A friend of ours wanted to be sure you're alive. Evelyn. A nurse.
DORIE:
How is she?
DANNY:
Like we all are.
Miller nods, and looks out over the harbor, a hellish place where black smoke still hangs over everything, the shattered remains of men and ships still in the harbor. It's total devastation. And yet something about that scene stirs something else in Dorie Miller.
DORIE:
There's something out there I need to get. Will you help me?
EXT. PEARL HARBOR - AFTERMATH - NIGHT Dorie pilots the dinghy through the floating debris. Rafe and Danny sit with him. He stops over a dangerous pile of superstructure wreckage.
DORIE:
The Arizona. Hold the dinghy steady, so it doesn't bust open.
Rafe and Danny brace the dinghy so it doesn't move; but they still don't see what Dorie is after as he fishes down in the water, for something barely at the surface; he works for a moment, then pulls it up.
It's the oil-soaked flag of the Arizona.
EXT. HULL OF OKLAHOMA - NIGHT Men are working through the night to save the sailors trapped in the hull.
INT. OKLAHOMA - THE TRAPPED SAILORS are in total darkness. From it we hear GASPING, then --
SAILOR:
What's that?
The light comes on and sweeps around the faces. The water is up to their chests, but it's stopped rising.
SAILOR FLASHLIGHT Just hand on. They'll find us.
SAILOR:
How do you know?
SAILOR FLASHLIGHT Because we would find them.
He switches the light off again.
EXT. HULL OF OKLAHOMA - NIGHT The welders are cutting away, the torches sending showers of sparks everywhere.
INT. OKLAHOMA - THE TRAPPED SAILORS They are gasping, running out of air.
SAILOR FLASHLIGHT Breathe easy. Stay calm.
SAILOR:
You hear something?
Something stirs in the ship; a noise...from where? Then a point of light; sparks fly into the room; somebody's cutting through the wall. And the sparks illuminate faces suddenly filled with hope.
But as the cut enlarges, the trapped air, compressed by the water, starts rushing out -- and the water starts rising again. The trapped sailors hope turns to terror.