A Boy at War

As the launch motors off, they find a sailor in the water in the wreckage of the Oklahoma. They try to persuade him to come aboard, but he insists that there are other men about to surface. They wait, but no one appears, and the sailor still refuses to leave without his shipmates. Together, Adam works alongside a sailor named Rinaldi, using rescue equipment to haul the stranded sailors into the boat. The water is blackened by massive swaths of oil that have leaked from the ruined ships. The men they pull aboard are covered in it, disguising many of the horrific injuries they have sustained. One man is so horribly burned that the sight of his injuries causes Adam to vomit over the side of the launch. Some sailors are able to swim back to shore, while others struggle to survive and end up sinking beneath the waves.

Adam struggles to fathom what is unfolding around him. The attack defies everything that he understands about the nature of war. Adam believes war to be an engagement between willingly engaged combatants, not a sneak attack on an opponent unaware they are even enemies and unable to defend themselves. The launch docks at Ford Island, and they transport the wounded survivors to an emergency hospital set up in a dining hall.