Thanks for posting. He would have been 21 in 1941. Anyone at least 18 at the time of the bombing would be 100 or older now. It has been 78 years since the end of the war so virtually all surviving WWII veterans are 96 or older. My father was a WWII veteran but he passed away at age 94. He wasn’t at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, but had been stationed there earlier.
My Dad and uncles joined up because of Pearl Harbor. They were all in the Pacific. They all made it back home.
God Bless the Greatest Generation!
You must be proud of your father! Thanks for sharing.
My father was there on the USS Phoenix. He was a young ensign just 23 years old. He told me that they were sitting ducks. It took 30 minutes for the boilers to generate enough pressure to generate the steam necessary to get underway and get out of the harbor. He passed in 1989.
My gramps was on the Hancock. Battle of Leyte Gulf timeframe.
Lot of officers he knew didn’t come back (pilots). You’d know them awhile, and one day, they weren’t there anymore.
He was in a compartment where a kamikaze pilot slammed into right next to him, so close he saw his face.
One ship around them was hit bad and started sinking, they threw ropes over and sped up the carrier so that it wouldn’t go down while they made emergency repairs. Like for a day or two.