LAWRENCE NOTHDURFT (5520-A/LIFE-1998) sends us his father’s memories of that December 7th in Hawaii. His father was in the 7th Air Corp, flying B-17‘s and B-24‘s when the war started.

“It was early December 1941 when I was admitted to a hospital at Hickam Field Army Air Base Honolulu, Hawaii. On the 4th I asked my doctor if I could go to a football game on the 6th in Honolulu. He gave me permission to go with my friends. After the game I returned to my hospital room and had a good night’s sleep.

The next morning I was sitting on a second story balcony talking to some other patients about how fast the US Navy could sink the Japanese Navy which everyone in those days agreed it would take about three months and it was a typical conversation then.

I could see the superstructure of our Navy fleet in Pearl Harbor less than 1/4 mile away. When a hospital orderly came running down the balcony and hollered ‘Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor’. Then I saw an airplane coming at low level toward us. It banked its left wing up and I saw a big red spot in the rising sun underneath it. It was going to make a torpedo run at Pearl Harbor. Then a hospital orderly brought me my clothes and told me to go back to my Squadron. I dressed as quickly as possible and when I got down to the lobby of the hospital, there were so many wounded lying on stretchers that I had to step in between and over them to get out. When I got to the door I met a soldier coming in - his right arm had no hand on it. It had been shot off. I suppose it took me about 20 minutes to get back to my squadron on foot. It was a situation of disorganized confusion that I ever saw.

I put my things in my footlocker on the second floor and went back down to the orderly room to see what I could find out. There was a bunch standing outside the door and an officer was trying to get them back inside when a bomb fell about 20 feet away and killed them all. I guess it was about six or eight killed- I happened to be inside or it might have gotten me too. After that I thought I better get some place else so I proceeded across the parade ground which was about the worst place I could be.

As I was crossing the parade ground I saw an airplane coming at low altitude from my right. I ran at a 90-degree angle in time to see machine gun bullets kicking up where I was just a few seconds ago. I had good luck. By that time it was calming down a little. It all started at 7:55 and ended about 9:45. 1 hour and 50 minutes was all it took for the Japanese to turn mastery of the Pacific from the United States to Japan. 2,400 casualties and a lot of wounded. There were about six killed from my Squadron and several more wounded. It was several days before everything began to get back to normal. You were afraid to drink the water as everybody thought it had been poisoned. The main mess hall was in a shambles so you just ate wherever possible, such as the NCO Club or the Post restaurant. Everything got better each day although propaganda stories were everywhere.

This set off a conflagration of death and destruction never before heard of in the history of mankind.

LAWRENCE, please thank your father for his story. These veterans of WWII have so many stories and we want to collect as many as possible before they all depart on their Eternal Patrol. For those of you going to our Patrol in Paradise - 2001, you will meet LAWRENCE there. He is already signed up.