Posted on: Wednesday, August 4, 2004
Pearl Harbor survivors share history
By Anna Weaver
Advertiser Staff Writer
World War II veteran John Iantorno remembers the sound of banging on the hull of the USS Oklahoma, from sailors trapped inside the capsized battleship following the Pearl Harbor attack.
And Iantorno, then a National Guardsman from Barbers Point helping with the recovery effort, remembers how the banging stopped after a few days when rescue workers weren't able to reach the sailors in time.
Remembrances from Iantorno and other Pearl Harbor survivors at a luncheon yesterday are the kind of living history that drew 100 middle school and high school teachers from across the country for a weeklong education workshop, "Remembering Pearl Harbor: History, Memory, and Memorial."
"Underneath history are the feelings of the people," said Ernest "Tito" Craige, a ninth- and 12th-grade world history teacher. He plans to bring the survivors' stories back to his students at East Chapel Hill High School in Chapel Hill, N.C. "That level of history is what children like," he said.
"Many survivors are no longer alive, so what a special privilege it is to speak with them," Craige said. "It's really nice to see that this base and park (USS Arizona Memorial National Park) have found a way to involve them."
The teachers are in Hawai'i through Friday. The Pearl Harbor program is one of 17 workshops on Landmarks of American History this summer that are financed by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
The East-West Center, Arizona Memorial Museum Association and National Park Service co-sponsored the "Remembering Pearl Harbor" workshop, which was one of the most in-demand sites in the program, receiving 370 applications for the 100 available spots.
One of the goals of the workshop was to bring the history of Pearl Harbor to life for the teachers and through them for their students, says Namji Steinemann. "That was very important, that we go beyond the event, the attack," said Steinemann, director of the East-West Center's AsiaPacificEd Program for Schools. "How do we help our teachers broaden the perspective?"
World geography and history teacher Brian Berry says he's written down words from Pearl Harbor survivors that he plans to use in his lessons on Pearl Harbor and WW II when he returns to Booker Middle School in Sarasota, Fla. Berry has a photography background and plans to take pictures throughout the workshop.
"I have kids for whom WW II is just a mystery," he said. "I'm going to use those quotes with my pictures because they are real."
"Kids listen to people of ... (the survivors') generation more than their teachers. They're willing to expect to hear things they wouldn't hear every day."
One of the 11 survivors who spoke with workshop participants yesterday was Iantorno, who was a corporal in the National Guard at Barbers Point when Pearl Harbor was attacked. He speaks to Arizona Memorial visitors every Tuesday and Thursday and said he was glad to speak with the teachers as well.
"We need to get the message out that we're a good country so there will be no more Pearl Harbors or World Trade Centers," Iantorno said. "We need to tell the people what we're going through today, that we're going through a definite war, and we need to take interest in ourselves."
Craige said, "The kids tell me, 'Because you were there, I felt like I was there. And because you tell us about these adventures, we can participate in them, too.' That's when I feel like a top-notch teacher."
Reach Anna Weaver at aweaver@honoluluadvertiser.com or 535-2455.
