Dec. 7 survivors relive memories
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| Pearl Harbor survivor Louis Nockold, 82, of Newport Beach, Calif., places a flower on the Arizona Memorial during yesterday's ceremony.
Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser |
By William Cole
Advertiser Staff Writer
They came with smiles, canes, some with walkers — all of them with a lifetime behind them. But like the USS Arizona, the memories of Dec. 7, 1941, were not far below the surface.
Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser
About 35 Pearl Harbor survivors and their families yesterday attended the 63rd commemoration of the attack along with more than 150 military members, veterans and guests.
Yuell Chandler, 86, of Royal Kunia, who was an Army sergeant at Fort Kamehameha at the mouth of Pearl Harbor, can't forget a Japanese plane crashing nearby, killing three or four men.
A moment of silence at 7:55 a.m. — the moment the attack began — was punctuated by four F-15 fighters soaring above the open-topped memorial in a missing-man formation.
The destroyer USS Chung-Hoon passed in review, veterans dropped flowers into the well of the memorial, and taps was played by a 19-piece band.
Aircraft of a different sort came winging in that Sunday morning in 1941, raining death in Hawai'i and launching the United States into World War II.
Sixty-three years later, it is still an emotional journey for survivors like Marvin Kaufmann, 83, who lives near Vancouver, Wash. During the attack, he was aboard the USS Whitney, a destroyer repair ship off Ford Island.
"I watched the whole thing," Kaufmann said. "I watched the Arizona explode ... there were three gigantic explosions."
Kaufmann had sailed over on the Arizona from California. On a previous visit to the memorial, he noticed the names of the
14-member band that had entertained the troops.
"I looked up and saw all those guys' names and they were such good musicians and every one of them is down here," he said, gesturing below. "I have to swallow a little bit."
Yuell Chandler, 86, was a sergeant in the Army at Fort Kamehameha at the mouth of Pearl Harbor. Now a resident of Royal Kunia, he remembers a Japanese plane crashing nearby, killing three or four men on a dock.
"I've tried my damnedest to forget it," he said. "I saw all these guys piled up like cordwood, being shipped in coffins."
Five battleships and three other ships were sunk or beached and 13 other ships were damaged. More than 2,000 sailors lost their lives, along with several hundred other members of the armed forces and civilians.
Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser
Vice Adm. Gary Roughead, deputy commander of U.S. Pacific Command, the keynote speaker, drew comparisons between the fighting men of a bygone era and the young soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan today.
The destroyer USS Chung-Hoon passed in review during yesterday's commemoration of the 63rd anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack.
"The intrepid spirit and tenacity of heart displayed that December day is deeply ingrained in today's forces who even as we speak fight to bring liberty and freedom to people deserving and thirsting for just that," he said.
Ansil L. Saunders, 86, of Wahiawa, makes the trip to either the Arizona Memorial or the Visitors Center every Dec. 7. On that date in 1941, he was in the Navy at the 'Aiea Landing.
"We had a bird's-eye view of all of Battleship Row," he said.
Saunders had a lot of mixed feelings when the smoke lifted after the attack. "I was angry, but right at the time I didn't know who to be angry at," he said.
He never held a grudge against the Japanese people. "It wasn't the Japanese people per se. It was their military — those are the ones I got mad at, not the people themselves," Saunders said.
He comes out every year because he feels a sense of obligation to the shipmates who aren't here anymore.
Louis W. Nockold, 82, came from Newport Beach, Calif., with his wife, daughter and a friend to attend the service. On Dec. 7, 1941, he was on the USS Hono-
lulu, a light cruiser tied up in the shipyard. A bomb exploded on the pier next to the ship but no one was killed.
He, too, is a survivor and like a lot of the other aging vets in more ways than one.
Estimates are that more than 1,100 World War II veterans die each day. The past year has brought a host of health problems for Nockold that led to the loss of his leg.
"I just feel so damned fortunate to be here," Nockold said from a wheelchair. "I just feel good that I was able to make it one more time."
Reach William Cole at wcole@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-5459.
