This year marks the 75th anniversary of the pearl harbor attack, and the u. S. Entry into world war ii. Hear from survivors who were stationed at honolulu in 1941. The National Park service conducted the oral history. This is about one hour. We were in the hurricane for nine days coming over from san diego. You have a rather green crew. We got into honolulu, and senator Scott Liberty and some of us got liberty. , and i walkedxi across the street. I ordered a soda. The lady said you are from the uss ward. She said how do you know . Ship,s ward was the guard part of Destroyer Division 80. It consisted of four old destroyers. We rotated duty guarding the Entrance Channel to pearl harbor. The regulations were that on all the charts of the world with an indication that no submarine must approach pearl harbor within 100 miles without coming to the surface and requesting a destroyer effort escort on the surface to approaching closer to honolulu or pearl harbor. We had oftentimes been called to general quarters when the sonar man believed that he heard. The captain backed up the sonar mail the time. The sonar man heard screws, we went to general quarters. It was her responsibility and we knew it to sink any sub that was attempting to reach pearl harbor submerged. The supply ship was coming into pearl harbor at 6 45, or low before that. It was towing a barge. This little twoman sub was trying to sneak into the harbor. It looked like a 50 gallon oil drum on top of maybe three or four of them that would lay down below it, with a broomstick sticking up. Of course, that broomstick was the periscope. Im sure the man of the bridge could tell there was Something Like your prison prism. It was too far away for us to know that it was anything like that. We thought it might have been a toy. We had never heard of or seen anything like a twoman submarine before. Wasfolks on the ship rolling and pitching. Werehells that the crewmen ready to load into the gun weight over 75 pounds. Here you are stay all of that rolling, pitching deck with live with grazed pieces on the nose. Kind of afraid of that kind of ammunition. We fired. You could watched on the of the barrel, and you can see that the projectile just barely missed the sub. If they had another coat of paint on the sun, it may have activated the fuse. I think that is how close we came. Gun number three hitter at the base of the conning tower. Im sure till the japanese commander of that sub. The captain said standby to ram. He was getting at that submarine one way or another. It was not going to get through. We found that later that it not only had two torpedoes, but also had a 500 pound detonation charge in the stern. The skipper of that sub was supposed to come alongside another ship and blow himself up along with the other ship. We were surprised to find a summary that close on the surface a submarine that close on the surface. We knew it was not supposed to be there. My impression was that perhaps this summary might have been one single reconnaissance effort. I had no concept of all what it was going to be followed up with. Until i saw the planes coming, which was an hour and 20 minutes later. I was a crew member of the squadron to two on luke field. That particular sunday, i had the duty at the hangar with the attack began. Crashed. T a plane had we ran out of our anger hangar and looking across the runway we see the smoke. We still did not know what was happening. Time, here comes a plane diving out of the sun. You can see the symbol of the rising sun under its wing. Then we knew we were being attacked by the japanese. I started looking for a place to hide. We did not have bomb shelters or anything. Here come the japanese planes up on theth to north west side of ford island. Couldere flying so low i see the goggles on the rear gunners helmet. And here allre that splattered concrete. I jumped behind this tractor that was parked there, and they gave me the protection i needed. I noticed a couple of my shipmates had picked up the 45 calendar pistol caliber pistol. They had just taken off and laid it on the table to exchange with the incoming section. They start shooting at the japanese planes with these pistols. That there is an emotion that is more strong than fear. Shame. I felt so ashamed of myself. I am trained to be a gunner, and i am hiding. Lord gave me enough guts to leave my hiding place and go into an armory where the machine guns were stored. We took those machine guns and put them in the mouth of our planes parked on the ground. The last gun that i put in was in the hatch of a catalina bomber. I got behind that gun and mandate for the rest of the attack. I think and what has a lot of cowered in them, but was you get under that has a little coward in them, but once you get over that, this is where i praise the navy. You train and do it over and over. When the time came, we just did what we were trained to do. We did not have to think. You just did what you were trained to do. I was angry. My feelings went from fear to shame to anger. If i could have shot one of them down. Still next in there, that fear was in the background. Planes are just everywhere like bees around a hive. I dont know how the cap from running into each other. Im sure it was all planned out and they had rehearsed it and rehearsed it. Could close your eyes and shoot in the air and you were bound to hit something because there were aircraft everywhere. Had particular plane dropped a bomb or a torpedo on probably the california. He was pulling out of his dive and coming across the runway heading up over our hangar. All of our gunners were shooting at him. We could see our tracer bullets penetrating his fusillade. He burst into flames. It looks the key was going to crash in the channel. Yet the middle of the channel, and all of a sudden does little dive in purposely crashes on the uss curtis. That became known as the first, causey of world war ii first kamikaze of world war ii. It was uncanny what they could pull off. Going on a picnic at the naval ammunition dump that the marines were doing guard duty at. Previous week, the starboard side had a picnic there. This week, we were going. We were looking forward to it. I had been their couple months earlier. We had a nice time. I was looking for to drinking beer, playing baseball, pitching horseshoes. We assumed they were doing target practice because out at sea we would put a target maybe 100 yards or so and the planes would dive bomb. We watched them. Those . Hey, what are we can understand why theyre doing this on sunday. Seconds. Bay, we seen a shift of fire, smoking. Had thecer of the day bugler sound fire and rescue. Were going to go after casemate and get ready for whatever we had to do. There is a call to belay that call. If you seconds after that, we heard the familiar quarters. Those were japanese planes. Quarters,y general there was such talk about what was going on between japanese and our country. Many things flashed through my mind. One of them was what is my mother going to say if i was killed . That was my biggest concern. Up in school climb that you didnt jim. That day, this was oily, select find that up even with the oil. Thats trying to hold onto a greased paying. Greased pig. You can see what you can do when there is anxiety or fright or anger or whatever you call it. Time heals everything. How long can you hold your anger . Are you going to die with it . I dont want to die with it . We did the opposite. Did they forgive us about hiroshima . I think we should forgive them. It saved lives on both sides. I took my bugle and ran up to the bridge. That was where my battle station was. It couldve been a few minutes before 8 00. I didnt even sound colors, so im not sure. This is just a couple minutes after 8 00. He says my god we are at war. The next thing i remember there was a tremendous explosion on the tennessee near the number two gun turret. There was shrapnel all over the place. , the captain had most of his he was a most torn in half. We made him as comfortable as we could. About eight or nine minutes after 8 00, i saw the arizona explode. I tell you, i was never so scared in my whole life. You could feel the tremendous heat, and the concussion blow us back into the pilot house. Came back out, and the captain was laying there. Went down and got our executive officer. He came up and the captain was still alive. He looked down and said captain what my orders . And the only thing the captain says the ship is yours. Im not going to make it. That is all. We stayed up on the bridge. Commander said what the hell are we doing here . And we stayed aboard and fought fires. We rescued some people from down below. I was with a group of three of us. We busted one of the doors open because everything was sprung shut. We got two officers out. Water was about to our navels, so he climbed up on the quarter deck. We did everything we could. 87, their clothes were burning. We threw them down on the deck and rolled on top and tried to pat the fire out. Finally the tennessee fired the to push thees, and fire from the water, push it away from the ship, that helped a lot. Then a tug boat came up and started to squirt us with water. And then commander helencotter said, says abandon ship. ,so we passed the abandon ship order, and that was around 9 30. Then we fought our way back because there was not as much fire forward as there was aft by the arizona. She was just one big ball of fire. One guy in particular [laughter] Richard Orville said, gosh, i left my money and my wallet. My wallet is in my locker. He fights his way back through all the fire. Now in the case makes we had these five inch shells sitting along the bulkhead to use. If those got hot, they were going to blow up. So he fought his way back through the case mates, gets his locker, opens it up, gets his wallet out puts it in his , pocket, fights his way back out where the boats are. That takes about four minutes. Three,he was making knots. He took off all his clothes and folded them nice and neatly because he didnt want to get them wet, then he laid them down on a boat, and he dove off with his skivvies and swam to ford island and all his money stayed right there. Ill never forget that. It is strange. Csle, iber the fo , remember diving into the water, and i remember climbing on ford island. But that 50 or 60 yards, its gone. I dont know. And i cant tell you. I dont know. That night about 7 00, we heard these airplanes coming in, and we thought they were japanese, and they were off of the enterprise and i wasnt the first one to open up because they were firing before i started to shoot. As they were coming in, boy, it looked like the 4th of july. And we shot down the six, we killed three of the pilots. And one of the guys that was landing, ias he was got my machine gun and i filled his airplane full of holes. I didnt realize that it was one of ours. The guys name is, i dont know if you have ever met him or not jim daniels. , hes a good friend of mine. [laughter] richard he said if he could have caught me that night, he would have killed me. I believe he would have, too. I think it was around wednesday or thursday that i finally got some sleep. You just couldnt sleep. You were on watch all the time. Then, if you werent on watch, you were eating sandwiches and going back out. Youre supposed to the eight hours youre off, youre supposed to sleep. But you cant do it. Your nerves are just right on the edge. I think it was about, i think wednesday or thursday i fell asleep. Of course it was a while before i could hear from all of those torpedos. We took nine torpedos, and the arizona blowing up, then the tennessee was completely firing their fiveinch guns. God i said, oh boy im going to , be deaf. Of course, i wear hearing aids today. But it was about a week before i could really hear. You know, and then if somebody come up behind you and clapped, youd jump 15 feet you know. We had 106 dead, about 300, a little over 300 wounded. And of course, our captain received the congressional meddle of honor. Captain banyan. I played taps for him the next night. It was in the warehouse where we stayed, you know, for the staff. And it was the most beautiful taps i ever played in my whole life. Pennsylvania was flagship of the pacific fleet, and we were also, i believe at that time, flagship of the navy. It was admirable kimballs ship. He just didnt happen to be on it that day. When we were go out on patrol, quartersd have general , the saying used to be, you know, the japanese are attacking, the the japs are attacking, we would run to our battle station. Most of us knew that eventually we were going to have to fight the japanese. Where that trickled down from, i have no idea. I suppose from the politicians, the officers, the officers to us. But we expected to fight them eventually. We just didnt know when. There was no need for radio communication. It was obvious to all the ships in the harbor that we were under attack. So they had us carrying ammunition with the three age 50 on the handrail. I had just been handed a threeinch shell, and i was getting ready to run it out to the gun again, and next thing i knew, i was flat on my face. Something went through my right thigh and out my rear end. I had a six by eight piece blown out of the left thigh. I had five pieces of shrapnel in the left leg. My right hand was shot open. I lost part of the left elbow, i lost part of the muscle out of the bicep. They finally put me into a bunk, and i was there, lying there. And i saw one of the third class radio men go by and i said hey osmond, he and he looked at me , and he says, who are you . Then i realized that either something is wrong with me or something is wrong with him. Hyland. It is and all he did was go oh, oh, and walk away from me. I found out that the navy had these listed as superficial wounds. It seems that their big problem was trying to keep me alive because of the burns. When the bomb went off, the bomb, the blast just took all the skin off our legs, arms, face, because we had shorts and tshirts on. That was our combat uniform. My brother was a sergeant with the marine detachment on the indianapolis, and they were out on patrol. He saw me about a year later. He said when he came in, i guess it was wednesday after the attack, he came over the pennsylvania looking for me, and they had me on the missing list. So at that time we had this large Naval Hospital in the navy yard. He went over there looking for me. And he said he finally found a group of us all lined up. And they had tagged my toe already. Thats how he identified me. He said even he didnt know me. He said we looked like roast turkeys lined up. The pearl harbor story is important to me because people should be made aware of these things, that they really did happen, and hopefully they wont happen again. But of course, thats dreaming because it happens in the world , every day somewhere. We came in port on friday afternoon, on december the fifth. And we waited in midchannel for the lexington, which at the time was the Worlds Largest aircraft carrier. As soon as the lexington got under way, we took her place. Monday, the ship was scheduled to come back to the states. And then i would have gotten out, and i saved like 400, and i was going to go to medical school. The day before is noneventful except that i didnt go anywhere. I didnt go ashore because honolulu in those days was not or waikiki was not a favorite port because there were no women. There were 2,000 men for every woman. So we liked it stateside better. Somebody said, what are all those planes in the air . What are all those planes doing out on a sunday morning . And i could hear vaguely a droning which was not unusual because ford island was a naval air station. And so about the time i looked up skyward, i saw this group, i was almost positive there were six of them, coming in a v formation. I stood there and saw the bombs drop, and then i saw this huge red flame and black smoke, and i thought, oh, my god, somebody really goofed because those are real bombs. See we were used to being bombed , with duds. And i thought, my god, somebody really made a mistake. Those are real bombs. And just about that time, i felt the ship lurch. So we were being hit by torpedos on the opposite side which of course i couldnt see that side. When the torpedo hit, i actually felt the ship lurch. See even when we were hit by did dud bombs the ship was , somewhere around 22,000 tons. When wed go below the armored decks of course during bombing runs. We werent walking around. When the bomb would hit, you could feel the ship, but it was a downward feeling, but this was you know kind of an outward feeling. I am sure there was a torpedo. There is some question about whether the bombers got there first or the torpedos. Im sure that lurch was a torpedo. It was a matter of seconds before the buggaler sounded general quarters. You know thats where you go to , your battle station. So i grabbed my first aid kit. I was a pharmacist mate. My battle station was in mid ship. As i was running down the passageway, the ship lurched again. Now this time, i dont know whether it was a bomb or a torpedo, but it knocked me through a log room door where they kept the records. So i went this way, and my first aid kit went that way, and i got up a little dazed, you know. You dont have time to think. But anyway, i dived down the ladder below. See our battle stations were , below the armored deck. But we no sooner got down there we could tell the ship was , already listing. This was a matter of one, two, three minutes. And everybody is looking around, what in the world is going on . What is going on . Whats happening . We were there im sure not over a minute or two, and then the bugler sounded abandon ship, and the boats went boatswain was chanting abandon ship, abandon ship. We had taken on ammunition in San Francisco for the fleet, and the naval Ammunition Depot was loaded. So we were going all over the ocean with all this ammunition. And i could think, oh, my word, when this ship sinks, its going to blow up. And i wanted to get away from there fast. So you know these things occur , to you in a matter of seconds. By then the ship is like this, so i was kind of running, going dive way out, and about then the ship really jerked. Well, i thought at the time and for some time after that it was another bomber torpedo. But actually what it was was the mooring lines. See theres 22,000 tons, these , great, big lines holding the wei, tied to the way gh. So as the ship was sinking, those lines snapped. When they snapped, that threw me off balance, and i landed on my fanny and landed on the bar nickels. When i got in the water when i , bobbed up and tried to get my bearings which way is up, i saw this boater line, and there was a coxswain in the bow. You know what the bow is . A boat hook, and he was guys out pulling these guys out of the water. I started swimming towards that boater line. And about then a skrafr came by and could see the bullets hitting the water ahead of me, but in line with that motor launch. So it didnt, you know you make , decisions in seconds. I figured now thats going to be a target. But theyre not going to pick for, little poor, little old me by myself. Instead of going that way