Pearl Harbor Remembered

Today, seventy-one years ago I was a tiny infant in my mother's womb at Oahu when the Japanese suddenly attacked. It was a Sunday morning. My dad was the ordnance officer on U.S.S. Detroit and on board Detroit at the time of the attack. He fired some of the first shots fired against the attacking Japanese aircraft using a .30-06 rifle standing in his skives on the deck of Detroit. His men got the anti-aircraft batteries firing and he stepped on some hot shell casings and decided he better go put on some clothes and shoes. He lost many friends on the Raleigh, sister ship to the Detroit and tied up next to her. She was sunk.  DETROIT

My mom watched the aircraft coming in from Honolulu. They had a little apartment in town. Later we, my mom and I, were evacuated to the mainland on passenger liners escorted by the Detroit and her flotilla of destroyers. I was born later on June 4, 1942 on the day of the battle of Midway. On that day several of the Japanese aircraft carriers that participated in the Pearl Harbor attack were sunk by American dive bombers in one five minute interval. That'll teach'em to try to kill me at Pearl.  PEARL HARBOR