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shoes unlaced while at sea but on this particular morning I was
wishing I could keep them on. My foul weather jacket soaked up
enough water to hold me underwater and it was some time before I
could swim to the surface and get to my liferaft.

The suction of the sinking ship was drawing us up to the
side of it despite all our efforts to kick away from it. Shells
were still falling all around and I was afraid that at any
moment one would hit one of the powder magazines and really muss
our hair. A boy from Boston, about 17 years old, who was on his
first trip to sea, suggested we all pray to God to help us get
away from the ship. We did and soon we were well away from it
and we all felt much better.

The Germans were firing starshells over our life rafts and
using us for targets. They missed the raft I was on but they
succeeded in hitting another one and killing about three men.
Lt. (J.G.) Bensman was hit and the upper half of his [inserted]head[end inserted] was sliced
off by shrapnel. A gunners mate was killed and one other boy
was blown to bits.

After about an hour the firing died down some and we were
by then drifting toward the beach. I was almost freezing but
that was the last place anyone of us wanted to land. We all
began kicking and paddling furiously and finally got headed out
to sea again. Now we were just drifting around waiting until
someone come in and rescue us. A destroyer started to
come in and pick us up just after we were hit but they were
ordered back and it was about two and a half hours before we
were picked up by the Butler.

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