Pearl Harbor Vets

The Everett (Wa) Herald had an article by Bill Sheets back in December (I just found it) about six Pearl Harbor survivors who attended a ceremony honoring the day.

Donald Green, 85, of Bremerton, Wa., was on the ammunition ship USS Pyro (definitely not a good place to be during the attack). He was a night watchman and was used to drunken sailors coming back to the ship. A few hours after his shift, he was asleep when he heard the explosions and thought, "What the hell is the Army doing these exercises for on a Sunday morning?"

On that date in 1941, Green, then 19, was a petty officer 3rd class. He quickly threw on his clothes and manned an anti-aircraft gun. He saw a Japanese plane approaching so close, "I could see (the pilot's) features, with leather helmet and red scarf." He saw a bomb drop and ran for safety. It hit a concrete dock 10-12 feet from the Pyro and blew it apart. "I wouldn't be here if it weren't or that 10 or 12 feet." he and a shipmate shot that plane down.

EDWIN SCHMIDT, 91, of Edmonds, Wa., was a seaman first class on the USS California. He and his good friend Herbert Curtis of Mississippi were getting ready for church when the first bomb hit.

Curtis was later killed and the California partly sunk.

At the conclusion of the battle, he and a shipmate fired what was left of the ammunition on the ship. "We fired the last eleven rounds at six Japanese bombers. That was the end of the shooting at Pearl Harbor."

The Greatest Generation.