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WASHINGTON (December 7, 2015) -- When the first bombs exploded on
a nearby airfield, marking the start of the Japanese sneak attack on
the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, Edward Davis and others scrambled from
a chow hall.
The 94-year-old Army veteran said he and other
Soldiers were having breakfast at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, when
Japanese aircraft dive-bombed the adjacent Wheeler Army Airfield.
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Edward Davis, right, a 94-year-old Army veteran who witnessed the Japanese sneak attack on Hawaii and Frank Levingston, a 110-year-old Army veteran believed to be the nation's oldest living World War II veteran, attend a Pearl Harbor remembrance ceremony at the National World War II Memorial December 7, 2015, in Washington, D.C. (U.S. Air Force photo
by Sean Kimmons)
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“We all ran outside and looked up at the sky to see what
was going on,” the retired first sergeant said before a
Pearl Harbor remembrance ceremony Dec. 7 at the World War II
Memorial.
At that point, a few Mitsubishi A6M Zero
fighters roared over the Army base and fired at them,
killing and injuring several Soldiers from his unit.
“I couldn't believe it,” he said, recalling how the
attacks stoked fears of a looming Japanese invasion. “It was
an unbelievable tragedy.”
The attacks on the island
of Oahu eventually left more than 2,400 dead and almost
1,200 wounded as it catapulted the U.S. into the war.
“It dealt us a body blow that I think was a rude
awakening to Americans,” said Herb Durham, a former Army Air
Corps pilot. “The war had started and as a young man I was
eager to get in.”
During the war, Durham, one of
about 20 WWII veterans at the ceremony, said he had some
scary moments in Europe where he flew Republic P-47
Thunderbolt fighters.
One time while strafing German
positions, a 20-mm round hit his canopy, causing shattered
glass and shrapnel from the round to cut his face.
“I
was lucky I had on my oxygen mask and goggles,” he said of
the March 1945 mission. “The doctor said I was lucky I
didn't lose my left eye.”
About a month later, Durham
faced his biggest test when his aircraft was shot down
behind enemy lines.
“I was dive-bombing a target and
when I pulled off the target I got hit in the engine,” the
91-year-old veteran recalled. “But I had a lot of air speed
so I pulled up to about 6,000 feet and bailed out.”
Durham was later caught by German soldiers who threw him in
a prison camp. But a few weeks later, he said, the soldiers
abandoned the camp as U.S. tanks approached it, freeing him
and others.
In the Pacific Theater, former Marine
Cpl. Ed Graham, who joined a dozen veterans on an honor
flight from Texas for the ceremony, was sent to the tense
Battle of Iwo Jima.
At first, Graham, 90, said he
was part of a floating reserve until the battle turned
fiercer than expected and ultimately had about 26,000
American casualties including 6,800 dead.
“We
weren't supposed to go in but they tore them up so bad the
first day,” he said of how the Japanese forces pinned down
his fellow Marines. “It was pretty bad for the whole crew.”
Graham, assigned to the 3rd Marine Division, was later
sent to the island to help purify water for combat-weary
troops in the 36-day battle.
“All we had to worry
about were mortars and snipers,” he said.
But he and
other troops received some motivation when U.S. troops
raised the American flag on top of Mount Suribachi, which
later became an iconic image of the war.
“I was on
board the ship when they raised it and everybody clapped,
yelled and screamed,” he recalled. “It was quite a sight.”
The attack on Pearl Harbor and the subsequent “a date
which will live in infamy” speech by President Franklin D.
Roosevelt inspired many young men to sign up and fight in
the costly war, which left more than 400,000 American
servicemen dead and forever shaped the world.
Navy
veteran Ted Waller said he rushed to the recruiter's office
following the attack.
“I went down the next day and
tried to sign up but there were so many people there that
they told us to go home until after Christmas so we could
spend time with family,” the 92-year-old veteran recalled.
“I came back the day after [Christmas] and got sworn in.”
Waller went on to take part in the world's first
all-aircraft carrier naval clash, the Battle of the Coral
Sea, and roughly a dozen other battles. He then witnessed
the Japanese surrender some of its South Pacific territories
while on board the USS Portland at Truk, Caroline Islands,
on Sept. 2, 1945 -- an event often overshadowed by Japan's
surrender on the USS Missouri in Toyko Bay, Japan, that same
day.
“At the time it didn't mean anything, but now
it does,” he said of the formal surrender. “It was the
beginning of changes in our American life.”
By U.S. Air Force Sean Kimmons
Provided
through DVIDS
Copyright 2015
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