Naval Institute Oral History Program, go to https://www.usni.org/heritage/oral-history-catalog.
