My father was in Hawaii 75 years ago today

Seventy-five years ago this week my dad was a 19-year-old U.S. Army private stationed in Hawaii.

He’d been there almost a year.

Wednesday, Dec. 7, 2016, is National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day.

Hawaii, circa 1941, was a dream-come-true assignment for a recent high school graduate from San Diego. When off duty, Dad spent considerable time surfing the waves at Waikiki Beach. He used to tell us kids that after an afternoon of surfing he drank gulps of pineapple juice from a public drinking fountain.

We believed him.

Author James Jones spent much of his 1951 book, “From Here to Eternity,” capturing the flavor of the military situation in Hawaii prior to the outbreak of the War in the Pacific. The book chronicles Private “Prew” Pruitt’s unremitting hostility toward Army regulations and discipline.

At that time, Hitler was wreaking havoc in Europe. Hawaii was living in a fool’s paradise.

Then things suddenly began exploding … literally.

On Sunday morning, Dec. 7, 1941, Dad was stationed at Schofield Barracks, Oahu, 15 miles north of Pearl Harbor. Shortly before 8 a.m. Japanese fighter planes — attacking Pearl from aircraft carriers situated northwest of Oahu — appeared overhead and swooped low over Dad’s barracks, releasing a fusillade of machine gun fire.

That morning, Dad and many of his fellow soldiers were on their way to the chow hall for breakfast. Others were catching extra Sunday morning sleep — a much-appreciated benefit of relaxed Sunday duty schedules.

The gunfire woke them, and they dove for cover beneath their bunks. The guys en route to and from chow dropped on the parade ground or scrambled for the nearest shelter. One guy in Dad’s company was wounded.

Fortunately, no one in the outfit was killed.

Dad told us that he realized as soon as the attack was initiated that the world was about to change forever. And it did.

My chances for becoming a living, breathing human being improved exponentially that morning.

Without Hitler or Pearl Harbor or World War II, I could not possibly have been born. My parents would never have exchanged glances, met, courted, married and had children.

I think of Dad every time I watch that famous strafing scene of Schofield Barracks in the motion picture version of Jones’ book. It starred Burt Lancaster, Frank Sinatra, Montgomery Clift, Donna Reed and Deborah Kerr, and won the Academy Award for Best Picture.

It’s one of my favorite pictures ever.

I first saw the film shortly after its release in 1953 at the Lido Theater in Newport Beach. I was an impressionable 8-year-old, and Dad and Mom were with me. I had lots of questions.

I’ve since watched portions of the film dozens of times.

Thirteen years after my introduction to the film, I read Jones’ book while a 21-year-old U.S. Army sergeant stationed in Korea.

As a GI myself, I found Jones’ 800-page novel to be authentic and riveting. I think I appreciated the book because I could relate to Jones’ portrayal of Army life.

I shared some of Private Pruitt’s frustrations with the Army, but I found myself shaking my head in disbelief at his many boneheaded moves. I’d served with self-destructive guys just like him.

“Get a grip and learn to play the game,” I’d have admonished him. “It’s not difficult. Really! Do as you’re told and don’t volunteer for anything. Keep your head down. You’ve got no one to blame but yourself!”

For several weeks after the Dec. 7 attack, Dad spent time manning a coastal battery awaiting a full-scale Japanese invasion that never came.

Sometime in 1942, Dad applied for pre-flight training at Santa Ana Army Air Base and successfully completed the cadet-training program. He washed out of flight school in Texas, however, due to an inner ear problem. He returned to SAAAB as a tech sergeant.

Dad and Mom met at Santa Ana Army Air Base in 1943, where mom was a civilian employee, were married in 1944 and I was born in 1945.

And the rest, they say, is history.

JIM CARNETT, who lives in Costa Mesa, worked for Orange Coast College for 37 years.