4A Saturday, December 8, 2018
The Times, Gainesville, Georgia | gainesvilletimes.com
NATION
PEARL HARBOR ANNIVERSARY
Survivors gather for attack remembrance
BY AUDREY MCAVOY
Associated Press
PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii -
About 20 survivors gathered at
Pearl Harbor on Friday to pay trib
ute to the thousands of men lost in
the Japanese attack 77 years ago.
They joined dignitaries, active
duty troops and members of the
public in observing a moment of
silence at 7:55 a.m., the time the
bombing began on Dec. 7,1941.
John Mathrusse was an 18-year-
old seaman second class walking
out of the chow hall on Ford Island
to see a friend on the USS West Vir
ginia when the bombing began.
“The guys were getting hurt,
bombs and shells going off in
the water. I helped the ones that
couldn’t swim, who were too badly
injured or whatever and helped
them to shore,” said Mathrusse,
now 95.
Mathrusse, who traveled to
Hawaii for the event from Moun
tain View, California, remembers
carrying injured people to the
mess hall and setting them on mat
tresses grabbed from the barracks
above.
Robert Fernandez, who was
assigned to the USS Curtiss, recalls
being petrified.
“I was kind of nervous too. I was
scared. I was 17.1 went to go see
the world. What did I get into? A
war,” he said.
The 94-year-old from Stockton,
California returns for the annual
remembrance each year because
he’s now alone after his wife died
four years ago.
Adm. Phil Davidson, com
mander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific
Command, said the nation can
never forget the heavy price
paid on that day. He cited 21 ves
sels damaged or sunk, 170 planes
destroyed, more than 2,400 people
dead, including servicemen and
civilians.
“Despite these losses, it did not
break the American spirit. In fact,
it charged it,” he said in a keynote
address.
The survivors are declining in
number as they push well into their
90s, and are increasingly treated
as celebrities. They say people ask
for their autographs and request to
take photos and selfies with them.
“I am given a lot of attention
and honor. I shake hands continu
ously,” said Tom Berg, who lives
in Port Townsend, Washington.
AUDREY MCAVOY I Associated Press
Everett Hyland, seated, who survived the attack on Pearl Harbor as a crew member of the USS Pennsylvania, salutes along with his granddaughter
Navy Cmdr. Anna-Marie Fine on Friday, Dec. 7, as the USS Michael Murphy passes in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii during a ceremony marking the 77th
anniversary of the Japanese attack.
Berg, who is 96, served on the USS
Tennessee.
This year, no survivor from the
USS Arizona attended the cere
mony as none of the men were able
to make the trip to Hawaii.
The Arizona sank after two
bombs hit the ship, triggering tre
mendous explosions. The Arizona
lost 1,177 sailors and Marines, the
greatest number of casualties from
any ship. Most remain entombed in
the sunken hull of the battleship at
the bottom of the harbor.
Dozens of those killed in the
attack have been recently identi
fied and reburied in cemeteries
across the country after the mili
tary launched a new effort to ana
lyze bones and DNA of hundreds
long classified as “unknowns.”
In 2015,388 sets of remains were
exhumed from the USS Oklahoma
and buried in a national cemetery
in Honolulu. The Oklahoma had
the second-highest number of dead
after the Arizona at 429, though
only 35 were identified in the
immediate years after the attack.
The Defense POW/MIA
Accounting Agency has identi
fied 168 sailors and Marines from
the Oklahoma since the exhuma
tions three years ago. It has said
it expects to identify about 80 per
cent of the 388 by 2020.
Several families were scheduled
to rebury their newly identified
loved ones on Friday, including
Navy Seaman 1st Class William
Bruesewitz of Appleton, Wisconsin.
His remains were buried at
Arlington National Cemetery near
Washington, D.C.
JOSE LUIS MAGANA I Associated Press
A Navy team holds the U.S. flag over the casket of U.S. Navy Seaman
1st Class William G. Bruesewitz to the burial site at Arlington National
Cemetery in Arlington, Va., on Friday, Dec. 7.
Pearl Harbor survivor, Navy
veteran recalls 1941 attack
Retired U.S. Navy Cmdr. Don Long holds up a replica Friday,
Dec. 7, of the military seaplane he was standing watch on
when Japanese warplanes attacked Hawaii 77 years ago.
BY CALEB JONES
Associated Press
HONOLULU - Retired
U.S. Navy Cmdr. Don Long
was alone on an anchored
military seaplane in the mid
dle of a bay across the island
from Pearl Harbor when
Japanese warplanes started
striking Hawaii on December
7,1941, watching from afar as
the attack unfolded.
Now 97, Long marked
the 77th anniversary Fri
day from his home in Napa,
California.
Years of anniversaries
Long was fresh out of boot
camp when he arrived in
Hawaii in 1941.
“I got off that ship with my
sea bag over my shoulder
and we threw it on a truck
and they carted me over to
Kaneohe from Pearl Harbor
where we had landed,” Long
recalled.
It was a different experi
ence when he was flown to
Hawaii for the 75th anniver
sary in 2016.
“We came in on a first class
United chartered jet... all the
girls with the leis were there
with the Hawaiian music,” he
remembered. “We ended up
not in a bunk in the barracks,
but in a very nice ocean
room.”
He attended a dinner
where survivors were seated
with dignitaries. At his table
were Japan’s Honolulu-based
consul general and his wife.
“He and his wife were
there in full regalia,” Long
said. He asked if they might
help him identify the pilot
who attacked his plane.
“They did some searching
I guess, or told somebody to
do it, but within a month or
so I got a message from them
and the proof is not positive
but they sent the informa
tion on three Japanese pilots.
It was probably one of those
three,” Long said.
Long harbors no ill will
against Japan or its people.
“I don’t know when that
feeling left me. But as you
are probably well aware, we
were taught to hate those
people with all our hearts,
and when you’re looking at
one down a gun sight, you
can’t really feel much love
for anyone — that’s for darn
sure,” he said.
A routine weekend
Long remembers the
attack as routine, “or so it
started out,” he wrote in a
1992 essay that he provided
to The Associated Press.
The 20-year-old from Min
nesota enrolled in boot camp
in March 1941, a “snotty nose
kid, fresh off the farm.” That
Sunday morning was his first
day of operational duty with
the squadron he had been
assigned to about a month
earlier.
He took a small boat
toward the awaiting Catalina
flying boat, cruising across
the turquoise waters of wind
ward Oahu with Hawaii’s
73-degree air splashing
across his face.
“I recall it was a beauti
ful sunny day in Hawaii that
morning,” Long said.
He began preparing for a
solitary day of signal drills
and regular maintenance
checks. He settled into the
pilot’s compartment to wait
for contact from the signaling
station to begin his drills.
A few minutes later, he
heard the roar of airplanes
overhead. In the distance,
Long saw planes flying
over hangars and buildings
exploding. Another plane that
was anchored nearby was hit
and burst into flames.
Seconds later, a Japanese
ERIC RISBERG I Associated Press
plane made a run toward his
position. “The sequence of
events during the next few
minutes is not entirely clear,”
he recalled.
Long jumped from the
pilot’s seat and started look
ing for a life jacket, but bullets
were immediately producing
fountains of seawater inside
the cabin. The fuel tanks in
the wings were hit, and he
was surrounded by flames.
He made a run for the rear
exit. Gasoline was ablaze on
the water, so he jumped into
the bay and swam beneath
the fire to get away from the
sinking plane. He came to
the surface and through the
flames three times for air.
His military-issued work
shoes were bogging him
down, so he dove underwater
and removed them. Far from
shore, Long found a wooden
channel marker and swam to
it, ducking beneath the waves
to hide every time a Japanese
plane made a pass.
Once the Japanese were
gone, Long spotted a boat that
was searching for survivors
and flagged them down.
Long burned his head, face
and arms, but he considered
himself in good health com
pared to the wounded and
dead around him.
“Shipmates on the shore
greeted me with comments
like ‘we never expected to see
you again,”’ Long recalled. “I
was told I looked pretty bad.”
“The attack was over, but
much turmoil remained,” he
wrote. “That’s it — the start
of the first day of a long war. ”
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