On the Edge of War
by
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Chapter Seven: Sunday December 7th.
About 7:55 AM I was rudely awakened by the rattling of all the bedroom windows. My first thought was that it felt like an earthquake, the building was shaking and there were loud rumbling sounds like heavy thunder! Then I heard sounds like heavy firing of guns. As I started to get up, I thought what a day to start war games on, it’s Sunday, don’t they have any sense at all? It’s just like the Army to pull a stunt like this, of course the Navy was in on the act too. Just about that time my watch partner, who had relieved me at 2 AM, came rushing into the bedroom exclaiming that the USS Ward had depth charged a submarine just off of Barbers Point at about 6 AM. He said he picked up the message cause it was sent on our frequency 2670 (our high frequency main channel) but was sent to NPM the Navy radio shore station. I asked him if he sent that message to our downtown head quarters and he replied “No I didn’t because it was sent to NPM.” I told him he should have sent it into our office just to keep his watch covered. Since we knew Anthony was in on that kind of stuff. As I was getting dressed I heard faint sounds of airplane engines. I quickly dashed out of the room, ran through the kitchen and out the back door just in time to see 3 planes fly over the house at about 500 feet above me. They were flying in formation and I could see big red dots on their wings. I watched them flying in the direction of down town Honolulu and in line with going to Pear Harbor! I ran in the house and told everyone, “Three Army planes flew over the house, I know they weren’t Navy planes so they must be Army planes because they had big red dots under their wings as some sort of disguise for war games. Looking out towards Pearl Harbor I could see huge clouds of smoke billowing up into the sky and it looked like a bunch of planes were zooming around Hickham Field and Pearl Harbor. Since this action came as a big surprise, I wondered if the military brass were trying to see what our reaction would be by throwing this surprise drill. Just about that time Chief Kerns, our man in charge that day, told me to cover the harbor channel and the commercial channel till we found out what is going on. Since we had an excellent view of the Pearl Harbor channel entrance from the operating position where I was operating, I could any ships coming out of the Pearl Harbor channel entrance. Looking through that particular window I observed a destroyer running very slowly towards the open sea. She was not making much head way and seemed to be blowing white smoke out of her single stack which I took to mean that it hadn’t quite got enough boiler pressure to go full speed. Suddenly a huge geyser of water erupted just a few yards off her stern. I didn’t know if she had dropped a depth charge or if there was a plane bombing her. This started us to wondering if this was a make believe war game or was it the real thing? I thought that if this was the real thing I wanted no part of it! At about 8:30 AM Chief Kerns sent my partner Tony Silva downtown to our headquarters with all of last nights logs and message. He was to find out what was going on? He took the panel truck, our official vehicle, drove fast as he could on Kapolanai Boulevard to our district office down town. During this time I was busy logging everything I heard on 2670 kcs and 500 kcs (kcs now known as hrz). The first thing I heard was a distress call from a commercial sport fishing boat on 2670 our Coast Guard frequency. The caller sounded very excited and said “some Army Air Force pilot has gone berserk and is shooting at us with his machine guns and had hit them.” An Army Colonel, who was a guest on his vessel was wounded.” He gave his location as just off of Barbers Point. He pleaded with us to do something about it. We acknowledge his message and passed it on to our down town headquarters by teletype. He also informed us that the boat was disabled and was sinking. I looked out of our window facing north , where we could see the mouth of the entrance channel to Pearl Harbor and the Barber”s Point area but couldn’t see the fishing boat. After watching that destroyer getting bombed and the fishing boat getting strafed, this started us wondering if this was a real war or a drill, the time was now about 8:30 AM. In the kitchen you could hear a radio on low volume, playing heavy military marches or martial music. Then an announcement was made that we were being attacked by an unidentified enemy air force. We still hadn’t got any official notice from Headquarters, but we figured that it had to be the Japanese Navy! Just about then I was looking out the west window where I could see the Diamond Head buoy, (that was used to mark the end of the race for sailing boats from the West Coast to Hawaii), a tremendous set of geysers came out of the sea and shot about fifty or sixty feet in the air. It looked as they were about 500 yards from the shore. I held my breath expecting shells to come bouncing or skipping right up to our building thinking that they were made by a salvo of heavy shells from a cruiser or a battle ship that was lurking just over the horizon and trying to find the correct range and would be firing more shells at us any minute but when I didn’t see any skipping along the way after the original geysers I figured that it must have been three bombs dropped from some plane at a high altitude and the wind pushed them out past Diamond Head.
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About the Book
The adventures of an enlisted man during World War Two, Telling about his experiences during the pre-war and war time period. How he covered the action during the Pearl Harbor Air Raid Bombing and the action that was taken during the raid and aftermath. His experience as a sonar operator on a sub chaser in the Central Pacific and as an operator at a secrete Naval Intelligence Station. The story of how we recaptured the Island of Niihau from the Japanese Pilot who had crashed on the island and had taken control. The R.R. (Rest and Recreation) at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel and life on the Island during war time. Life on a large troop ship and the adventures at the various ports of call. The troop ship traveled with out an escort most of the time at an average speed of twenty one knots. It traveled from San Francisco, where it was built, to Norfolk, Virginia via the South Pacific to the Indian Ocean, then through the Suez Canal and on to Norfolk. One trip from New York to La Harve, France to pick up G.I.s returning to ther U.S. after defeating Hitler in Europe, then back to India with more troops for the China Burma India war. Celebrating the end of the war in the Indian Ocean.
About the Author
He was born in San Francisco, California on February 21st, 1918. Went through school in Marin County, Ca. And graduated from San Rafael High School in Jan. 1937. He joined the U.S. Coast Guard on October 29, 1939. Went through training at Port Townsend, Wash. He was assigned to the cutter Arriadne a 165 foot ship. Four months later was transferred the cutter Roger B. Taney, a 327 foot, 2000 ton ship stationed in the Hawaiian Islands.
He became a radio operator and was stationed at the Diamond Head Radio Station during the Pearl Harbor Air Raid, on December 7th, 1941.
He served on a subchaser as a radio operator and as a sonar operator,(submarine detector system). He was transferred back to San Francisco and was assigned to the San Francisco Radio Station NMC. After that he was assigned to the troop transport U.S.S. General A.. W. Greely,
AP 141. He traveled around the world, through the South Pacific, Tasmania Sea, Indian Ocean, Red Sea, Suez Canal, Mediterranean Sea, Atlantic Ocean to Norfolk, Virginia, New York and to La Harve, France. He was discharged from the military on November 2nd, 1945 as the war ended.