The Orange County Register

SANTA ANA, Calif. – Who cares?

The survivors gather in graveyards each Dec. 7 to salute the flag. But even their numbers are dwindling as Pearl Harbor Day rolls around. Again. What can any of the rest of us really do, these 64 years later?

Maybe the answer lies just beneath the surface of John Johnsen’s story, which opens with a can of spilled milk on the deck of the USS Nevada and ends with some telephone calls to his Yorba Linda, Calif., home last year.

First, you have to understand the day that dawned sunny and warm 64 years ago this morning. And know it was a day defined by three emotions.

Shock.

Anger.

And fear.

7:55 a.m. – Shock

The hum of airplanes came as good news to Army Air Force Pvt. Andy Weniger, sitting on the flight line of Hickam Field, a U.S. bomber base at Pearl Harbor. Weniger was awaiting a dozen B-17s expected at Hickam.

What he heard instead was the first wave of Japan’s attack – 183 planes storming in from the northwest and targeting six U.S. airfields to prevent counter-attack.

“The first plane came in and bombed our hangers,” said Weniger, now 83, of Huntington Beach, Calif. “After the bombs, they went around strafing all our guys on the runways. They were having a field day.”

The United States couldn’t have been caught less prepared: planes were parked in neat rows, rifles locked in armories, foxholes non-existent.

“We ran outside but there was nothing to jump into,” said William Carr, now 86, of Westminster, Calif., then stationed at Schofield Barracks, some 15 miles north of Pearl Harbor. “It was supposed to be peacetime. But bullets were coming through the open windows and I heard screams of men being hit.”

The attack crippled more than 340 of America’s 394 planes. Down at Battleship Row, however, things were worse. And the second wave hadn’t even started.

8:10 a.m. – Anger

Madness surrounded him. Smoke. Flames. Explosions. And milk. Some 2,300 men were drowning, burning or bleeding to death as Japan’s surprise attack unfolded on a clear Sunday morning.

“In all the uproar, someone had spilled some canned milk right where we were trying to stand and fire the number-five broadside gun,” said Johnsen, now 83. “Someone was looking for a mop to clean up that darned milk so nobody would slip and fall. It seemed strange we had to fool around with some little thing like that.”

When a torpedo peeled open the port bow of the Nevada, it felt like the 29,000-ton battleship lifted out of the water. And when the USS Arizona exploded in front of them, it blew shrapnel and body parts onto the Nevada.

“I was right there and I saw it,” Johnsen said. “It was a tremendous roar. It hurt your ears, and you could feel the concussion.”

As the Arizona’s foremast toppled, men leaped 80 feet into the flaming harbor.

I remember thinking, “I could die today,”‘ he said. “I saw shipmates blown to bits, others die from the concussion, and some badly burned. We lost 60 men.”

High above, in the Nevada’s crow’s nest, seagoing Marine Dick Troxcil, now 83, of Bellflower, Calif., manned a 50-caliber machine gun.

When the Arizona exploded, he said, “all you could see was flame and smoke. You couldn’t even see the ship.”

Japanese pilots had a perfect view of the 100 U.S. ships in Pearl Harbor. Some planes swooped low to drop torpedoes. Some dropped bombs. Others made strafing runs.

“They looked like birds up there,” said Troxcil, who downed a Japanese plane 200 yards off the Nevada’s port side.

“It started to roll,” he said. “I thought his wing was going to hit my tower. It felt like it was two feet away, but it was probably a lot farther. Then it keeled over the ship and splashed on the other side.”

The Nevada was the only ship on Battleship Row to get under way that morning. Wounded and limping, she made a run for open sea about 8:30 a.m. Minutes later, Japan’s second wave of 170 planes roared overhead.

“We went by all the ships in Battleship Row,” said Johnsen. “The Oklahoma had capsized. I knew there were hundreds of men trapped with no way to get them out.”

Within fifteen minutes, six 250-kilogram bombs found the Nevada, threatening to sink her and block the harbor entrance. She beached in shallow waters off Hospital Point.

“You knew we were at war now – no doubt about that,” said Johnsen. “But we wondered how we were going to fight it because it didn’t look like we had anything left.”

9:45 a.m. – Fear

And then it was over.

“You could almost feel the silence after all those planes took off,” said Johnsen. “You could see all this fire, and black smoke, and in many places the water was burning from all the oil on it, with small boats coming in and out picking up the dead and wounded.

To a man, Pearl Harbor survivors say they were scared. Not in battle. But after.

“You don’t have time to get scared when you’re working,” said Jefferson Maner, now 87, in Laguna Woods, Calif., who served on the USS Dobbin. “After it’s all over – that’s when you get scared, buddy.”

Seeing the bodies. Breathing the smoke. Helping men out of the water whose flesh falls off at the touch.

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Carl Schmitz, now 81, of Placentia, Calif., had nightmares for years. He served on the supply ship USS Castor, loaded with 10 tons of ammunition.

“I try not to think about it,” he said, uncomfortable elaborating. “If you saw the things there, you wouldn’t like it.”

All day, rumors swirled: poisoned water supplies, a Japanese landing, more bombers.

“That night, when the planes from our carriers came in, we shot all but two down,” he said, referring to friendly fire from several U.S. ships. “My hair stood on end. Everyone was trigger happy.”

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Japan’s attack destroyed 18 U.S. warships, 347 planes and killed more than 2,300 men.

Sixty-four years later, the survivors can’t erase the memories. Many will meet at 11 a.m. Wednesday at El Toro Memorial Park in Lake Forest to honor the dead. But some don’t know if they can make it.

Age has crept up.

12-7-05 – The Answer

“I’m having trouble walking right now,” Johnsen said. “I lost my lower right leg 15 years ago.”

So he lives with other memories now, too. Like memories of a Pearl Harbor reunion in Washington, D.C., when strangers stopped him on the Metro to say thank you. And memories of calls he got last Dec. 7 from friends who wanted to show their appreciation.

“They call and let me know they remember,” he said, and the booming voice of this big man, which had been rock steady, breaks for the first time. “That is special.”

He pauses, unable to talk.

And in that pause lies the answer to what can be done by those who didn’t experience the shock, anger or fear 64 years ago Wednesday. It’s as simple as saying two words.

Thank you.

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(c) 2005, The Orange County Register (Santa Ana, Calif.).

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