RENO, NV (Mynews4.com & KRNV) - "Been so long I can't remember all the details." 89 year old Lucius "Mac" McGill says he rarely talks about that infamous day. McGill lives in Rancho Haven, Nevada about thirty miles north of Reno. He lives with his son and daughter-in-law.
70 years has taken a toll on McGill's memory, but with his son's help he was able to piece together the few details he does remember. McGill was stationed aboard the U.S.S. California. The first ship in the fleet. McGill worked in communications and ran letters to and from ships.
"I woke up. I had a little breakfast," he begins. "I made my way to the radio room. The shack as we use to call it. Then all of a sudden the GQ went off." The GQ was an alarm that sounded only in times of emergency. It was an alarm to let men know to head to their General Quarters.
McGill says he was not panicked at the time. "Just like anything else. You have a duty and you try to do it... and mine was to go down and handle the kegs of powder so they'd have something to fire."
McGill has been deep in the bowels of the boat for hours at this point. Since there were no windows, McGill says he was confused to what was really going on. "I had heard the Japanese were attacking but I didn't know."
McGill was stationed in the powder room. The hoist in the room was the only way out. After a few hours McGill's crewmembers scurried up the hoist to find out what was going on. If there was an abandoned ship ordered McGill and his mates never heard it.
When he made it to the deck he finally saw the devastation that was taking place. "All you could see up there were burning ships." McGill says he climbed down the ropes holding the California to the dock, jumped in the water and swam to shore.
When asked if he felt like a hero, McGill simply replied, "No." But he did survive, and that makes him one of the many heroes who walked away to tell the tale of that very day.
