Remembering Dec. 7

SANTA ANA, Calif. – Who cares?

The survivors gather in graveyards each Dec. 7 to salute the flag. But even their numbers are dwindling as Pearl Harbor Day rolls around. Again. What can any of the rest of us really do, these 64 years later?

Maybe the answer lies just beneath the surface of John Johnsen’s story, which opens with a can of spilled milk on the deck of the USS Nevada.

First you have to understand the day that dawned sunny and warm 64 years ago this morning. And know it was a day defined by three emotions.

Shock.

Anger.

And fear.

7:51 a.m. – Shock

The hum of airplanes came as good news to Army Air Force Pvt. Andy Weniger, sitting on the flight line of Hickam Field, a U.S. bomber base at Pearl Harbor. Weniger was awaiting a dozen B-17s, expected to fuel at Hickam before flying farther into the Pacific.

What he heard instead was the first wave of Japan’s attack – 183 planes storming in from the northwest and targeting six U.S. airfields to prevent counterattack.

“The first plane came in and bombed our hangars,” said Weniger, now 83, of Huntington Beach, Calif. “After the bombs, they went around strafing all our guys on the runways. They were having a field day.”

The U.S. couldn’t have been caught less prepared: planes were parked in neat rows, rifles locked in armories, foxholes nonexistent.

In all, the Japanese grounded 347 of America’s 394 planes. Down at Battleship Row, however, things were worse. And the second wave hadn’t even started.

8:10 a.m. – Anger

Madness surrounded him. Smoke. Flames. Explosions. And milk. Some 2,300 men were drowning, burning or bleeding to death as Japan’s surprise attack unfolded on a clear Sunday morning.

“In all the uproar, someone had spilled some canned milk right where we were trying to stand and fire the number-five broadside gun,” said Johnsen, now 83. “Someone was looking for a mop to clean up that darned milk so nobody would slip and fall. It seemed strange we had to fool around with some little thing like that.”

When a torpedo peeled open the port bow of the Nevada, it felt like the 29,000-ton battleship lifted out of the water.

Japanese planes had a perfect view of the 96 U.S. ships in the harbor. Some planes swooped low to drop torpedoes. Some dropped bombs. Others made strafing runs.

The Nevada was the only ship on Battleship Row to get under way that morning. Wounded and limping, she made a run for open sea at 8:50 a.m. Four minutes later, Japan’s second wave of 167 planes roared overhead.

Within fifteen minutes, six 250-kilogram bombs found the Nevada, adding to her torpedo damage. She sunk in shallow waters off Hospital Point.

“You knew we were at war now – no doubt about that,” said Johnsen. “But we wondered how we were going to fight it because it didn’t look like we had anything left.”

9:45 a.m. – Fear

And then it was over.

“You could almost feel the silence after all those planes took off,” said Johnsen. “You could see all this fire, and black smoke, and in many places the water was burning from all the oil on it, with small boats coming in and out picking up the dead and wounded.

To a man, Pearl Harbor survivors say they were scared. Not in battle. But after.

“You don’t have time to get scared when you’re working,” said Jefferson Maner, now 87, in Laguna Woods, Calif., who served on the USS Dobbin. “After it’s all over – that’s when you get scared, buddy.”

Japan’s attack destroyed 18 U.S. warships, 347 planes and killed more than 2,300 men.

“I’m having trouble walking right now,” Johnsen said. “I lost my lower right leg 15 years ago.”

So he lives with other memories now, too. Like memories of a Pearl Harbor reunion in Washington, D.C., when strangers stopped him on the Metro to say thank you. And memories of calls he got last Dec. 7 from friends who wanted to show their appreciation.

“They call and let me know they remember,” he said, and the booming voice of this big man, which had been rock steady, breaks for the first time. “That is special.”

He pauses, unable to talk.

And in that pause lies the answer to what can be done by those who didn’t experience the shock, anger or fear 64 years ago today. It’s as simple as saying two words.

Thank you.