From the Frontlines: An Eyewitness Account of Pearl Harbor

Topper Tuesday takes a break from the business of business to honor U.S. Veterans. 

I am a veteran of the U.S. Army and the U.S. Coast Guard and I even managed to squeeze in a tour with the U.S. Navy. I am sharing a verbatim “FORWARD” to the journal a WWII sailor wrote 40 years after Pearl Harbor. A direct on-scene journal–all typos and grammar as originally written. It has never been published. Never been public-facing. Just one sailor’s real-life story. My good friend, Will Agen (and former shipmate of mine to boot), let me read the entire journal of his now-deceased father and gave me permission to share it. I think it’s very fitting and an honor to be able to share it with others. Happy Veterans Day!  

FORWARD

In the early months of 1981 being a survivor of the attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941 I started thinking about taking a trip back to the Hawaiian Islands and visit Pearl Harbor after forty years. 

Through these past years I had always tried to forget that dastardly event and the rest of World War II, but had made a promise to myself that if I lived long enough and was healthy enough I would go back to Pearl Harbor just to pay homage to my lost shipmates years ago.

It so happened at about this time I read about an organization called the “Pearl Harbor Survivors”. In writing to them, I found out that they had been in existance for some twenty years already. 

This organization was dedicated to the perpetuation of the memory of the attack in the minds of our countrymen, thereby assuring it will never happen again.

The P.H.S.A (Pearl Harbor Survivors Association) was having a 40 year reunion Dec. 7, 1981 I decided to join the organization.

In my application the PHSA requested information as to my experience on that infamous day.

This started me thinking. I wondered just how much I could remember about the attack after forty years of trying to forget.
The results was the first chapter of this story in which I surprised myself with the amount of information that I could recall after all those years. 

I attended the 40th reunion at Honolulu, Hawaii. It was quite a nostalgic occasion, visiting old haunts and especially the Arizona Memorial. 

My article on the Attack was well accepted by my Mates. There were other men that had written similar stories. We campared notes and every man had been surprised as to what he could remember, even some of the minute details and events of that day.

On my flight home I started to think that if I could remember and write about one of my experiences in World War II, I could do the same for all 3 ½ years of the War or I could at least try.

Well, at the time it was just a fleeting thought that was soon forgotten in my busy everyday life.

It wasn’t until the Wisconsin winter of 1983 that I started thinking seriously of writing “Pearl to Okinawa”.

Being retired I was getting sick and tired of shoveling snow and then go inside of the house and stare at the snowbanks outside. I thought if I could go back in time, even if I were never to finish the story, it would give me a pleasant diversion from the monotonous retired existance, and would give me a challenge. 

So, I started, In the last five years I have writtened off and on, never really believing that I would ever finish. It was like walking a thousand miles. I was ready to throw all my material in the wastebasket many times, but I found out the further along I wrote the more interested I became and it seemed the more I could remember of my life in those war years.

Finally after five years of endeavor the results are this naration. This story, my story can apply to the thousands of boys that became men from small towns, from farms and ranches. Most of us were just out of High School. Some of us had jobs before we went into the Service, clerks, salesmen, bookkeepers, mechanics, most any kind of job in life except the job of being a professional soldier, sailor or marine.

We all went to war very ignorant of what war was really like, but we learned and we learned fast. We had to learn the art of destruction if we were to have any hope of survival.

I like the thousand of other servicemen weren’t designated heroes. We weren’t fortunate enough to win the Medal of Honor, the Silver Star, the Bronze Star, or the Special Commendation. (I personally received a Commendation from Admiral Husband E. Kimmel when I served in his Flag as Commander of the Cruisers of the Battle Force in 1939 and 1940 before the War started. Unfortunately after Pearl Harbor this Commendation didn’t mean very much). We were the men that manned the guns, stood our station, performed our work and aided our dying comrades though the din of Hell in enemy combat.

Yes, and through the monotony of War. The long watches, the sleepless nights, the fear of watching, waiting, searching. The days and months spent just waiting in some Godforsaken port or land, waiting for our next hellish assignment.

When on rare occasions we were fortunate enough to get in some civilized port or town. We acted like wild hellions in trying to cram into few hours the years of living that we had missed.

In doing so some of us broke the rules and regulations. We took our punishment, licked our wounds and continued on fighting the War. 

We all had our dreams of; after the War was over, after the War was over. 

In the end we all received our campaign ribbons and stars, because we were there, we were involved, we survived.

In honor of all the sailors, soldiers and marines such as I this naration of my service is offered. 

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