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My dad served in the Coast Guard during WWII. In the earlier part of the war he was stationed for a while in Oregon where he and some of his buddies saw a plane go down off the coast near Haystack Rock and went out and rescued the crew. I didn't hear anything about this rescue until a few years ago when he went back out to Oregon for some kind of program recognizing him and the others and a reunion between all those involved.

After that he was stationed on Palawan and Mindanao in the Philippines for the later part of the war. His brother was in the Navy in the Pacific. He had been turned down because of some medical condition when he was 17 and paid for his own surgery to have it corrected so he could join. His ship was sunk but he survived. I still remember looking through his chests stored at my grandparents house and seeing grass skirts and other stuff. My dad brought back all sorts of weird knives from the Philippines.

I also knew a man in our church who was in the Navy at Pearl Harbor on that day of infamy. He said he was below decks when the attack started and upon hearing the noise came up top to see a Japanese plane flying right alongside his ship. He said the pilot was looking at him and grinning.