The planes circled over Honolulu, Fiske recalls, then turned toward the channel where the battleships were lined up along Ford Island. “We all just watched as they dropped their torpedoes,” he says. Suddenly the entire harbor erupted into chaos. Fiske stood close by and watched his captain die after being pierced by flying shrapnel. Moments later, the USS Arizona, moored near the West Virginia, exploded into a giant ball of flame. Men were scrambling everywhere to put out fires and to save their comrades and themselves. After a short reprieve, a second wave of Japanese fighters attacked at about 8:30 a.m.
Only two hours later, the bombing was over. The Americans had paid a heavy price: 2,403 were dead-including 68 civilians-and 1,178 wounded; 21 American ships were either sunk or damaged, and 347 airplanes had been damaged or destroyed. Amazingly, all but three ships were eventually repaired.
The six men below were all aboard battleships and witnessed the attack firsthand. Here are their stories:
ROBERT KRONBERGER
Kronberger, 83, was then a 24-year-old petty officer first class in the Navy. He was in charge of a boiler room on the USS West Virginia at the time of the attack. Kronberger spent most of his career in the armed services and fought in both the Korean War and in Vietnam before retiring in 1970 as a lieutenant commander.
I was in charge of a boiler room on the port side of the West Virginia. Seven torpedoes demolished three boiler rooms. Then the lights went out, and the bulkhead seemed to be buckling, and everything began to fill up with water. I ordered my people out, and I got the hell out of there. My father and younger brother were also on the ship. When the bombs hit, my father had been underneath the number 3 turret, and my brother had been inside it. One bomb came down through the turret, but instead of exploding, it just split open. Had the thing gone off, it would probably have wiped out the whole back end of the ship, including me. I didn’t see either one of them for three weeks. I knew my father was alive because people had seen him, but I didn’t know where my brother was. I eventually found out he was alive, too. Our captain was killed, and we lost about 106 people.
I don’t know if I would say I was angry when the bombing started. I just did what I was trained to do. When the lights went out, you did the same things you did when the lights were on. You secured your firearms and your space, got the people that you were responsible for out and tried to keep the ship from sinking. For the most part, we were too busy to even think about being scared, until it started to get dark. Everybody thought the Japanese were going to land. The army was still available but they didn’t have the guns they needed to fight.
But the next day, after it was all over with, we started hating the Japanese. A lot of people had been hurt. When you’d start to look for people, you’d feel a lot of sickness in your body. You’d wonder where your best friend was. You’d worry about it. But it didn’t stop you from doing the job that you were trained to do.
I had thought that if the Japanese attacked, they would probably do it down in the Philippines. But we knew that there had been Japanese submarines in the area. We had ready ammunition on most of the ships, and we had orders to sight first to shoot. I don’t think that anybody thought that they would try it, the distance from Japan being so great. They were smarter than we thought they were.
PAUL GOODYEAR
Goodyear, who recently turned 83, was a 23-year-old petty officer third class in the Navy and was aboard the USS Oklahoma when Pearl Harbor was attacked. He was just beginning his 8 a.m. watch when the bombs began to drop.
Within 11 minutes of being torpedoed, our ship had rolled over, and the mast was embedded in the sands at the bottom of the harbor. Many men were trapped in their compartments. Even 60 years later, that really bugs me. Those kids were trapped with no air, no lights, nothing. They just suffocated over a period of time. We were able to cut 32 out. And some of them were lucky and drowned almost instantaneously. But we have no idea of how many of them survived for days. In fact, three men survived on the West Virginia for about two weeks. The West Virginia did not turn over, and they were trapped in their compartment, which was watertight. They had water, food and flashlights. But nobody could get to them. Can you imagine sitting there for two weeks knowing that every breath you take is just pushing your end closer?
Once we abandoned ship and made it to shore, we were not allowed into the mess hall on Ford Island because we did not have ID cards. Can you believe it? After you abandon ship you’re supposed to go back and get your goddammed ID card if you want to eat. So we went down to where the USS California was being unloaded and grabbed gallon cans of food, or anything that looked like food. Of course there were no labels on them. We’d get up in the morning and say, “Let’s have bacon and eggs.” We’d open two cans-one might be asparagus and the other pineapple-and we’d eat it with our hands. We slept on top of a fire tower. There were about eight or nine of us, we’d just cover up the best we could and sleep all bundled up. We broke into the lockery and took clothes and left our old clothes there, but it didn’t do us much good because our bodies were so filthy with the damn bunker fuel that our clothes immediately became spotted and dirty.
Finally, on Dec. 15, the USS Indianapolis came in. I had a buddy on board so I signaled him, asking if I could come aboard and get a bath. I can still remember the cute little ensign, probably an 18- or 20-year-old kid. His eyes were just bugging-they’d just come in and he had seen all these bodies floating around and all these ships burning. And then this apparition-me-walked up onto his spotless gangplank. He sent his messenger for the captain. By that time, my friend Tuck had come down from the bridge. “Tuck, do you know this man?” the captain asked. “Yeah, I went to school with him,” Tuck said. “OK, take him down to the master-at-arms shack and get him a change of clothes, but I want you to report to me within one hour that this man has left the ship,” the captain said. Then, as we were about to go below, the captain yelled out, “Oh, Tuck,” and I thought, that son of a bitch has changed his mind, he’s going to throw me off. Well, we turned around, and the captain said, “Take him down to the mess hall and get him a meal.” I could still kiss that captain because that was the first meal I’d had in eight days.
JAMES WIRE
Wire, 82, was a ship fitter third class aboard the USS Tennessee. He was 23 at the time. He remained in the Navy, retiring in 1968 after 30 years.
We saved most of the guys on topside that weren’t blown apart. One Japanese pilot was lying there, and they let him stay for three or four hours while they got our men out. Then they started gathering the dead guys that had been blown off the ships. They looked like a bunch of logs-it was the most horrible thing I had ever seen. Some officers went crazy. A second-class quartermaster was on the bridge when he saw all of it, and it just blew his mind. He went absolutely crazy, started tearing his clothes off. Two or three guys had to grab hold of him and try to restrain him.
They took the Japanese pilot down to the sick bay, and they wanted me to help carry him, but I wouldn’t. I was so angry at what the Japanese had done. Then I thought, “The government must have known something was going to happen. Why didn’t the government give us at least five minutes warning? Or 10 minutes?”
The West Virginia would have turned upside down but for one man, a damage-control officer. He went along and opened the hydraulic valves. It took about 32 turns to open each valve, and he opened them. I was in the damage-control section so I know what he had to do. Everyone had been told to abandon ship. This man saved the West Virginia from turning upside down like the Oklahoma did. [The West Virginia was eventually repaired and sent back into service.]
JAY HOLMES
Holmes, 79, was a 19-year-old Marine orderly on the USS West Virginia. Following Pearl Harbor, he went on to fight in the Palau Islands in 1944. He also participated in the U.S. occupation of Nagasaki after the atom bomb was dropped.
During the attack, you did a little bit of praying while you tried to keep your eyes open to see what was going on around you. All the smoke was very thick, and the water was on fire from the oil. You couldn’t see much. But we knew from the torpedoes that we’d been hit-every time one would hit, smack, everything moved-and we knew we were in dire straits. And because of damage control, we ended up sitting right flat on the bottom, straight up and down, which is an amazing feat, I thought.
I figured that if anyone attacked us, it would probably be the Japanese. Since we were in the Pacific, we weren’t going to be attacked by the Germans. And we had been selling scrap metal for 20 years to the Japanese. I think everybody had the feeling, at that point, that we would end up in war. In January 1941, when we left Long Beach, Calif., for Pearl Harbor, we hadn’t gone five or 10 miles when the skipper said, “I want to make you all aware of the fact that from this day forward, the West Virginia will be under darkened ship.” That meant movies and other activities at nighttime would all be below deck. No lights.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
Roosevelt, who recently turned 77, was only 17 years old and a seaman second class in the Navy when the Japanese attacked his ship, the USS Utah. He remained in the service until the war ended, fighting in almost every major battle in the South Pacific.
We were probably the first ship that went under that morning. Because water kept flooding in, it looked like we’d have to go under water on the port side to come back up to the main deck. But by that time, they sent the word across the P.A. to abandon ship. So I dove off the port side and swam around the stern of the ship to shore.
When I made it to shore, I went into a little building that had been a changing area for the officers to get into their golf attire. “Son, are you hurt?” an officer (who was a doctor) asked me. “No,” I answered. “Well, go upstairs and get yourself cleaned up because I’m going to need some help,” he said. As I was showering, I looked out the window and saw the Arizona blow up. Then I put on a golf shirt and some knickers, because my uniform was a mess, and I went downstairs. I had no medical training.
They were bringing the wounded in. The doctor would say, “Put this in his stomach to stop the bleeding.” We didn’t do any operating or anything, just gave first aid. And we didn’t have anything to work with. We opened lockers, took clothing out and used that material to put the bandages on the best we could.
I was just a kid then. “Do not pay any attention to the bombs out there,” he told me. “This building is bombproof.” It wasn’t, but when he said it was, it took away my fear. And as the bombs were going off outside on the airfield, I just didn’t pay any attention to them. I just went about doing what he said.
RICHARD FISKE
Fiske, 79, was a 19-year-old Marine and one of the two buglers on the USS West Virginia. He also fought at Iwo Jima, where he and five others were the only survivors in a unit of 37 men. Fiske is a volunteer at the USS Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor and also visits local schools in Oahu, where he lives, to teach children about the attack.
In 1988, I met two Japanese men while I was volunteering at the Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor, and I showed them some of my pictures. One could speak English, so I said, “Wouldn’t it be great if we could get the guys who bombed Pearl Harbor together with our American veterans?” He was reluctant, but we kept writing, and in April or May of 1991, they finally said they would like to be friends. When a group of about 24 came in 1991, we established friendships that you would never believe. Then, in 1995, we invited them to Pearl Harbor for the 50th anniversary of the signing of the surrender. And 250 came. Two-hundred and forty came this past December. I have been friends with Zenji Abe, the Japanese pilot who bombed my ship, since 1991. Since then, he has been giving me money to put two roses out on the Arizona: one for him and one for me. I go out there with my bugle on the last Sunday of each month and play taps for us and for the Americans and the Japanese that were killed Dec. 7. I haven’t missed a month since 1991.
I want people to understand that we don’t have to have war. We can become friends with our so-called adversaries. I want the young kids to understand that war is hell. My main mission in life is to get kids to understand that it’s not glorified like you see it on TV. And you don’t have to hate forever. You can also put your faith in God and say, “OK. We did it. But you’re my friend now.” Three words I tell the people: friendship, love, and truth. You live by that, and I think you can make it.
