Three San Diegans remember Pearl Harbor in today’s Union-Tribune and North County Times. The first, Dorothy Hargrave, was 30 at the time and training a new waitress in a Pearl City restaurant where she worked while her husband’s ship took him to California for repairs.
At 7:50 a.m. on Dec. 7, Hargrave and the new waitress were waiting for the only customer – a young lieutenant – to finish his breakfast.
The two women looked out the window, hearing planes zoom low overhead. At first, Hargrave thought they were U.S. fighters. Then she heard bullets slap the ground and saw flames shooting from a nearby building.
“The lieutenant said to me, ‘Dorothy, we are at war,'” Hargrave recalled last week at her home in San Diego.
“Who could we be at war with?” she asked the officer.
He replied: ‘We’re at war with Japan.'”
[…]
Minutes after the first wave of planes swept over Pearl Harbor, people began straggling into the restaurant. Some of them were families from nearby housing. Later came some oil-stained sailors who swam ashore from battleship row.
The lieutenant made Dorothy the group’s chief nurse. She gathered her charges in the center of the building and tore up sheets to make bandages. She calmed the group by leading them in “Jesus Loves Me” and “Over the Rainbow” even as bombs destroyed airplanes and ships all around Ford Island.
Through a window, they could see the burning hulk of the battleship Arizona.
“It was scary,” Dorothy said. “We thought we would be prisoners of the Japanese before the day was over.”
The attack lasted two hours. Afterward, Dorothy caught a boat ride back to the Pearl Harbor Navy Yard. Then someone drove her home to Pearl City in a van with a bullet hole in the roof.
“One Terrible Day: A young Navy wife meets the test of fire,” by Steve Liewer, San Diego Union-Tribune, Dec. 7, 2005
Joe Kawka, was a 19-year-old signalman on the destroyer Cassin and remembers the Japanese planes were so close “he could see a pilot’s face.”
His ship was in dry dock for repairs and the guns on deck were out of commission. Instead, the sailors fought back with the only ammunition they had.
“We started throwing potatoes at them. We almost got them, too,” Kawka said.
[…]
Then a second wave of 170 planes attacked. Kawka could see a pilot in the open cockpit.
“He shook his hand at us as he went by,” Kawka said.
A bomb landed between the Cassin and the ship next to it. The crew scrambled to get off the ship, climbing down ropes to escape.
Kawka took cover with other sailors for the rest of the day. The next day, with nothing but the clothes he was wearing, he was ordered to another ship that was hunting for Japanese subs outside the harbor.
“The chaos of that day isn’t easily forgotten,” by Anne Krueger, San Diego Union-Tribune, Dec. 7, 2005
23-year-old Ernie Lippman was a second class radioman on the USS San Francisco. He’d just started his shift when he heard bombing.
Running on deck to see what was happening, Lippmann made it there in time to see airplanes in the sky with the Rising Sun on their fuselages and a torpedo plane drop a bomb that drove into the body of the USS Oklahoma. Although his cruiser was not hit, Lippmann said, he was still frightened for his life.
“One of my thoughts was, ‘Oh God, I won’t see my 24th birthday,’ ” Lippmann said. “I’m glad to be alive; I was spared, I guess.”
“Escondido man recalls attack on Pearl Harbor,” by Jessica Musicar, North County Times, Dec. 7, 2005.
And here’s an online reminiscence that must not be misssed, taken from a teenager’s diary. B.Z. Leonard was 17 and living in Hickman Field, Hawaii when the attack occurred.
Sunday, December 7, 1941
BOMBED! 8:00 in the morning. Unknown attacker so far! Pearl Harbor in flames! Also Hickam hanger line. So far no houses bombed here.
5 of 11:00. We’ve left the post. It got too hot. The PX is in flames, also the barracks. We made a dash during a lull. Left everything we own there. Found out the attackers are Japs. Rats!!! A couple of non-com’s houses demolished. Hope Kay is O.K. We’re at M’s. It’s all so sudden and surprising I can’t believe it’s really happening. It’s awful. School is discontinued until further notice…there goes my graduation.
Shortwave: Direct hit on barracks, 350 killed. Wonder if I knew any of them. Been quiet all afternoon. Left Bill on duty at the U. Blackout all night of course!
“Ginger’s Diary,” by B.Z. Leonard.