US-world news: 100-year-old Pearl Harbor survivor recalls confusion and chaos during Japanese bombing 83 years ago

PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii — Bob Fernandez thought he’d go dancing and see the world when he joined the U.S. Navy as a 17-year-old highschool scholar in August 1941.

4 months later he discovered himself shaking from explosions and passing ammunition to artillery crews so his ship’s weapons might return hearth on Japanese planes bombing Pearl Harbor, a Navy base in Hawaii.

“When these issues go off like that, we did not know what’s what,” mentioned Fernandez, who’s now 100. “We did not even know we had been in a struggle.”

Two survivors of the bombing – every 100 or older – are planning to return to Pearl Harbor on Saturday to watch the 83rd anniversary of the assault that thrust the U.S. into World Battle II. They may be a part of active-duty troops, veterans and members of the general public for a remembrance ceremony hosted by the Navy and the Nationwide Park Service.

Fernandez was initially planning to hitch them however needed to cancel due to well being points.

The bombing killed greater than 2,300 U.S. servicemen. Practically half, or 1,177, had been sailors and Marines on board the united statesArizona, which sank in the course of the battle. The stays of greater than 900 Arizona crew members are nonetheless entombed on the submerged vessel.

A second of silence can be held at 7:54 a.m., the identical time the assault started eight many years in the past. Plane in lacking man formation are attributable to fly overhead to interrupt the silence.

Dozens of survivors as soon as joined the annual remembrance however attendance has declined as survivors have aged. At the moment there are solely 16 nonetheless residing, in response to a listing maintained by Kathleen Farley, the California state chair of the Sons and Daughters of Pearl Harbor Survivors. Navy historian J. Michael Wenger has estimated there have been some 87,000 navy personnel on Oahu on the day of the assault.

Many laud Pearl Harbor survivors as heroes, however Fernandez does not view himself that approach.

“I am not a hero. I am simply nothing however an ammunition passer,” he informed The Related Press in a cellphone interview from California, the place he now lives together with his nephew in Lodi.

Fernandez was working as a large number prepare dinner on his ship, the united statesCurtiss, the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, and deliberate to go dancing that night time on the Royal Hawaiian Lodge in Waikiki.

He introduced sailors espresso and meals as he waited tables throughout breakfast. Then they heard an alarm sound. Via a porthole, Fernandez noticed a airplane with the purple ball insignia painted on Japanese plane fly by.

Fernandez rushed down three decks to {a magazine} room the place he and different sailors waited for somebody to unlock a door storing 5-inch (12.7-centimeter), 38-caliber shells so they may start passing them to the ship’s weapons.

He has informed interviewers over time that a few of his fellow sailors had been praying and crying as they heard gunfire up above.

“I felt type of scared as a result of I did not know what the hell was happening,” Fernandez mentioned.

The ship’s weapons hit a Japanese airplane that crashed into one in every of its cranes. Shortly after, its weapons hit a dive bomber which then slammed into the ship and exploded beneath deck, setting the hangar and primary decks on hearth, in response to the Navy Historical past and Heritage Command.

Fernandez’s ship, the Curtiss, misplaced 21 males and practically 60 of its sailors had been injured.

“We misplaced lots of good folks, you understand. They did not do nothing,” Fernandez mentioned. “However we by no means know what is going on to occur in a struggle.”

After the assault, Fernandez needed to sweep up particles. That night time, he stood guard with a rifle to verify nobody tried to come back aboard. When it got here time to relaxation, he fell asleep subsequent to the place the ship’s lifeless had been mendacity. He solely realized that when a fellow sailor woke him up and informed him.

After the struggle, Fernandez labored as a forklift driver at a cannery in San Leandro, California. His spouse of 65 years, Mary Fernandez, died in 2014. His oldest son is now 82 and lives in Arizona. Two different sons and a stepdaughter have died.

He has traveled to Hawaii 3 times to take part within the Pearl Harbor remembrance. This yr would have been his fourth journey.

Fernandez nonetheless enjoys music and goes dancing at a close-by restaurant as soon as per week if he can. His favourite tune is Frank Sinatra’s rendition of “All of Me,” a music his nephew Joe Guthrie mentioned he nonetheless is aware of by coronary heart.

“The women flock to him like moths to a flame,” Guthrie mentioned.

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Related Press journalist Terry Chea contributed to this report from Lodi, California.