EVERETT — In the predawn hours of a quiet Sunday 66 years ago, the biggest challenge facing Navy night watchman Donald Green was dealing with drunk sailors returning to the ship from a night of partying.
A few hours after his shift, Green was jarred awake by explosions.
“What the hell is the Army doing these exercises for on a Sunday morning?” he thought.
It wasn’t the Army. America’s age of innocence was over.
Green, now 85, recounted his memories of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, at a commemoration at Naval Station Everett on Friday.
Green, of Bremerton, was one of six Pearl Harbor survivors who attended Friday’s event. The ceremony marked the anniversary of Japan’s bombing of the U.S. Navy fleet in Honolulu, Hawaii. Family members of another five survivors attended, as well.
About 175 people in all, 125 naval personnel and 75 civilians, were present for Friday’s brief ceremony.
After Green spoke, the survivors tossed two commemorative wreaths into Port Gardner, near the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier.
The wreaths hit the water about 9:55 a.m. — corresponding with the beginning of the Japanese attack at 7:55 a.m. Hawaiian-Aleutian Standard Time — in honor of those who died. In all, 2,335 service people and 68 civilians lost their
lives in the event that drew the United States into World War II.
In the naval station’s grand ballroom, the spirit of the fateful day was captured by swing music over the sound system juxtaposed with photos of crippled ships and billowing smoke on the screen.
In 1941, Green was only 19, a shipfitter and petty officer third class on the USS Pyro, an ammunition ship. When an alert was sounded after he heard the booms, he threw on his clothes and ran out to see the planes.
He and a shipmate manned an anti-aircraft gun and began shooting. Soon, he saw a Japanese plane approaching the ship.
“I could see (the pilot’s) features, with leather helmet and red scarf,” he said. Then Green saw a bomb drop from the plane. As he ran for safety, the bomb hit a concrete dock 10 to 12 feet from the ship, blowing the dock apart.
“I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for that 10 or 12 feet,” Green said.
Green and his shipmate then shot down the plane, he said. The Pyro was damaged, but did not sink.
Another survivor who attended Friday’s ceremony was Erwin Schmidt, 91, of Edmonds, a seaman first class on the battleship USS California.
He and a good friend, Herbert Curtis of Mississippi, were getting ready to go to church when the first bombs hit, he said.
Curtis later perished on the ship. The California partly sank in the battle, but the Navy was able to keep it afloat with tugboats and other ships.
At the conclusion of the battle, Schmidt and a shipmate fired off what was left of the ammunition on the ship.
“We fired the last 11 rounds at six Japanese bombers,” Schmidt said. “That was the end of the shooting at Pearl Harbor.”
Reporter Bill Sheets: 425-339-3439 or sheets@heraldnet.com.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
