Seventy-one years ago Friday, teenaged machinist’s mate Miles Carpenter was on the USS
Phoenix, docked at the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, when waves of Japanese fighters and
bombers attacked.

Carpenter was one of the lucky ones: The USS Phoenix was not hit. The ship, a light cruiser, got under way in about 15 minutes time, but was blocked from a full escape to open water by the battleship USS West Virginia, in flames and smoking. Still, it survived.