Pearl Harbor still a painful memory

CAMANO ISLAND – Today, just as he has for the past couple decades, Jim Vyskocil will join a familiar but dwindling group of men who know what he knows.

They all survived the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

The 84-year-old Camano Island man will begin the day remembering Pearl Harbor in a ceremony at Whidbey Island Naval Air Station. In the afternoon, he’ll join other survivors for a ceremony at Freedom Park on Camano Island.

Kevin Nortz / The Herald Jim Vyskocil, 84, of Camano Island tries on the Navy uniform he will wear while speaking at a Pearl Harbor ceremonies.

It’s difficult to describe their feelings to people who weren’t there.

Today is not like Memorial Day or Veteran’s Day.

Today is different.

“I don’t really look forward to the seventh of December as a memory,” Vyskocil said.

Del Cummings was there, too. Now 88, Cummings spent decades rarely talking about what happened that morning so long ago.

“Because we were attacked, you know?” Cummings said. “These guys just came in to murder us.”

Vyskocil understands.

“You never really forget it but you just don’t like to be reminded,” he said.

Cummings remembers saluting his commanding officer on the deck of the Taney, a Coast Guard cutter. Then six planes marked with the red Japanese rising sun flew by low.

The Taney was docked near Honolulu. The planes were headed for Pearl Harbor, several miles away. Many more planes attacked from a different direction.

The clear, blue morning sky was soon afire.

Cummings watched through the Taney’s magnified gunsights while the USS Arizona exploded under attack.

Vyskocil saw the same thing from close range. He was in Pearl Harbor’s signal tower. His job was to help manage ship traffic in and out of the harbor.

After three dive bombers hit the USS Nevada, Vyskocil remembers telling the ship’s crew to run it aground, away from the main channel so other vessels could escape.

By the time the black smoke faded, the U.S. Navy calculated that more than 3,500 Americans were killed or injured. A total of 21 ships were destroyed or badly damaged.

Life was never the same for the survivors.

Cummings’ sweetheart, Sarah, was 17. She worried without word in Mount Vernon for three weeks before hearing he had survived.

Vyskocil stayed with the Navy. He saw combat in Korea and Vietnam, too.

“They’re all bad memories,” he said. “When you kill people, you don’t ever forget.”

Dec. 7 still provokes anger for Pearl Harbor survivors, 64 years later.

Vyskocil outlived his first wife. He remarried, but his new wife drove a Toyota. She wanted to replace it with another Toyota.

“I said, ‘Honey, I’m a Pearl Harbor survivor and I don’t buy any (expletive) Japanese car.’ I’ve never forgiven them for” the attack, Vyskocil said.

Sharing those feelings, even to those closest to them, was not easy. Many of today’s Pearl Harbor ceremonies only began 20 years ago as the aging survivors began feeling more comfortable talking, said Cummings’ daughter, MaraLei Nelson.

“They didn’t want to get those pictures back in their heads,” Nelson said.

Reporter Scott Morris: 425-339-3292 or smorris@heraldnet.com.