Pearl Harbor survivors review latest installment of infamous day

Jack R. Hammett

To critique any film as to its authenticity, one must first have lived

it, and secondly have seen all the areas the film portrayed.

One’s view of combat is usually micro, not macro, because reality is

what is happening around you, personally. My view was restricted to

returning to my duty station at the Naval Hospital in the Navy Yard from

my quarters in Honolulu.

As such, I was able to observe the strafing of our taxi cabs, the

plumes of smoke, the sounds of sirens, the acrid stench of burning ships,

the pandemonium within the Navy Yard, and, finally, the scores of wounded

and dying at my battle station at the Naval Hospital.

A simple phrase to describe Pearl Harbor from my location on land at

Hospital Point in the Pearl Harbor entrance channel was “organized

confusion.”

Immediately on my arrival at the hospital, my view became a micro one:

the wounded I was treating, the dying that I was trying to make

comfortable, and finally the dead that I was trying to identify.

Now, as to the film, it was a very long love story interspersed with

combat footage of war scenes beautifully done. The battle scenes of Pearl

Harbor were outstanding, photographically, especially the capsizing of

the Oklahoma. I lost friends on that vessel, as well as on the Arizona,

but that part was the most accurate that I can remember. My location at

the hospital gave all of us a clear view of the channel and its activity.

But the movie has its inaccuracies. The hospital was not bombed, nor

strafed, although the enemy planes did swoop close enough for some to see

the faces of the pilots. However, one Japanese plane did crash through

the end ward of the hospital and thence into the tennis court, and ended

up under an enlisted quarters, where it exploded. We retrieved two

Japanese bodies from it. Altogether, we retrieved 13 Japanese bodies.

The massive triage that was performed was primarily by Naval Hospital

corpsmen in the receiving area in the Navy nurses’ old, abandoned

quarters and surrounding grounds. There were not enough doctors nor

nurses to address the tremendous impact of the arrival of such an influx

of patients. The corpsmen’s immediate actions were often the result of

the survivability of the patient. The wounds were massive and, in many

cases, extreme.

In conclusion, it was a well-done film depicting the most historical

event of the 20th Century couched in a love story. Although license was

taken for dramatic necessity, it did portray the battle scenes realistic

enough to make me relive scenes, scenes that I thought I had submerged in

my psyche deep enough to forget. Reliving the pain and horror of triage

has now reimplanted it in my consciousness so that I will never again

forget it.

This film is worth seeing for those who have not seen war and its

toll.

* JACK R. HAMMETT is retired from the U.S. Navy and was stationed at

the Naval Hospital at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.