A Pilgrim’s Digression

Before 9/11, there was 12/7.

In recognition of this day, I would invite you all to take a moment and listen to or read accounts of what happened on December 7, 1941, at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, from the point of view of three sailors who were there. Their own words are more powerful than anything I can say or write.

First, listen to the story of Raymond Brittain at the Veteran’s History Project of the Library of Congress. Brittain talks about his experience in the first clip under “Interview Highlights.”

Robert Coates was at Pearl Harbor on December 7 as well. Here’s an excerpt from the transcript of his oral history interview:

That next morning [December 7], why, I was down at this little coffee shop alongside the road, I was down there to get a cup of coffee because the chow hall wasn’t open and so I went down there and this little native woman was hollering about something, I couldn’t understand what she was saying. Finally I made — she said something about bombing Pearl Harbor. Just prior to that a plane had flown over real low and this kid that was with me, I looked at that plane and they were always holding exercises all the time and I looked at the plane and thought it wasn’t a Navy plane because I knew the Navy plane, Damn army, they are holding exercises again, and I told that kid, I said, “My God, they are sure making things realistic, they even put a rising sun on that SOB.”

Donald Patrick Finn wrote:

I was sitting on the edge of my bunk vainly trying to decide whether to shave before going to mass or wait until afternoon chow and shave just before catching the one o’clock liberty boat when the high-pitched whine of an airplane engine pulling its freight out of a dive forced itself upon my consciousness.

Then there was an explosion as of a charge of dynamite being set off.

Finn was in a barracks on the island when the attack began. His barracks and mess hall was soon converted into an infirmary.

Coming into the mess hall now were sailors clad in oil smeared undergarments, dripping wet, many of them burned and dazed. Soon after they arrived, word arrived that the Oklahoma had capsized and the Arizona set afire, California listing and the Nevada hit. We began to appreciate the enormity of what was going on. The raid was only 20 minutes old and half the Pacific battle fleet was out of action. I had a choked feeling of helpless rage.

Please take the time to check out these three oral history collections in full, perhaps when you have a free moment this weekend. The preservation of human memory requires not just that someone tell the story, but that someone else takes the time to lsiten.