Pearl Harbor Day

I picked up a Friday paper on impulse, and in leafing through it, saw a page about the Pearl Harbor Commemoration today. How perfect, I thought. December 7th on a Sunday! The early hour was a bit daunting. Members of the general public would go by boat to the pier on the Pearl Harbor base, between 6:20 and 7:00am, to have us seated by the 7:30 start. They hold it then since the attack began at 7:55am.

I almost wimped out. I decided to just see if I woke up at 5:30. I woke up at 5:35, so I put on clothes and headed there. I knew from two prior visits to the Pearl Harbor historic sites that no purse would be allowed, so wore my zip off cargo pants and stuff the pockets with money, keys, cell phone, breakfast bar, and my iPod for entertainment. Only 2000 seats were available for the public, so my hopes were dim as I got in the car at 6:00am sharp.

But to my surprise, I didn't even have to park in the overflow lot. I made it in time for boat 4. They gave us these large tickets, abt 8.5x3, that we had to wear. Mine was orange.

I sat and watched a movie I'd downloaded for a few minutes before the start. It had been dark when I left, and dawn was just coming up while I sat there. The clouds were faintly pink. We had a roof, but three sides of the structure were open to the water, and the Arizona memorial was across the water near a small island.

The event began with a Hawaiian blessing, which involved 4 men wearing traditional island clothes blowing conch shells, and then a traditional chanted blessing in Hawaiian.

Next, the USS Chung-Hoon came by in a Pass-in-Review. All the sailors were in their white uniforms standing at attention all around the edge of the deck. One of the Pearl Harbor survivors was brought to the center to give the salute and they all saluted back. This was done as part of the Moment of Silence. It was very moving. I'm getting misty-eyed as I write about it, seeing the gray ship with the white uniforms slowly and respectfully come by, saluting the old gentleman in his Hawaiian shirt.

The ship is named after Rear Admiral Chung-Hoon, a Hawaii native who attended the Naval Academy and was here on the day of the attack.

Then there was an F-14 flyover by the Hawaiian National Guard, in the Missing Man formation. Those planes were loud! It made me wonder how loud it must have been when all those Japanese planes appeared 67 years ago. Next came the presentation of the colors (flags for you non-military types).

A representative from the Japan Religious Committee for World Federation said a prayer for peace, something this group has been doing for the past 27 years.

Then started the speeches. First, Sen Inouye from Hawaii. Then the Lt Governor of Hawaii. Then the Commander of the Pacific Fleet, Admiral Willard. And next, a historian from the National Park Service who seemed to get genuinely choked up as he introduced the featured speaker, one of the nine remaining crew members from the Doolittle Raid.

That was the main thing that got me out of bed, I think. How many opportunities are there going to be to hear a Doolittle Raider speak? This gentleman was the navigator on the 9th bomber (the Whirling Dervish) to take off that night in April, 1942. There were 80 men who manned the 16 planes; now there are just nine left.

His talk was short and a bit funny. He said they were stationed on the Oregon coast on the day of the attack, and for six weeks afterward, they flew up and down the west coast, expecting more Japanese ships. One time they opened their bomb doors because they thought they'd spotted a submarine, but a sharp-eyed crew member yelled that it was just a whale, so they saved the whale and closed the doors. He was one of two men who were sent to Washington to assemble all the maps the team would need.

As some of you may know, they were spotted 250 miles closer than they'd hoped to be, so they took off from there. After hitting their Tokyo targets, they barely had enough fuel to make China, but a storm gave them a tailwind that got them there. The Chinese helped them, but at great cost. (Wikipedia estimates the Japanese killed 250,000 Chinese in their efforts to find Doolittle's men. )

The write-up in the program also mentioned that this gentleman, Major Tom Griffin, went on to fly missions in Europe, was shot down, and played a role in "The Great Escape."

After Major Griffin (who got a standing ovation for both his beginning and his end), they presented wreaths for each of the ships damaged that day. Thin metal stands lined the long side of the open pier with a life preserver ring and the name of each ship. First came the representatives from the Army, Navy, Marines, Coast Guard, and Air Force.

Then a Pearl Harbor survivor came, flanked by a National Park ranger and a young serviceperson, to lay a wreath by each ship. They tried to match each ship with a survivor, but some ships didn't have crew members remaining who could travel any more. So for those, someone from shore or another ship stood in for them. A couple of them had chairs to sit in, but the others stood through the entire wreath laying.

First, a Navy spokesman read some words about the ship. Then a National Park Ranger read some words about the individual and what he was doing that day. Again, some of these remarks were a little funny. One person tried to go back to sleep after he heard the first set of bombs, but the second round "got his attention." Some of the ships lost just a handful of their crew, four or five. The Oklahoma and the Arizona received the most damage, with the Arizona sinking in 9 minutes, losing 1,177 members of her crew. The Oklahoma sunk more slowly and lost over 429 crew members.

After the wreaths, a Navy Chaplain gave a brief benediction, and then the Marine Corps gave a rifle salute. The last thing was the playing of "Taps." They used two trumpets, one echoing the other. I'd never heard it like that before. My eyes spilled over a bit then.

The survivors and dignitaries were taken by boat over to the Arizona Memorial. Those of us great unwashed wearing our big tickets had to wait about 20 minutes for boats to take us back to the visitor center. I bought a book and came on home.

I've been kind of sad and pensive ever since. What a terrible day that must have been. But I'm glad I got out of bed. For this amateur historian, this was an event worth losing a little sleep for.