Survivor Of Pearl Harbor Has Vivid Memory Of Attack

At 8 a.m. on Dec. 7, 1941, Allan Nauck looked up from the deck of a U.S. Navy destroyer and into the eyes of a Japanese pilot about to open fire on his ship.

“I could see the determination on his face when he squeezed the trigger. He was firing square at me,” remembered Nauck, 79. Gunfire exploded on the deck in front of Nauck and a spent bullet casing grazed his neck.

“It was just like everything stood still,” Nauck said. “It was all over in a flash.”

Nearly 54 years later, Nauck still remembers those few frantic moments at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, as if they were yesterday.

Today, the United States honors veterans such as Nauck, a 20-year Spokane Valley resident and a member of Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1435.

Nauck believes American involvement in Vietnam was a mistake - “That war was totally unnecessary,” he said - but that U.S. was justified in entering World War II.

“We were attacked,” he said. “They caught all those guys sleeping, me included.”

After the war, Nauck worked for 20 years as an aircraft mechanic in Oakland, Calif. He lived near the University of California at Berkeley, a center for anti-war demonstrations in the 1960s and early ‘70s.

The anti-war demonstrations that he witnessed daily upset him because he felt for the people serving in Vietnam. “I didn’t like it and I still don’t but you had to join ‘em or fight ‘em. I stayed neutral,” Nauck said.

Nauck said he feels lucky that he came home in one piece. Despite the thousands of deaths and injuries, the ships sunk and ripped apart at Pearl Harbor, Nauck’s ship was not damaged and none of his fellow crew members was injured.

“I was one of the more fortunate, for not being injured or maimed or having limbs blown off,” he said.

Nauck now lives on East Second in the Valley with his wife, Mary. The license plate on his car carries the message “Pearl Harbor survivor.”

Nauck spends much of his time caring for his 99-year-old uncle, Harry Ireland, also a veteran - of both World War I and World War II.

In 1986, Ireland’s wife of 69 years, Inez, passed away. Since then, Nauck and his wife have visited Ireland every day. In February, they will celebrate Ireland’s 100th birthday at the VFW.

In 1988, Nauck became a member of the Pearl Harbor Survivor’s Association, and got back in touch with some of the men he’d served with during the war. He communicates with two men in Oregon and one in California.

“It’s kind of fun to re-hash those things,” Nauck said. “That’s one thing that kind of helps people remember.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo