Bob Fernandez thought he’d go dancing and see the world when he joined the US Navy as a 17-year-old highschool pupil in August 1941.
4 months later he discovered himself shaking from explosions and passing ammunition to artillery crews so his ship’s weapons might return hearth on Japanese planes bombing Pearl Harbor, a Navy base in Hawaii.
“When these issues go off like that, we didn’t know what’s what,” stated Fernandez, who’s now 100. “We didn’t even know we have been in a battle.”
Two survivors of the bombing — every 100 or older — are planning to return to Pearl Harbor on Saturday to look at the 83rd anniversary of the assault that thrust the US into World Warfare II.
They’ll be part of active-duty troops, veterans and members of the general public for a remembrance ceremony hosted by the Navy and the Nationwide Park Service.
Fernandez was initially planning to affix them however needed to cancel due to well being points.
The bombing killed greater than 2,300 US servicemen.
Almost half, or 1,177, have been sailors and Marines on board the USS Arizona, which sank through the battle.
The stays of greater than 900 Arizona crew members are nonetheless entombed on the submerged vessel.
A second of silence will probably be held at 7:54 a.m., the identical time the assault started eight a long time in the past. Plane in lacking man formation are as a result of fly overhead to interrupt the silence.
Dozens of survivors as soon as joined the annual remembrance however attendance has declined as survivors have aged.
At present there are solely 16 nonetheless residing, in accordance with a listing maintained by Kathleen Farley, the California state chair of the Sons and Daughters of Pearl Harbor Survivors.
Army historian J. Michael Wenger has estimated there have been some 87,000 navy personnel on Oahu on the day of the assault.
Many laud Pearl Harbor survivors as heroes, however Fernandez doesn’t view himself that method.
“I’m not a hero. I’m simply nothing however an ammunition passer,” he instructed The Related Press in a telephone interview from California, the place he now lives together with his nephew in Lodi.
Fernandez was working as a large number prepare dinner on his ship, the USS Curtiss, the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, and deliberate to go dancing that evening on the Royal Hawaiian Lodge in Waikiki.
He introduced sailors espresso and meals as he waited tables throughout breakfast. Then they heard an alarm sound. Via a porthole, Fernandez noticed a aircraft with the purple ball insignia painted on Japanese plane fly by.
Fernandez rushed down three decks to {a magazine} room the place he and different sailors waited for somebody to unlock a door storing 5-inch, 38-caliber shells so they might start passing them to the ship’s weapons.
He has instructed interviewers through the years that a few of his fellow sailors have been praying and crying as they heard gunfire up above.
“I felt sort of scared as a result of I didn’t know what the hell was happening,” Fernandez stated.
The ship’s weapons hit a Japanese aircraft that crashed into certainly one of its cranes.
Shortly after, its weapons hit a dive bomber which then slammed into the ship and exploded under deck, setting the hangar and important decks on hearth, in accordance with the Navy Historical past and Heritage Command.
Fernandez’s ship, the Curtiss, misplaced 21 males and practically 60 of its sailors have been injured.
“We misplaced a whole lot of good folks, you understand. They didn’t do nothing,” Fernandez stated. “However we by no means know what’s going to occur in a battle.”
After the assault, Fernandez needed to sweep up particles.
That evening, he stood guard with a rifle to ensure nobody tried to come back aboard. When it got here time to relaxation, he fell asleep subsequent to the place the ship’s lifeless have been mendacity.
He solely realized that when a fellow sailor woke him up and instructed him.
After the battle, Fernandez labored as a forklift driver at a cannery in San Leandro, California.
His spouse of 65 years, Mary Fernandez, died in 2014.
His oldest son is now 82 and lives in Arizona. Two different sons and a stepdaughter have died.
He has traveled to Hawaii thrice to take part within the Pearl Harbor remembrance. This 12 months would have been his fourth journey.
Fernandez nonetheless enjoys music and goes dancing at a close-by restaurant as soon as per week if he can. His favourite tune is Frank Sinatra’s rendition of “All of Me,” a track his nephew Joe Guthrie stated he nonetheless is aware of by coronary heart.
“The women flock to him like moths to a flame,” Guthrie stated.
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