Fliers in Class of ’42 Remember Pearl Harbor : * Oxnard: About 30 graduates of the Mira Loma Flight Academy return for a reunion. ‘There’s a few changes here,’ one says.

In 1941, few Americans had heard of Oxnard or Pearl Harbor. By the end of the year, both names would be familiar to the men reporting for pilot training at the Mira Loma Flight Academy.

About 30 graduates of the class of 1942, which numbered 100, returned to Oxnard last week for a reunion.

“There’s a few changes here,” said Jim Tressel of Grants Pass, Ore., who had not been back to Oxnard since 1942. “It used to be nothing but bean fields around here. The Oysterloaf Cafe was the big restaurant in Oxnard. It was just a small town.”

The gathering marked the 50th anniversary of the start of their flight training on Oct. 1, 1941.

The Mira Loma Flight Academy was a civilian-operated flying school conducted at Oxnard Airport before and during World War II that was contracted by the U.S. Army Air Force to train cadets to fly airplanes. It closed down shortly before the war ended.

On Saturday, the former cadets toured the Mira Loma Apartments, which once were the barracks where they lived during the 10-week training session that began in October, 1941. They also toured the hangars at Oxnard Airport where they trained.

Otto W. Schoenberg came to the reunion all the way from Wolfenbuttel, Germany. Schoenberg, who is originally from Pasadena, reminisced while walking through the apartment complex Saturday. “We paraded here where this pool is now. The flagpole was in the center,” he said. “We used to march into town around the park and back on every Saturday as a display for the local population.”

Gene Pember, who now lives in Sequim, Wash., pointed out the palm trees near the apartments.

“These trees were not much higher than we were when we were here,” he said. “Now look at them, probably about 75 to 100 feet high now.”

Tom Moran came to the Oxnard flight school after two years of college in Minnesota.

“I just remember it as a really military operation and you better have the right answer or you’re out,” Moran said. “The strictness was pretty new to me.”

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor happened during the cadets’ session in Oxnard. Tressel remembers being on weekend leave in Los Angeles when he first heard about the Japanese attack.

“When we got back, they had us out in the middle of the night filling sandbags out on the beach in the rain,” he said.

George H. Widder, the only member of the class who now lives in Oxnard, said he did not believe the first reports of the Japanese attack.

“There are always rumors in the military,” Widder said. “. . . I thought, ‘That’s a wild one, that’s an extreme rumor.’ ”

Pember remembers that he and three other classmates were marching when they first heard the news of the bombing of Pearl Harbor over a portable radio.

“We were supposed to keep absolute quiet while we were walking,” he said. “He kept talking about the fact that ‘they bombed somewhere someplace’ and we said, ‘Shut up, we’ll be in trouble.’ We had absolutely no idea where Pearl Harbor was.”

Otto (Bob) Hardwig said he had spent most of the Sunday on which the attack occurred studying for a final exam.

“We came back and drove through the gates and discovered that Pearl Harbor had been bombed--we never had our final examination,” he said.

Hiram C. Begley of Corbin, Ky., said he does not have a specific memory of first hearing the news about the Japanese attack.

“I have more memories of a day or two after that,” he said, “trying to organize a guard around the place and we didn’t even have any guns . . . we adjusted to it pretty quickly.”

Begley’s flying career was cut short when he was shot down over China and broke both his legs. “The thing that occurs to me now is the war was won by 22-year-old men who didn’t know any fear.”