Important event in our history. Ian toll, the hour has gone by too fast. The book is pacific crucible war at sea in the pacific 1941 to 1942. Ian toll, once again thank you. Bill, thanks for having me on the program. Youre looking at pictures of survivor of the pearl harbor attack from the 75th Anniversary Ceremony out in hawaii this past sense, december 7th. According to the National ParkService Figures quoted in the wall street journal there were about 100 survivors on hand for wednesdays event. By the way, you can watch the full ceremony in its entirety tonight at 6 00 p. M. And 11 00 p. M. Eastern here on American History tv on cspan 3. We are going to continue to take your calls for about another 50 minutes or so. We have three ways for you to join the conversation, we also welcome our cspan radio listeners. The phone lines for you this morning 2027488900 for those of you in the eastern rand central time zones, mountain and pacific time zones 2027488901 and for world war ii veterans your line is 2027488902. We also welcome your comments on twitter, send us a twe tweet cspanhistory and post your Facebook Comments at facebook. Com cspanhistory. Joining us this morning is paul travers who is the author of iowans to infamy an oral history of pearl harbor, december 7, 1941 which includes many accounts from more than 200 interviews with pearl harbor veterans. Paul travers, welcome. Thanks for being here. Its my pleasure to be here. More important, its an honor to be here to pay tribute to the men and women of pearl harbor and thats what i did in the book through these narratives. Your book, your interest in the book starts with stories your dad told you when you were growing up. Take us back to 1979, you start to broaden that out. You put ads in the newspaper looking for pearl harbor veterans. What prompted that . Well, here i am 1979, im approaching 30 years old, so im a College Graduate with an english degree, a minor in American History and i guess the dream of every english or journalism major is to write a book and i love books so i thought, well, you write what you know about. Just my fathers stories, you know, they werent he always referred to himself just as an eyewitness not a survivor and his story was very mundane, he really didnt go into detail like most of the pearl harbor survivors. So i thought let me try to expand on this. I took out a small classified ad in the philadelphia inquirer, the new york times, the washington post, of course the Baltimore Sun and it was probably one of those little type poe classifieds buried deep inside the classified ads and to my surprise i got a pretty good response, you know, people that were interested in being interviewed and documenting the oral history of pearl harbor. And then in 1980 my father, who was at Schofield Barracks with the 27th infantry regiment he comes homes and tells me that he met myrtle watts. To my the first lady of pearl harbor. She was an army nurse at schofield im sorry yeah, at schofield station hospital. So he says, well, myrtle is willing to tell you her story and what a compelling story myrtle had. Back in 1979 oral histories were not that common so you start into this effort. What did you do . Did you write things down . Did you record people . Both. Yeah. Yeah, what you just said is probably im not the pioneer of oral histories for pearl harbor, but because back then i did some research, there werent a lot of books on oral histories of pearl harbor and i thought maybe i have a good topic here. I was the first one probably to see it through to the end to actually come up and compile an oral history book with narratives from pearl harbor survivors. Once my contact, myrtle watson, she was actively involved with the pearl harbor survivors association. So she opened the door to me for that chapter and they vouched more me with the National Association and that really opened the floodgates allowing me to collect on a mountain of oral histories. You write in the book you were fascinated as a child particularly by your dads pearl harbor stories. Why do you think that one battle has been stayed so important in the minds of the veterans that you interviewed . Clearly many of them went on to other battles and other things during the war. Yes, they did. In speaking with all the pearl harbor veterans and survivors, their main theme is to remember pearl harbor, to keep america alert. Thats probably the mantra you will hear off everyones lips. Because it was a surprise attack, you know, their theme is keep america vigilant. Thats what its all about to the pearl harbor survivors. Lets not let this happen again and it did happen again at 9 11. You know, there is a lot of parallels there. Not exactly the same situation, but, yeah, we always have to keep vigilance to defend our free tomorrows here. You come to this with some military experience yourself, correct . Yes, i do. I was in the marine corps back in the mid 70s. Again, i attributed part of my fathers legacy as the son of a pearl harbor survivor. You know, he was a role model, my brother and i both served in the military, my brother in the army, i went into the marine corps. A lot of us had dads and grandfathers that served in world war ii. Wouldnt, say a thing about things they did and here you were able to get people to open up to you. Why do you think that was . I think the main reason was i told them i wanted to tell a Human Interest story. Im not specifically looking into heroics in the battle, i want to show the human side of the pearl harbor experience and i think that i accomplished that because the first narrative i have is william showen. What a great job he had, hes out backpacking, hiking, surveying the islands. I end with Melvin Faulkner burying the dead. Why did you make that first one, that particular individual. It kind of set the scene for oahu as a tropical paradise. Vacation land. When my dad finally enlisted, to him it was like all expense paid vacation to hawaii. Of course, there was, you know, a year later it turned into a nightmare for him and the other pearl harbor veterans. Our guest is paul travers, the book is eyewitness to infamy, an oral history of pearl harbor, december 7, 1941, it was originally published in 1991 on the 50th anniversary, correct . Correct. After that did many more veterans contact you . Yes, after the book was First Published in 91 i had a number of veterans contacted me and i went out and i got their narratives and i said theres no guarantees, you know, that they will be an update to the book and i guess good karma, maybe the angels of pearl harbor were looking out for me, but two years ago i got a letter from the publisher, this was after the book went out to print a few years ago, and they said were interested in doing an update for the 75th, would you be interested in doing an update and i jumped at the chance because it was an opportunity to update many of the people that i had interviewed in the book and add some new ones. How many new ones did you add into this new updated edition. I believe there was four total and i mentioned some other people who have probably been on a lot of the National News lately, like Lauren Bruner and don stratton. Don stratton. Yeah. They get by lines in the book for their heroics, i guess their escape from the battleship arizona. We have calls waiting for you. Lets hear from andrew is in college park, maryland, for paul travers. Go ahead. Caller okay. Look, i saw this documentary and i know people must have seen t it was evidently a documentary about when they were just inventing radar. Okay . And they pointed out they had just created radar and it worked. Okay . And they had all these stations of radar out in the pacific and they were watching this and they saw all these planes coming towards pearl harbor from japan. The people that ran the radar station knew exactly or they saw it and all their bosses tell them, stand down, we are not paying attention to this, its new technology and so it just seems so funny, you know. And then they say the same things oftentimes with these other attacks. People tried to let the Law Enforcement know that they had information. Now, i guess its a miracle when they foil these attacks because they claim to have foiled many, many attacks and im sure they have, but its just so funny how the human intelligence or whatever it is doesnt keep up with the technology. Did we miss things on radar that morning . No. Joe lockhart and George Elliott were manning the radar station at opana point. They saw the planes coming in, relayed the message back to head quartz and it was dismissed as the b17s that were flying in from california. I believe some of the historians referenced to earlier in the week on various shows was we knew the japanese fleet was on the move, but we didnt know where. And it took everybody by surprise that they were sailing across the Northern Pacific and eventually launched the attack probably about 250 miles north of oahu. Yeah, the caller mentioned human intelligence, you know, technology doesnt fail in these events, its human intelligence that fails. Same thing with the condor response of the submarine off the entrance of pearl harbor. Of course, the ward goes up and sinks the submarine. Really the message is relayed back to, you know, sink pack headquarters and its lost in the paperwork. They have just recently discovered some of that submarine, correct, or remnants of it, rather. Yes, they did. As a matter of fact, they actually believe that a couple of the submarines got inside the submarine net at pearl harbor and actually inflicted damage on the battleship oklahoma. Lets hear from bill next, hes in muskegon, michigan. On the line for paul travers. Go ahead. Caller yes. The question that i have is i was in the navy and im a retired and ive been to the arizona monument two times and what surprised me was the number of people who had last names. Did that bring on the Sullivan Brothers disaster . In particular, bill, whats your question about that . My question is how did it happen that the arizona had so many people with the last name be on one ship . Did they actually have to have the sullivan brother incident change that . Yes, i believe it was the sullivan brother incident that changed that because prior to that aboard these battle ships because you had a large contingency of men, you know, 1300, 1,500 men plus aboard these ships and a lot of times you had brothers and you had cousins who served aboard the same ship together. So, yeah, to answer your question, yeah, there were a lot of relatives aboard the ships, these battle ships and thats why you see a lot of the same names on the monuments, whether it be the arizona or the oklahoma. I have a question about the utah on facebook. By the way, if you want to send us a comment on Facebook Post it at facebook. Com cspanhistory. This is a comment about the utah from david who says that i recently found something about december 7th, 1941, that kind of disturbs me. We all know about the arizona and the monument to honor all those men who died in her sinking. Did you know that there is another battleship that was sunk on december 7th, 1941, with 59 men trapped in it . The u. S. S. Utah. It is still at the bottom of pearl harbor with those 59 men still inn tumd but it is being allowed to rust and deteriorate into a heap of steel unrecognizable as a ship of any kind let alone a battleship. Paul writes to me this is a travesty, those men need to be brought to the surface and honored with a burial site. To a certain extent i agree with him, to a certain extent not because with the utah you have a similar situation with the arizona. So many men were trapped inside, there was no chance of getting men out of the arizona or utah without, you know, casualties among the yard workers or the navy rescue personnel. Ships like the West Virginia, which lost a large number of men and had men trapped inside, you know, they could raise that ship but the value of the utah was basically nil because it was an outdated battleship mainly used as a target ship, all the guns were covered over on deck. So it was probably best, yeah, to leave it asis as a memorial to those men because they knew the men who they were inside. Now, the situation with the oklahoma when they raised the ship a year later they couldnt identify the remains. Its a little different situation and now theyre actually with the Forensic Technology and forensics actually through dna they are starting to identify the sailors that were aboard the oklahoma and bringing them back home for a proper burial and closure for the family. You started gathering your oral history stories in 1979, you started the project, your First Edition is published in 1991. When did you first get to pearl harbor . When did you first see it and what was your reaction when you finally saw it for the first time . I was in pearl harbor back in 1974, 75 time frame. And, you know, that visit probably because i went and did all the historic sites, you know, because i had the connection with my father. Yeah. That was probably the catalyst that said, you know, look into this just a little further and see what you can do and thats probably, you know, where theres the seed for the book was germinated back on that trip to hawaii in 1974. What year did your dad passed away . My dad passed away in 2009. I kind of refer to him as the poster boy of the pearl harbor survivors and the greatest generation. If you read his narrative it doesnt tell the whole story because thats one of the part of the deals i had to do with these pearl harbor survivors, i could not tell the whole story to them was what they did after pearl harbor. Sure. And they deferred recognition to the other people, their other whether it be, you know, bunk mates, ship mates, soldiers, sailors, especially those who paid a higher price than they did where they made the supreme sacrifice or they were actually wounded. My dad was actually wounded fighting alongside the marines at polu and that ended his military career. He spent a couple years and was discharged from valley forge hospital in 1947, married the girl of his dreams he met when he was on leave at home during the war and turned this war machine into the economic machine that built america. Our guest is paul travers his book is eyewitness to infamy an oral history of pearl harbor and the many stories he has collected over the years. I want to show you some of the oral histories that have been gathered by the National Park service. We saw the arizona when they hit it and it lifted that ship clear out of the water and then it took about seven minutes for it to sink, completely sink, but the worst part of all was all the crewmen that was on those ships was trying to get get off because they were all burning, but they was little hesitant about jump ng that burning sea, also. Because everything was a fire in the sea, too. Poor fellas would jump off in that burning water and most of them never did make it to shore. The ones that didnt make it to shore, we personally witnessed it. They were burnt so bad that the skin was fall iing off their fa and their buttocks and falling off their whole body, just like you dipped them in grease or something. You never heard such screaming in all your life. Just like hell on earth i guess. During the second wave, the fellas, they did a marvelous job. It was a miracle, the way they got everything together because had no guns. They were locked up in the, in the cellar over there. But those fellas on those ships, bless them, they, they stood there until they all got killed. I went, i just port side about half a day, got out there, i looked, i couldnt believe that the smoke and the rumbling and the machine guns going and explosions and all and here come the fire in the water and the oil coming from the West Virginia and the arizona, which was right behind us. And kids 17 years old, i was scared to death. Standing there watching that oklahoma roll over. A battleship rolling over and all the guys that are on there, scared to death. Then seeing all the oil and the water and the fire. And we could see the West Virginia, california was ahead of us and she was sitting at the bottom. Worst day of my life. Had dropped a torpedo. I could see it land and go toward the battleship and the airplane, instead of going up and getting hit by it, the aircraft turned around and hugged the surface of the water. About ten yards above the water. I said wow, must be a japanese airplane. I was very angry. I said, what, after i realized it was a japanese airplane, i said what am i going to hear. Theyre killing a lot of american soldiers. Im an american, too. Theyre killing me fellow citizens. I still recall seeing torpedos hitting the battleships and geysers every time a torpedo would hit. A geyser 3 or 400 feet high would, watt r e would spring up. I still cant put it out of my mind. What i seen happen that day. Beyond description in many respects. It was plain hell. Paul, its difficult to listen to some of those stories from those men. How hard was it for you to sit and interview them and hear some of them . Some of it was very, very difficult. I sit here and have goose bumps on my arms from some of these stories. I guess the real impact of it was when i got home and started transcribing the stories to put them down on paper. You have an opportunity to not only read the lines, between the lines, you realize what an emotional roller coaster these men and women were on. Books published and you sit and read it again, its like, these are some Amazing Stories ordinary people and extraordinary times that did extraordinary things. His book is eyewitness to infamy. Welcome your call us. And send us a tweet at cspan history. To joe in weaverville, north carolina. Yes, my question is when they first come in, they hit quiller airfield. Wondered how many planes were destroyed and how many lives was lost at quiller field. Wheeler field. That was the part of the battle plan was to take out the airfields. The exact numbers at wheeler field, i dont have. What i do know, the number of planes that we lost were almost equal to the number of japanese planes that launched their attack and we lost roughly 190 planes were destroyed. And there was probably another 160 planes that were damaged, so you add thos