The Three Boys Trapped in the USS West Virginia | acrylic on canvas, 12” x 16”

At first there were responses when they banged on the wall. Far above them, on the surface, the sailors’ comrades scrambled to reach them from outside the ship. But the bombing of Pearl Harbor had partially-sunk the USS West Virginia under 40 feet of water, and the little airtight storeroom A-111 was well hidden on the portion of hull pressed against the USS Tennessee. Rescue was impossible. The banging stopped after only a few days.

The bodies of Ronald Endicott, 18; Clifford Olds, 20; and Louis Costin, 21; were found huddled together on the storeroom floor, surrounded by empty rations, dead from carbon dioxide poisoning. The calendar on the wall above them had the days crossed out in red from December 7th all the way through December 23rd. 16 days in the cold quiet darkness.