World war ii. Up next, we will hear from survivors stationed at honolulu in 1941. The National Park service conducted an oral history. This is about an hour. Were in a hurricane for 9 days coming over from san diego. You have a rather green crew, when we got into honolulu and some of us got liberty. We took a taxi into the army slash navy y. I walked across the street, i ordered a soda and the lady said, youre from the u. S. S. Ward. And i said how do you know . She said youre all that delicate shade of green. The u. S. S. Ward was the guardianship, part of division 80 which consisted of four old destroyers, the ward, the sly, the alan and the chew. We rotated duty guarding the Entrance Channel to pearl harbor. The regulations were that on all the charts of the world was an indication that no submarine must approach pearl harbor within 100 miles without coming to the surface and requesting a destroyer escort on the surface to approach any closer to honolulu or pearl harbor. We had oftentimes been called to general quarters when the sonar man believed he heard screws. The captain backed up the sonar man all the time. The sonar man heard screws, we went to general quarters. It was our 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 0645 or a little before that. Towing a barge, and this little twoman sub was trying to sneak into the harbor. It looked like a 50gallon oil drum on top of maybe three or four of them that were laid down below it with a broomstick sticking up. Of course, that broomstick was the periscope. Im sure the men on the bridge could tell that there was Something Like your prism so that at the top of this broomstick they could see the periscope but it was too far , away for us to know it was anything like that. We thought it my have been a toy or who knows. We had never heard or seen anything like a twoman sub before. The folks saw the ship was rowing and pitching, and the shells that the crewmen were ready to load into the gun weighed over 75 pounds. Here you are staggering all around that rolling, pitching deck with live ammunition with grazed fuses on the nose. Kind of afraid of that kind of ammunition. We fired. You could watch down the end of the barrel and see the projectile just missed the end of the sub. I thought if it had another coat of paint on the sub, it might have activated the grays fuse. Thats how close we came. Gun number 3 hit at the base of the tower, and im sure it killed the japanese commander. The captain said stand by to ram. He made up his mind he was going to get that submarine one way or another. It was not going to get through. I found out later that it not only had two torpedos but a 500pound debt nation charge on nation nation that nation charge on the surge and it was supposed to blow itself up along with the other ship. We were surprised to find a submarine that close on the surface. So we knew that it wasnt supposed to be there. I think my impression was that perhaps this submarine might have been one single reconnaissance effort. I had no concept at all that it was going to be followed up with a major combat till i saw the planes coming, which was an hour and 20 minutes later. I was a crew member of the utility squadron 2 on the luke field side of ford island. That particular sunday i had the duty and i was at the hangar at the time the attack began. I was waiting to muster the on going duty section. We thought a plane had crashed. We ran out of our hangar looking across the runway. We see the smoke coming up from the hangar. We still didnt know what was happening. About that time here comings a plane diving down from the sun. We could see the symbol of the rising sun under his wings. Then we knew we were being attacked by the japanese. I started looking for a place to hide. We didnt have any bomb shelters. I was looking for a place to hide. Here comes a japanese plane flying from south to north up on the west side of ford island. And they were flying so low i could see the goggles on the rear gunners helmet as he swings his machine gun around. He begins district with machine gun fire. I look out there and hear all this splattering concrete where the bullets were hitting, just splattering dust, concrete dust. I jumped behind this tractor that was parked there. It gave me the protection i needed. I noticed a couple of my ship mates picked up the 45 caliber pistol that it can used on watch the night before. The guys had just taken their pistols off and laid them on the table to exchange with the on going duty section. A couple of them grabbed the pistols and went out and started shooting at the japanese planes with these pistols. I discovered that there is a motion thats more strong than fear, and thats shame. I began to feel so ashamed of myself. Here im trained to be a gunner and im hiding. The lord gave me enough guts to leave my hiding place and go into the armory where the machine guns were stored and some others had gathered. We took those machine guns and put them in the mounts parked on the ground. The last gun i put in was in one parked on the warmup mat. I got behind it and manned it for the rest of the attack. I think everybody has a little coward in them. But once you can get over that, and by the way, this is where i praised the training of the United States navy. They train and train and train, and you do it over and over and over. When the time came, we just did what we were trained to do. We didnt have to think. You just did what you was trained to do. I was angry. My feelings went from fear to shame to anger. If i could have, i would have shot every one of them down. That was the way i wanted it. Thats the way i felt. Still mixed in there, fear was in the background but it was still there. Planes were everywhere now, like bees around a hive. I dont know how they kept from running into each other. Im sure it was all planned down. They reversed it and reversed rehearsed it and reversed it. By this time you could close your eyes and shoot in the air and youre bound to hit something. They were everywhere. This particular plane im thinking about had dropped a bomb or torpedo on probably the california, because he was sort of pulling out of his dive and he was coming right across the runway heading over our hangar. All of our gunners, including yours truly was shooting at him. We can see the tracer bullets penetrating the fuselage. He burst into flames. Smoke trailing out of his tail. It looked like he was going to crash right out there in the channel. But he got in the middle of the channel and he does a little arcing dive and purposely crashes on the deck of the u. S. S. Curtis. That became known as the first kamikaze of world war ii. It was uncanny what they were able to pull off. Just like yamamoto said they , woke a sleeping giant. We were going on a picnic at the naval ammunition dump that the marines were doing guard duty at. And previous week the ports at the starboard side had the picnic there. This week we were going. We were looking forward to it because i had been there a couple months earlier. We had a nice time. I was looking forward to drinking beer, pitching horseshoes. There were planes flying down like if they were not like if they were. We assumed they were doing target practice because out of sea we would pull the target behind us, maybe 100 yards or so and the planes would practice dive bombing. We watched them and we says, hey, what kind of emblems are those . We couldnt understand why are they doing this on a sunday. Thats the first time. And then in port, we didnt realize when we discussed this among ourselves, within the few seconds we had. And then across the bay we seen a ship afterire, smoking. The officer of the day had the bugler sound fooir and rescue. We were going to drop what we had and go and get ready. And then there was a call, delay that call. And then a few seconds after that we heard the familiar da, da, da, da, da, da. That was general quarters. It didnt dawn on us until somebody said, hey, those are japanese planes. We said general quarters. The only thing we can think of then were the japanese because there was so much talk about what was going on between japanese and our country. Many things flashed through my mind. One of them was, hey, whats my mother going to say if im killed . That was my biggest concern. There was oil on the ship. I can see hey i never could , climb that thing in school that you would climb up in a gym. But that day this was oily, so i climbed that up even with the oil. You know how hard youve got to grip. Thats like trying to hold on to a greased pig. You can see what you can do when theres anxiety, or fright, anger, danger, whatever you want to call it. Lets say time heals everything. Thats why i look at it. How long can you hold your anger . Are you going to die with it . I dont want to die with it. Lets say we did the opposite. Did they forgive us about hiroshima . If they forgive us about hiroshima, we should forgive. Not that i think it saved lives on both sides. I took my bugle and ran up to the bridge. Thats where my battle station was. It couldnt have been a couple minutes before 8 00. I didnt really sound color so im not sure. Then the captain came up, and this was a little bit couple minutes after 8 00. He come up here and said, my god, were at war. The next thing i remember, there was a tremendous explosion on the tennessee. Your number two gunter at. That gun to rent. Et. Number two gun turr and there was shrapnel all over the place. I looked around and the captain was laying on the deck. He had most of his, he was almost tore in half. We made him as comfortable as we could. And this was just a little bit, about eight or nine minutes after 8 00. We stood up and all of a sudden i saw the arizona explode. Im telling you, i never was so scared in my whole life. You could feel the tremendous heat and the concussion blew us back into the pilot house, came back out and the captain was laying there. I think it was a signalman went down and got a hold of our executive officer. He came up and the captain was still alive. He looked down and said, captain, what are my orders . The only thing the captain said, he says, the ship is yours. Im not going to make it, thats all. We stayed up on the bridge through all the torpedos and straefing. The Committee Said what the hell are we doing up here . Lets get below so we can help out. We stayed aboard and fought fires and rescued people from down below at the officers country. I was with a group. There were 3 of us. We went down and busted the doors open. Everything was sprung shut. We got two officers out. Got them top side. The water was about up to our navals so we climbed back up on the quarter deck. We did everything we could. Some of the guys coming up, their clothing was burning. We threw them down on the deck and tried to pat the fire out. Finally, the tennessee fired up her engines, and to push the fire from the water, push it away from the ship, that helped a lot. Then the tugboat came up and started to squirt us with water, and then commander helen caught us and said to abandon ship. We passed the word to abandon ship. That was around 9 30. Then we fought our way back. That was just a fire forward. It was not as much after the arizona. One guy in particular, orval, he said, gosh, i left my money and my wallet. My wallet is in my locker. He fights his way back through all of the fire. In the case makes, we have these fiveinch shells sitting along the bulkhead to lose. If they got hot, they were going to blow up. So, he finds his way back through the casemates, gets to his locker, opens it up, gets his wallet out. This takes three or four minutes. I mean, he was going to make it. He takes off all his clothes and them up nice and neat. He did not want to get them wet. He was in his skivvies and you swim to fort allen and all of his money stayed right there. I will never forget that. It is strange. I remember the forecastle i , remember diving into the water, i remember climbing on for allen on four hour. But the 50 or 60 yards is gone. I dont know. And i cant tell you. I dont know. At 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. But as they were coming in, boy, it looked like the fourth of july. We shot down six. We killed three of the pilots. One of the guys coming in, as he was landing, i was up on the machine gun, and i filled his airplane full of holes and i did i dont know if you ever met him or not jim daniels. He is a good friend of mine. [laughter] but 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 wednesday or thursday i finally got some sleep. You just couldnt sleep. You were on watch all the time. You are on watch, you are eating sandwiches. And you are supposed to the eight hours you are off, youre supposed to sleep, but you cant do it. Your nerves are just right on the edge. And i think there was about i think wednesday or thursday i fell asleep. And of course it was a while before i could hear from all of those torpedoes. We took nine torpedoes and the arizona blowing up. Arizona long up. And the tennessee was completely firing their fiveand fiveinch guns. Of course, i wear hearing aids today, but it was about a week before i could really hear. We had 106 dead, about three hundred, over 300 wounded. And of course, our captain received the congressional medal of honor. I played taps for him the next night in the warehouse where we stayed, you know, and it was the taps ever played in my whole life. Edward hyland it was admiral kimballs ship. He just did not happen to be on it these days. We would say, the japanese are attacking. We would run to our battle station. Most of us knew eventually we were going to have to fight the japanese. Where that trickle down from, i have no idea. I suppose the politicians, the officers, but we expected to fight them eventually. We just didnt know when. There is no need for radio communication. It was obvious to all of the ships in the harbor we were under attack. So, they had us handing in the had us carrying ammunition out to the 350. Handed a three inch shell, and i was getting ready to run it out to the gun again, and the next thing i knew, i was flat on my face. Something went through my right thigh and out through my rear end. I had a six by eight inch long through the left thigh. I had five pieces of shrapnel in the left leg. My right hand was shot. I lost part of my left elbow. I lost part of my left bicep. They finally put me in the bunk. I was lying there, and i saw one of the third class radio makers and i said, hey, housman. He looked at me and he said, who are you . And then i realized that either something is wrong with me or something is wrong with him. So, i said, its hyland. And all he did was go, oh, oh, and walk away from me. I found the navy had me listed as superficial wounds. Him it seems the big problem was trying to keep me alive because of the burns when the bomb went off. The blast just took all of the skin off our legs, arms, face. We had shorts and tshirt on. That was our combat uniform. My brother was a sergeant with the marine detachment in indianapolis and they were out on patrol. He saw me about a year later. He said when he came i guess it was wednesday after the attack, he came over looking for me and they had me on the missing list. At that time, we had this large navy hospital. He went over there looking for me. He said he finally found a group of us all lined up. They had tagged my toe already. That is how he identified me. He said even he did not know me. He said i looked like roast turkey. 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 5. For thed in midchannel lexington, which was the Worlds Largest aircraft carrier. Monday that ship was scheduled to come back to the states and i would have gotten out. I had saved 400 and i was going to go to medical school. The day before was not eventful except i did not go anywhere. I did not go ashore. Honolulu in those days was not waikiki was not a favorite port because there were no women. There were 2000 men, 2000 for every woman, so we like the state side. Somebody said, what are all of those planes in the air . What are all of these planes doing out on a sunday morning . I could hear vaguely a droning, which was not unusual. Fort allen was unable airbase. By the time i fort allen was a naval airbase. By the time i looked up skyward, i was almost positive there were six of them coming in a v formation. I saw the bomb struck. I saw a huge red flame and black smoke. I thought, oh, my god. Somebody really goofed because those are real bombs. I thought, my god. Somebody really made a mistake. Those are real bombs. Just about that time, i felt the ship lurch. We were being hit by torpedoes on the opposite side, which, of course, i could not see that side. When he torpedoes hit, i actually felt the ship lurch. The ship was somewhere around 22,000 tons. We were not walking around. And when a bomb would hit, you could feel the ship. This was kind of an outward feeling, and im sure there was a torpedo. There is some question about whether the bombers got there first. I am sure that lurch was a torpedo. There is a matter of seconds before the bugle sounded general quarters. You know, that is were you go to your battle station. So, my battle station was midship. As i was running down, running down the passageway, the ship lurched again. Now this time, i dont know whether was a bomb or torpedo. But it knocked me through a lot of room door, you know where they kept the records. I went this way. I got up a little dazed. You dont have time to think. Anyway, i dived down the ladder. Our battle stations were below the deck. No sooner than we were down there and we could tell the ship was already listing. This was a matter of 1, 2, three minutes. Everybody is looking around. What in the world is going on . What is happening . We were there, im sure not over a minute or two and then the bugler sounded abandon ship. They were chanting, abandon ship, abandon ship. We had taken on ammunition in San Francisco for the fleet. The naval Ammunition Depot was loaded. We were going all over the ocean with this ammunition and i thought, oh, my word, when this ship sinks its going to blow up. I wanted to get away fast. These things occur to you in a matter of seconds. I was going to run and dive way out. And about then, the shipper really lurched. I thought for some time after it was another bomber torpedo, but actually it was the mooring lines. It was 22,000 tons. These great, big lines holding the ship. And so, as the ship was sinking, those lines snapped and when they snapped, that threw me off balance and i landed on my fanny and scraped across those barnacles, you know, on the side in the bottom. When i got in the water, when i tried to get my bearings, i saw this boat launch and there was a coxswain, in the