They’re gone, but their voices live on. Hear eyewitness accounts from Pearl Harbor survivors I interviewed in 1981, for the 40th anniversary of the attack. (Photo WikiCommons)
Bob Smith interviews Pearl Harbor veterans on the 40th anniversary of the attack (December 7, 1981). The veterans recount their experiences during 1941. They share their personal accounts of the sounds of planes approaching, bombs dropping, and the aftermath. Bob reflects on the automatic nature of their training despite the trauma, while the man express reluctance to Pearl due to lingering sadness over the loss of friends. The witnesses reflect on the significance of that day and its impact on their lives and the world.
Outline
The start of World War II in Hawaii.
- Bob Smith recreates the sounds of the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, December 1941.
Pearl Harbor attack and its impact.
- Smith interviews veterans of Pearl Harbor, discussing whether military radar detected the attack before it occurred.
Pearl Harbor attack from veterans’ perspectives.
- Sylvester Stoffel, a veteran of the Pearl Harbor attack, recounted how he and others initially thought the attack was a drill due to the low altitude of the Japanese planes.
- Bob Smith, a radio host, interviewed six veterans of the attack, including Stoffel, 40 years after the event.
Pearl Harbor attack and aftermath.
- Speaker describes witnessing the attack from the deck of the USS Nevada.
- Another witness describes the Pearl Harbor attack and atomic bomb explosion a year later.
Pearl Harbor attack with veterans.
- Witness describes being at Pearl Harbor in September 1941 for basic training, with the second wave of attacks occurring later that day.
- Witness recounts the news bulletin announcing the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, when he was just shy of 21 years old.
Pearl Harbor attack and personal experiences.
- Witness describes being on the battleship Tennessee during the attack on Pearl Harbor, saying they were right in front of the Arizona when she blew up.
- Witnesses speculate that the ships were brought together in Pearl Harbor due to political pressure to have more people in port for the Christmas holidays.
- Witness describes hearing Japanese airplanes bombing North Island, where they were sleeping on the bridge of their ship, and seeing torpedoes dropped from the planes and hitting nearby ships.
- Witness recounts the chaos and confusion of the attack, with planes taking off and bombs dropping, and realizing the gravity of the situation only after a few minutes.
Near-death experience during Pearl Harbor attack.
- Witness describes their experience during a World War II bombing, including being blown off the bridge and taking control of the emergency steering gear.
- Witness describes chaos and confusion after the USS Arizona explosion.
Pearl Harbor attack from survivors’ perspectives.
- Witness describes the chaos and destruction after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, including explosions, fires, and the sinking of several ships.
- Witness was appointed to keep a log of the events, including the damage to the Tennessee and the efforts to free the two battleships that could escape.
Bob Smith 0:14
One December morning in 1941, Hawaii awoke to a rising sun from the West. This was the weekend it happened the weekend, World War Two began.
Speaker 1 0:32
We interrupt this broadcast to bring you this important bulletin from the United Press. Flash Washington. White House announces Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor just give them
Speaker 2 0:41
go to church on Sunday morning. There’s a noise into what it was to begin with, to come over when after their aircraft first before they went to Pearl Harbor. And we realized what it was when he took the hangars.
Speaker 3 0:56
When I got on top side, I could see it wouldn’t be over. At the variables
Speaker 4 1:06
I had heard previously it always had heard you know, you could see torpedoes going through the water. And I can see the torpedoes the Japanese dropped the torpedoes and you can see the wake up in the bubbles from the torpedoes follow the torpedo from the time was dropped off on the Japanese plane so like come up and hit the West Virginian which was a ship directly alongside of us.
Speaker 5 1:26
The team close enough to us that had a known the pilot I could have recognized.
Bob Smith 1:33
Time has silenced the voices of most of the men who were at Pearl Harbor the day World War Two began. But there was a time not long ago, when you could find veterans of World War Two and veterans of that day walking the streets of America. They were our dads, our uncle’s, our grandpa’s our next door neighbors. And for years, the details of that day and that attack remained vivid in their minds. I was fortunate to interview several such men early in my career. Then today on the off ramp. We’ll hear from them. Men who were there that morning at Pearl Harbor, the man who awoke to a rising sun from the west.
Hi, this is Bob Smith and welcome to the off ramp, a place to slow down steer clear of crazy take a side road to sanity and get some perspective. Well, it was nearly 80 years ago, but it was a Sunday very much like a Sunday in December today. Football was in the air Dodgers are
Speaker 1 3:09
ready to kick off now they’ve just got a partner that it got seven boys made the giant seven adopting the West. Oh my old condom comes up he boats it. It’s a long one down around the three yard line. Cutting up lessons over the time nice block comes to going he’s up to the 25 and now he’s hit and hit hard about the 27 yard line. Rosa canard Mays attack, We interrupt this broadcast to bring you this important bulletin from the United Press flash Washington. The White House announces Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Stay tuned for W or for further developments which will be broadcast immediately as receive.
Bob Smith 3:44
One question that popped up four years after Pearl Harbor was weather radar detected the attack before it occurred. Bill row tremor who was a radio operator at Pearl said that it did. But the blips on the screen were thought to have been B seven teens scheduled to arrive that day from San Francisco.
Speaker 5 4:05
Great are was new than and very secret of course, fellas operating or friends of mine. And they detected the Japanese planes coming in, reported it but as I said it was assumed to be the B seven pains. That’s the reason for the big surprise had not been for this B seven days being expected. They would have taken a lot more cognizance of the indication. The opinion seemed to be that the Navy was just simply pulling a surprise attack against the Air Force and they didn’t really think it was serious. The machine gun setting are out there with 30 caliber ammunition they were firing real ammunition and it was very clear to us that they were Japanese planes they had the rising sun in Sandy Signia and it was clear barely visible. They came close enough to us that had a known the pilot I could have recognized it didn’t expect an attack. Because the Pearl Harbor the bastion of the Pacific, as it was known as we couldn’t hardly expect a small nation as Japan, although they were a naval power to just move in and attack Pearl Harbor. But that’s, of course what they did. Well, Saturday evening, I went to Schofield Barracks. And there was about four or five others that spent the night there that evening and the next morning, it was late actually, we should have already been up it was eight o’clock almost eight. When this started being right across the street from Wheeler field, why we had a ringside seat do it. I recall, some of those planes coming down so low that we’d almost expect them to hit trees there in the yard. There was a machine gun set up out there with a man by infantry soldiers, and they were shooting at the Plains. But the general opinion seemed to be among everyone. Except those who were fighting, firing machine guns was that this was a drill.
Bob Smith 6:29
In the early morning hours of December 7 1941, two waves of Japanese planes swarmed like bees over Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in a sneak attack that killed over 2000 Americans. 40 years after that attack, I was in radio and discovered there were a half dozen veterans in our broadcast area who were at Pearl Harbor. I was 30 at the time, and I was interviewing these men who were all my father’s age. One was Sylvester Stoffel of records, Ville, Iowa.
Unknown Speaker 7:01
How old are you at the time?
Speaker 3 7:03
When I was 24. I was at a battleship Nevada. Nevada was the oldest battleship there that they were
Bob Smith 7:12
you on duty at the time? Where were you say asleep?
Speaker 3 7:14
No, no, we were. We always had roughly at five o’clock. And then he was on a Sunday morning. And usually on a Sunday, we didn’t have to register just to touch up duties in the dictionary. That was about all there is to it. And the service didn’t start until about nine o’clock. So I was kind of waiting around mass would start till about nine o’clock. So I was waiting for that. But they started to come over I’d say probably approximately 10 minutes when they started the first wave.
Unknown Speaker 7:51
Did you hear the planes yourself? Oh, yeah.
Speaker 3 7:53
When I got on top side, I could see. It wouldn’t be over 200 feet at the very most 150 feet away from
Bob Smith 8:02
us. Well, then you could very cleanly see the markings. Here you can
Speaker 3 8:06
see the big white red circle at the bottom of the plane on the plane. And by the way, these two big red circles.
Bob Smith 8:13
And this been something that you never thought would happen or had they drilled you for this possibility at the Bureau.
Speaker 3 8:18
Oh, yes. Yeah. We used to go on maneuvers. We generally come in on a Friday night is a Monday morning we take off the sea we’d be maneuvers. All the battleships would would come in and a Friday night and Monday morning we’d all take off again. Gunnery practice and stuff like that, you know. And they also had shippers dark always. No lights whatsoever. Topside everything was dark, you know,
Unknown Speaker 8:45
Blackout blackout.
Unknown Speaker 8:48
So that’s the way it was on that morning. Yeah,
Speaker 3 8:50
right. And there was some lieutenants from Japan. He was a leader. He was the first one. And he said they come in with two waves spaced an hour apart the two waves. And I think the first one is 185 plate and the second is 187. That
Bob Smith 9:04
many planes I’m sure the drone of those engines was pretty loud to you bet.
Unknown Speaker 9:10
Was the Nevada hit very badly.
Speaker 3 9:12
Yeah, we had five bomb hits. And one torpedo hit. Got to Peter hit was the worst, or that’s the one that’s done the most damage. Was
Bob Smith 9:21
that one of those aerial torpedoes they dropped from the plane or was that one,
Speaker 3 9:24
right? Yeah, it’s dropping right off the bottom. And I
Bob Smith 9:28
would imagine that there were people that were friends of yours that were injured or killed at that
Unknown Speaker 9:32
time and do well you got quite a few.
Bob Smith 9:35
The next couple of days there at pearls that’s been cleanup operations,
Speaker 3 9:38
right? Yeah. Yeah, I took at least three weeks that I wouldn’t clean up all that oil got all over you know. Yeah, Tito’s battleships usually had about a million gallons of fuel that gets blown up that’s that’s a lot of fuel. So
Bob Smith 9:55
this Your staff will not only got to see how the war began with Pearl Harbor, but he got to see how it ended as well. A year after the conflict, he was in the South Seas and witnessed an atomic bomb explosion by the United States.
Speaker 3 10:08
July of 1946. They said we’re about 20 miles away, but you could see it when a big flash and went off. It was at
Unknown Speaker 10:15
the huge mushroom cloud. Yeah.
Bob Smith 10:18
Jack Cody was another veteran I interviewed who was at Pearl Harbor. His vantage point was as a spectator viewing the attack from land overdrafted
Speaker 2 10:28
in July of 41. And then we were down in Pearl Harbor in September of 41.
Bob Smith 10:36
So you were you weren’t in the service too long before you went over to Perl. Just after
Speaker 2 10:41
my basic training. How old were you at the time? 21 We’re just getting them go to church Sunday morning. The noise didn’t what it was to begin with. They would come over when after their aircraft first before they went to Pearl Harbor. And then we realized what it was when we took the hangars when we added to be down there when they were building some barracks and there was a lot of trenches dug for the sewer system. Most of us headed for things like that and underneath to cement floors, the barracks and things like that, but yet pretty close to it Wheeler field which is adjacent across the way Yeah, Schofield Barracks. After
Bob Smith 11:20
the second wave hit and left there was still fear that more attacks could come.
Speaker 2 11:25
They thought they might be back. I mean course everything was restricted. I mean, everybody was restricted and everything but I thought it’d be another way from in that night, but there wasn’t a hell of a lot left inhale after the first two ways to come back after really.
Bob Smith 11:39
Luckily for jet Cody Pearl Harbor was the only hard action he saw in World War Two.
Speaker 2 11:45
I come back here for OCS. And after I got my commission, I went to Denver, that you were happy with a lot of tough for Denver.
Bob Smith 11:56
We’ll continue with Pearl Harbor remembered in just a moment on the off ramp with Bob Smith. You’re listening to the off ramp with Bob Smith and we returned to our program Pearl Harbor remembered, including recordings I made with Pearl Harbor veterans back in 1981.
Speaker 6 12:13
We interrupt this program to bring you a special news bulletin. The Japanese have attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii by air President Roosevelt has just announced the attack also was made on all naval and military activities on the principal island of Ohio.
Bob Smith 12:27
When Tom Butler saw Japanese planes flying over Pearl Harbor. He was just shy of 21 years old. And of all those people I interviewed he possessed the most vivid and detailed remembrances of that day. He’d already been in the Navy for three years on that December morning.
Speaker 4 12:44
I quit high school. I went to Navy quite young. I was 17 years old in May and in June I went in the Navy. So a young boy you were pretty young. Yes. And I I’d been on the battleship in October of 38. I want to play battleship Tennessee. Sounds like you’re quite a veteran by the time that rolls were I’d been on the battleship for three years. Yes.
Bob Smith 13:04
So were you on a battleship at the time.
Speaker 4 13:06
The battleship Tennessee? Yes. I was right in front of the Arizona when she blew up. Oh, is that right foot away from the Arizona right behind the Oklahoma? Well, the Oklahoma’s was outboard. Maryland was a battleship, which was in front of us. And the Oklahoma was up more to the Maryland when she turned over the West Virginia was a battleship that was tied up alongside the Tennessee said battleships were all tied up about 50 foot apart. And they were tied up side by side. Headed back to see was that a normal thing? Well, it was a normal way for them to hang up. It was not normal for that many battleships to be in the Pearl Harbor at one time, because we’d been out there operating out of pearl for approximately 18 months and we’ve never had that many battleships in harbor one time up till December of 1941.
Speaker 7 13:54
And that’s when this congestion started.
Speaker 4 13:57
Yes, it was it was a well it was a we liked we liked our I think it was a political deal. The waves of course the you’d had this war scare going on for some six or seven months talk of war. And the wives who are sick and tired of their husbands being to see all the time. But they had put pressure on the congressman, the congressman to get the Navy to have their husbands and have their people in Port more times. Is that right? Yes, because we used to the battleships used to anchor down to the low hanging roads which was on down just above the Big Island Lahaina Maui, Cola, Molokai, the four islands down there. And we used to anchor in between these four islands and just a couple of battleships at a time be in Pearl Harbor and the rest of them being out at sea Anchorage.
Speaker 7 14:47
So things were pretty well spread out prior to that time prior to that time. Yes. Why did they put them together?
Speaker 4 14:53
Do you have any idea? We have no idea. We have no idea and the history won’t tell us Our feelings was it was strictly the political pressure that why isn’t the congressman to to bring the people back into port so they’d be in there for the Christmas holidays with their families? This is my feeling, of course what I was a third class quartermaster, which is enlisted equivalent to your sergeant in the Army or so. And what the heck do we know?
Bob Smith 15:23
Well, sometimes you have more knowledge, and then you might pick it and that’s it. Yeah. You hear the droning of the planes coming in, or did you hear I was,
Speaker 4 15:29
see our habits or a quartermaster is a navigator works in the navigation department and our habits on the ship, we’re when we were at anchor where we were in Port, we slept on the bridge of the ship. You had no air conditioning in those days. And so the bridge of the ship was out in the open air, and we had folding cots and quartermaster. Since that was our stations and where we were responsible for it, we would sleep on the bridge of the ship while you were in port, or when you were an anchor someplace. So we were sleeping on the bridge of the ship, and we woke up I mean, I my recollection waking up, you know, hearing the noise going on hearing the the airplanes and hearing the explosions and sets we right alongside North Island, which was a Naval Air Station. And we had planes taking off and on routine morning patrols all the time prior to that, that’s what I do sell it was it was the airplanes taking off, you’d won the morning patrol. And then you hear the explosion then until a little bit more than the morning patrol. So you get up out of the car that we’re sleeping on to see what’s going on. And we can look at the bridge is open has what we call a windbreak around it and look out over these and see the airplanes coming in. And all of a sudden, you realize, well these are Japanese marking Japanese airplanes, you can actually see the pilots flying and coming in, you realize in their bombing of the ships, and they’re bombing the air station lock right alongside of us. Was it like a bad dream? Yes, it was really, it takes a few minutes for you to realize what’s going on. And I had heard previously it always had heard, you know, you could see torpedoes going through the water. And this is one of the things that you know, you want to see whether it’s true or not. And it’s true hack, because I can see the torpedoes the Japanese dropped the torpedoes and you could see the wake of them the bubbles from the torpedoes which run off a steam at that time. Come on up to the water, you’ll follow the torpedo from the time was dropped off on the Japanese plane so like come up and hit the West Virginia which was the ship directly alongside of us. And you could follow my follow them up and see him hit the Oklahoma and see the Oklahoma then start to turn over. And you realize what something better be done I’ll use my battle station is not on the bridge of the ship. My battle station was right down in the very center of the ship and the emergency steering stations. And we had been trained Of course with with this and with the event Holly General Quarters alarm to get up and move. You got an alarm that went off on the ship that those times ring 99 times ring, once a second 99 seconds into the end of that 99 seconds you better be at your battle station. They had very strict discipline you were going to get your real kick in the fanny if you weren’t there. It was a matter of course, I’m gonna get you that alarm started hitting. And that it did take a couple of minutes, probably a minute or half for somebody thought enough to grab and hit that general alarm bell. But once it hit you reacted automatic. So you went to battle station. Yes. And as I walked away from the front of the bridge of the ship that we had a bomb hit number or a number to turrent on the ship and blow the front of the ship off or the front of the bridge off. So I would probably about a foot away when they blew the space that I had been standing blew it off. And fortunately that was the closest I came out during World War Two it had been hit or being in in serious trouble. But I ended up in my battle station that centerless ship and then we had no one aboard the ship who could handle the emergency steering gear which was right in the very stern of the Tennessee right in the very back end of it. And I was qualified on this. So after I’d gotten my battle station and things were going pretty good and we realized nobody was back in the sternum that could handle it emergency steering gear if need be. I then went back to the Mercy steering station. So this put me in the very stern of the Tennessee which was approximately 50 foot in front of the Arizona when she blew up.
Unknown Speaker 19:47
That’s too close for comfort.
Speaker 4 19:49
It’s too close for conference. It’s awfully close when you realize what is going on up there because I had seen the Oklahoma turning over. I’d seen her listing about 45 degrees I didn’t see her turn on All the way over, you see the bombs coming down. And then you hear the explosion of the Arizona you can hear it and feel it even though you’ve got all your armor plated around plate around you. And when this happened, of course, it’s said all the water on fire all around us and set our ships on fire. So they are people up above us. We’re trying to put the fire out. I’m down in the very bowels of the ship there in the stern of it. And we had lost our communications and water is pouring in on us. So what’s the matter here? About three to four hours? We didn’t know whether we were sitting on the bottom or just walk?
Bob Smith 20:39
Was there a moment there that you thought this? Is it? This is the last moment for me?
Speaker 4 20:44
No, you didn’t really think that you really just wondered what was going on when you didn’t have any communication. You’re closed up in an enclosed armored space down there with a armor attach up above us. 350 pounds. I think it was armor attached to it. There’s no way we could get out. Does somebody come in to let us out. And I was only one the other people in there. You had a mechanic you had electricians down there who this was their normal stations to in order to run the auxilary battery power equipment. And I was the only one that really knew what going on really knew what we have been shot at up there. I knew nothing more personally about what was going on until I got out of the bowels of the ship which was somewhere around 130 in the afternoon. And what did you see when that happened? We were still having explosions that late. By two o’clock in the afternoon. We still had fired burning on the various ships and different minor explosions going on.
Speaker 7 21:42
About six hours after the first attack. I was
Speaker 4 21:45
attempting to set and record these as they happened. A quartermaster is when one writes up the history of the ship and the logs and what has gone on and I was appointed to the job of attempting to take the Tennessee’s log and bring it up to date what had happened and what had happened to the other ships. And recording the fact that the West Virginia which was alongside of us it was on the bottom which the Arizona behind us it blown up and was still on fire and that the California over on one of the other locations and one of the 1010 Doc so we’re in a drydock where she was damaged and recording the battle and what had happened to the ship. I had the the enlisted man section of it I wrote it up and then of course our official log which is written up by the officer the day and by the commanding officer the ship was picked up and written from there
Unknown Speaker 22:35
was quite a job to sit there and look about you and see all the work about
Speaker 4 22:40
you and try to record what has gone on. See the Maryland was ahead of us the Rola two battleships came out of there afloat. And we were in both blocked into a position where we could not come out of the harbor, the Tennessee the West Virginia sank alongside of us and wedged us into the concrete keys where we were tied up the ship ahead of us was the Maryland and the outboard of the Maryland was the Oklahoma which turned over and when she turned over she waged the Maryland end of the key so the Maryland couldn’t move. And the Arizona horse was behind us and up ahead of the Maryland then die if I remember correctly it was a California the Pennsylvania was over Pennsylvania was in drydock and they sunk the drydock through the front of the drydock off and so but they Tennessee in the Maryland the only two battleships that could get out of there we got out sometime or I want to say probably about the 18th of December.
Unknown Speaker 23:40
Boy that was quite a long time when
Speaker 4 23:42
when they finally well I had to blast these concrete keys out to had to blast the concrete piers out in order for the for the two battleships there to be able to sneak out between the Oklahoma turned over in the West Virginia sunk vertically straight down quite a bit of maneuvering then. Yeah, you have to sneak them right straight out. out and down.
Bob Smith 24:02
So when you left Pearl Harbor Then did you go to back San Diego. Well,
Speaker 4 24:07
we went into went back into Seattle to work patrols on the Tennessee and both of them. We were started out to the Battle of Waco and one of them and they turned about the two battleships around and sent them back and sent two aircraft carriers on out. And shortly after that I was transferred to minesweepers from the biggest to the smallest. And I spent all the next two to three years on minesweepers and went up right before the end of World War Two and up to Alaska in turn one of the mice we flew over to the Russians as a on the Lend Lease program. And then I went into aviation and I was an aviation at the end of World War Two as aerial navigate.
Speaker 7 24:49
Boy, you must have been a bundle of nerves after that was all over.
Speaker 4 24:54
I love the Navy and I loved what I was doing. But it wasn’t that much Have a bundle of nerves. It’s something you’re trained for and something you live with you do automatic.
Bob Smith 25:04
Despite some well publicized reunions of Pearl Harbor survivors, most of the men who were there on that fateful day of December 7 1941, never went back. Perhaps they shared Bill row trammels reasons for not returning.
Speaker 5 25:20
I lost a lot of friends, a lot of fellow soldiers and sailors as well that were acquaintances and some very close friends in the Navy to that died there. They couldn’t be anything but just sadness.
Bob Smith 25:41
There are certain events in history, we should always revisit and remember the events that changed our country and made it what it is today. Pearl Harbor is one of those defining events. And thanks to these recordings, were able to step back in time, if only for a moment to hear what it was like for Americans who were there. That’s our look back at Pearl Harbor on the off ramp, featuring the voices of veterans of that attack who I met and interviewed on the 40th anniversary of that disaster back in 1981. This is Bob Smith. Join me again next time when we return with another episode of the off ramp.
The off ramp with Bob Smith is produced in association with CPL radio and the Cedarbrook Public Library Cedarburg, Wisconsin.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
