Remembering the day of infamy

EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK

Saturday is the 61st anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl

Harbor.

That infamous day is one that you either remember, or were taught

about in school. I fall in the latter category, although I don’t

remember the lesson at all. Yet now, it is a date I endeavor to

remember -- one I feel should not be forgotten.

Pearl Harbor, on the Island of Oahu, Hawaii, was attacked by the

Japanese Imperial Navy at 7:55 a.m., Sun. Dec. 7, 1941. The surprise

attack, which consisted of a force of 353 Japanese aircraft, was

conceived by Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto. There had been no formal

declaration of war.

There were about 100 U.S. Navy ships present that morning,

including battleships, destroyers, cruisers and various support

ships.

While my interest in history has grown steadily in my adult years,

my real awareness of the significance of that day, and my respect for

the men and women who were there, began about three years ago.

I was covering education for the Daily Pilot, the Independent’s

sister paper, and was preparing to cover an event at Corona del Mar

High School. Several veterans were going to speak to students. So I

called World War II veteran and Pearl Harbor survivor Jack Hammett

and asked him to tell me his story.

I pictured his account in my mind’s eye and fought to come to

grips with the fact that this was not just a story, like the violent

movies that have become entertainment. He lived this reality.

“I think triage is the worst, because we had to make decisions

about who was going to live or die,” he said. “You’d decide this guy

should make it, give him first aid and send him in to surgery.

Another guy that probably wasn’t going to make it, you gave a shot of

morphine to make him as comfortable as possible.”

I listened with a new respect and interest the next day during the

high school assembly.

“It was the salvation of the free world we were fighting for,”

Gene Robens, a colonel in the U.S. Army who served on Gen. Dwight D.

Eisenhower’s staff in England, told students. He carried top-secret

clearance and was involved in planning the D-Day invasion of

Normandy.

The next year, I visited the Long Beach Veterans Hospital. There I

spoke with Aaron Bates, a pilot in World War II, who had lost both

feet and his left eye.

As he sat confined to a wheelchair, Bates held no grudges and was

proud to have fought for freedom.

His bravery has been reflected by every survivor I have met.

Last year, I spoke to two veterans from Huntington Beach. Donald

Weir, 84, who served in the California National Guard, mobilized in

1940, and Frank Weitzel, who was 19 years old and fresh out of high

school when he enlisted in the Navy. His first assignment on Oct. 19,

1940, was aboard the USS San Francisco headed to Pearl Harbor.

“I had just come out from eating breakfast,” Weitzel, 80,

recalled. “I don’t remember who I was with, but I said, ‘Let’s go up

and watch planes dive on Ford Island’ -- that’s where our planes

practiced.

“At about the second one, I seen two bombs drop out and I saw the

insignia and I said, ‘I don’t think they were ours,’ and they

weren’t. Then all hell broke loose. The Oklahoma was first to go

over. There were men trapped underneath. They worked all day and

night trying to get ‘em out.”

The 61 years have not dulled the memory of that day for any of

these men.

But for me, Bates and his attitude sum up the importance of this

anniversary.

“You only got one life,” he said. “And if we can, we got to make

it the best. We can make it better for younger people. We got

crippled up, but we got freedom.”

* DANETTE GOULET is the city editor. She can be reached at (714)

965-7170 or by e-mail at danette.goulet@latimes.com.