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The following is a story dad used to tell over and over, and I wanna share it, most of it anyway. Now he was a natural born story teller, the kind of a dad whose grandkids would come up to him and say, “grandad, tell us a story.” His eyes would light up and he’d be off reliving the Dust Bowl or a GP version of a WW2 story . . .
He used to be in the Army long ago. He used to say that on Friday they were put on alert for some reason. Now he was in the Army Field Artilery. He was at Schofield Barracks on the Island of Oahu. He said they had to drag these big artillery pieces through the mud, got stuck over and over, in a time consuming and tiring manner. Finally they got to their new location overlooking but above the beach. They were used to such manouvers, but still didn’t care for it. It was raining and they were soggy and miserable. Well the next day, Saturday, they were ordered back to Schofield. So they did the same in reverse, dragging these big howitzers back across the mountains in teh mud. They kept getting stuck in the mud and having to use their ingenuity and muscle to get unstuck.
When he got back to his bunk he just wanted to sleep in a real bed. On sunday morning he didn’t want to get out of bed for anything, being tired and sore. He almost stayed in. But for some reason he decided to get up and eat breakfast. There was a chow line outside, but dad had an answer for that. He was good friends with teh Mess Sargeant (dad was a Sargeant at the time too). So he said he just went up to the sargeant and started talking, and as he talked he got his plate, not having to stand in line like the privates.
About this time they noticed some planes in the distance, but assumed they were from Hickam Field, an Army Air Force base nearby. Some of the guys in line started “playing war” pretending they were being shot at, rpetending they had weapons of their own and started pretending to shoot at the planes. Some of the guys even went to far as to pretend they were shot and fell in the chow line.
By this time the planes were getting closer, and they noticed the markings had a red circle, not American markings. And they noticed they guys they thought were pretending to fall were bleeding. They were NOT pretending.
He said they went to the Supply room to get weapons but it was locked. They found some tools and broke the lock and went inside, got out any weapon they could find and shot at those planes.
Those were Japanese planes and that was Dad’s Pearl Harbor story. He passed away in October, 1992, but I just wanna tell this story he used to tell me over and over. It is sort of a personal tradition of mine to tell it on Dec 7th, in his memory.
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Oh Vance,
That’s a great story. I kinda feel sad and yet, it’s sweet you retelling it and all. That’s really sweet. Thank you for that. Lynella.:) 🙂
Thanks Lynella and Patty. I appreciate it. It is good to remember the past sometimes.
I need to add a couple of things. Dad never said “Army Air Base” — I used the wrong words — he always called it Hickam Army Air Field. The Air Force was part of the Army back then.
Also he’d say the whole time it took for all that to happen in the chow line was maybe not even an entire minute. But he’d spend 5 or 10 minutes describing it.
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Vance,
I can imagine, to tell a good story well you have to really give all the details so others feel like they’re right there. That would take time. It is a great story. Thanks again. Love & light, Lynella.
World War II used to seem like ancient history, but the older I get, the more I realize how close it was to my own lifespan. My mother lost her little brother to that war, he was shot down over Germany. He was in his early twenties at the time. All the days since then could have been his, so much time to have been cheated of. I hate war, and now they’re talking about reviving the draft just in time for my eldest son and my nephews.
Linda,
Dad’s youngest brother (Eual Lee Hawkins, 1926-1944) was killed in Normandy. I was told grandma never forgave the U. S. government for him getting killed. They just rushed him to the battle even before his training was complete.
I remember thinking about joining the Army when I was young and dumb — that was during the Viet Nam War. And I remember Dad coming up to me, setting me down for a long talk, and literally begging me not to make that choice . . .
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