I don't know where the first part of this went to ... So, I'll try again. During the past week I was reminded of a visit by one of my cousins after we were had moved to Yuma, AZ. I had remembered him being in the Navy and that he told of being on a ship in Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941 and that a skeleton crew managed to save the ship by getting it out to sea. Later in the year, Mother told us that his ship had been sunk by the Japanese. And, as I remembered it, my cousin was lost at sea. But I couldn't remember who the cousin was. So, I called my brother, Donal, who is three years older than me. He told me that the cousin's name was Claude Bolton, Jr. and that he had been on the ship USS Astoria. Claude, Jr was the son of my mother's sister Emma (Sackett) Bolton (1899-c1997) who was married, in 1921, to Claude Bolton, Sr. They had had five children, the youngest was born in Yuma, AZ in 1933. Sometime after 1933 they were divorced. And Aunt Emma raised her children alone. Now, for the story of Claude Bolton, Jr. (1923-1951): As stated earlier, he was in the U.S. Navy when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. But, according to the Navy's website, there were no U. S. ships that got out of Pearl Harbor during the bombing. One ship tried and was hit and was beached to keep it from sinking in the channel. So, what I had remembered about my cousin's shipmates getting their ship out of the harbor; was either me remembering incorrectly, or my cousin embelished his story for his younger cousin !! However, he was on the ship Astoria when it was sunk by gunfire from Japanese warships at Savo, Solomon Islands on 9 Aug 1942. After several hours in the ocean Claude, Jr and the crew were rescued. After the war, Claude, Jr. returned to Yuma. Then about 1947 he was married in Tulare, CA. In 1951 he went to Yreka, Siskiyou Co., CA to pan for gold. One of the processes used to separate gold from other elements collected from the pannings involves the use of mercury. The mercury will adhere to the gold thereby collecting it. To separate the mercury from the gold, the combined elements are placed in a retort and heated to vaporize the mercury. The mercury vapors are passed into a closed chamber where they are cooled and condensed back into liquid form and then used again. This process is called retorting. Unfortunately, Claude, Jr. did not know the process, or thought he could take a shortcut in the process and not bother reclaiming the mercury. So he heated the mercury in a pan on his cook stove and as the mercury vaporized he breathed some of the vapor which condensed back to mercury in his lungs ... causing his death. Thurmon