Any Dopers have parents, grandparents, or other relatives who are old enough to remember? Both my parents are gone, but my dear friend and “adopted” mother is 91, and she was a teenager when it happened.
We’re getting close to a time when there will be no one left who remembers that day first hand.
My Uncle remembers it but he was a kid. My Dad is gone and my Mom’s memory is slipping away, aggravated by the isolation of the pandemic.
I found out last week that my Great Uncle (Dad’s uncle) was awarded a Bronze Star for bravery in Italy.
My Grandfather (Dad’s Dad) & another of his brothers were in the Merchant Marines and came under fire more than once while serving. But they’re all long gone now.
My Mom’s Mom lost her youngest brother in the Pacific. He was a Navy aviator. I’m not sure if he was a pilot or a Petty Officer that crewed the planes. I’m sorry I don’t know more about his service. Everyone that would are now gone.
My old man’s long gone but I remember him describing how everyone gathered around the radio to listen to the news on a Sunday. He had just turned 17. I think he and a lot of people around his age knew that they were about to be involved in a major war. I still have his enlistment/registration card from 1943 when he joined the army.
My parents, who are now gone, were already married at the time. In fact, my older brother was shortly thereafter conceived, in an attempt to keep my father from being drafted.
Did it work?
My mom is 85 she was a kid but remembers it.One of Her uncles was drafted , he didn’t go, he said he was a CO. He went to prison. The others were farmers and were exempt. ( after he died under mysterious circumstances… Gram always thought he was murdered by his wife so she could take up with his brother…)
Turned out, he was 4F due to intense hay fever. But they had him inspect airplanes instead.
I have a relative who was in the Navy at the time, and was aboard the Arizona for the attack. He survived. As a young kid I remember asking him about it. He was an old man when we talked. He was below decks when it happened. He got up on deck, dove into the water, and swam underwater, beneath the burning oil, over to Ford Island. When he needed air he surfaced but first cleared a spot among the burning oil and fuel to come up for air. He had a letter from the President recognizing him as an Arizona survivor and I remember seeing that.
Rest in Peace, Lolo Enyong, and thank you for what you and the greatest generation helped to do.
I talked to my 86 yr old dad about it yesterday. He was 7 when it happened – here’s what he told me.
At the time, they lived in what we’d call Ozark backwoods, no phone, electricity, running water, nor car. They had a battery operated radio which was only turned on for the Grand Ole Opry on Saturdays. His dad (my grandpa) rode their horse into town for a construction job on weekdays. Since the attack happened on a Sunday, they were unaware until grandpa rode into town on Monday. Since he normally didn’t return from town until 9 - 10 pm, my dad and his siblings were in bed when he brought the news to Grandma on Monday night. They told the kids (Dad and siblings) about the attack on Tuesday morning. When my dad asked where Pearl Harbor was, grandpa said he didn’t know. So they took the story to the teacher at the (1-room) schoolhouse that morning and she showed them with a map. After getting as much detail as Grandpa had, she announced it to the rest of the school (4 kids), who took the news home. So most of their small village didn’t find out until Tuesday afternoon.
There’s lots more about their fortunes during the war, and Grandpa working in a stateside POW camp, but I’ll skip it for now. Glad I asked Dad about this, though.
Wow. What an incredible thing to have experienced and then to live with… Rest in peace, indeed.
That sounds very interesting.
We will have lost a lot when this generation is gone…
No kidding. I’m really glad I talked to Grandpa and Grandma about the recession before they passed. Their story could have been written by Steinbeck himself.
My step-Grandfather (I never really thought of him as a Grandfather, he was just Chuck or Uncle Chuck to me) was on the USS Indianapolis when it went down. Obviously he was one of the lucky survivors.
He never talked about in general and I never knew about it until I stumbled on the list of those on the Indianapolis when it went down. He had a very generic name so it might not have been him, but I remembered he had an Indianapolis ballcap and that he was Navy in WWII.
So I called my Dad and he confirmed Chuck was on the Indy when she went down. Apparently a long time ago Chuck & my Dad had talked about it. But that was it, a one time thing.
I understand that not a single survivor or witness was able to attend the USS Arizona commemoration.
Two years ago they had the final Doolittle Raid reunion.
Richard Cole the last survivor of the Raid passed April 2019 at age 103.
Anyone on the Arizona would be 97 or older now. So none being left seems likely.
I got to Pearl once while I was in. I regret not going to the Memorial but we only had a small amount of liberty and I was 19 I think, so it didn’t seem like the best use of my time then.
My grandfather was in the 2nd World War, and my dad was in Vietnam, so Pearl Harbor Day was something that was noted every year. Maybe it’s me, but it seems like no one even mentions it anymore outside of military/veteran organizations. There wasn’t even the briefest lip service on the news. With mainstream America, it seems to come and go quietly.
My aged MIL was 16 when PH occurred. Her older brother fought in the war but came back in one piece. She lost a lot of high school classmates and a couple of cousins to combat in WWII.
It’ll still be there when COVID is over. Not much about it changes.
Since the “date of discharge” is more than 62 years ago, his Official Military Personnel File (OMPF) is available to the public, but archived. This means you (or anyone) can request a copy but will need to pay a fee of $25 or $70 depending in the number of pages – five is the breakpoint.
You can start here.
I don’t think I’ll be getting back to Hawaii though. I’m an East Coaster to boot. Last time I got there by Aircraft Carrier.
Cool, I’m going to check with my Niece first as she’s the family historian now and she if she knows any more.
All my ancestors are gone, but I have a vague memory of it. I was 6 weeks short of 5 when it happened and I certainly recall many things about the war (including, for example, Roosevelt’s death, VE and VJ days, the dropping of the atomic bombs), but I was 8 by then.
It’s the whole “living memory” thing. Everyone who lived through it is at a minimum of 79 years old now, and that’s for babies born on 12/7/1941. Any actual military personnel involved would be a minimum of what… 96 years old (if they were 17 at the time).
So what we have left is fairly elderly people who were small children when it actually happened. For the rest of us it’s probably similar to us to what the explosion of the USS Maine in Havana harbor was to our parents- something our grandparents would have remembered, but not something we experienced directly.
I suspect next on the list is the JFK assassination, although it might have some legs due to all the conspiracy nonsense surrounding it. At some point in the next 20-30 years, most everyone alive for the JFK assassination will be gone, and it’ll fade into a historical footnote. And probably around 2075-2080, 9/11 will be the same way, as even the children born on 9/11/2001 will be very elderly by then. (assuming no breakthroughs in longevity between now and then).