Los Angeles
It is not often one finds humor on Veterans Day. I happened to call my oldest brother William (“Billy”) to wish him a Happy Veterans Day and honor his service in the United States Navy and get some more research on my father’s service in World War II. We laughed that dad didn’t share much about the war but often talked about places where he was stationed when there was no fighting. We discussed dad’s service in the Navy and several of the places where he was stationed. Initially he was sent to Minnesota serving as an airplane machinist mate We recalled dad sharing that it was so cold often beyond subzero F temperatures that they would drain the oil from the plane engines and go in and boil it on a stove to put it back into the plane to start the motors without damaging the engine. Then we talked about dad being trained at flight school at Grand Lakes near Chicago. A recent pilot friend said if you fly over Grand Lakes, you can still see some of the planes at the bottom of Lake Michigan. We discussed dad and his best friend Bob Parker who was one of the survivors of Pearl Harbor and had time with the AVG in China before them being stationed on an aircraft carrier and later in the Philippines. Noting dad’s punching out a priest in upstate New York and our grandfather signing for him to get him out of trouble and into the Navy at 16. Dad was always mechanical so being stationed in Minnesota was no surprise. Dad, being train as all of us were at a young age, was a great shot so being made a tail gunner also was not a surprise. But as his pilot got shot dad was thrown into being a pilot and ended up getting shot through the canopy through the leg and out the other side before crashing the plane and surviving it all. Most of which we only knew from the stories of what Bob told us as dad seldom as with most war vets never talked about it. While dad was a stern disciplinarian police officer, Bob share that he and dad had some wild R&R during the war. Dad always loved a good story, like good jokes and was known to pull some pretty good practical jokes and family were no exceptions.
My oldest brother William, I call “Billy,” joined the Navy during the Vietnam days. He shared that he counted lucky that he was never stationed where there were bullets and bombs. He spent time on a special guided missile destroyer touring all of Europe and later with a special security clearance served at Sin Pac Fleet in Hawaii, most of which he never talks about. He did share that he was the operator handling the calls between President Nixon and the Apollo 13 Crew. He shared it was pretty intense as no one knew if the astronauts were going to make it back to earth.
We harkened back to dropping him at LAX for his flight to Hawaii for his new assignment and my running into several of the Laker Professional Basketball Players whom I knew from my athletic career. Billy was so excited as we said goodbye, and he got on the plane headed to Hawaii. For him it was like being stationed in paradise. Billy was sleeping on the second floor of the Transit Barricks which are only about 100 yards from the water when all of the sudden he was awakened hearing bullets and bombs going off. He turned white as a sheet. Hit the floor and then ran up top to the Lenai and witnessed Japanese Zeros dropping torpedoes and bombs on what was a replica of the Arizona with fifty caliber bullets flying. Can you imagine this is your first day in Hawaii after being stationed in soft places like Europe? One heck of a welcome to Hawaii.
One of the fellow shipmates laughed and said, “Hey they are filming a movie down there of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.” The Transit Barracks is only about 100 yards from the water. The production teams hard Navy demolition experts to simulate real time footage. Billy said you could feel the concussion of the explosions. I never heard this story. What started out as just saying thanks for your service and honoring dad turned out to be great humor for Veterans Day.
It was the filming of Tora! Tora! Tora! Which involved extensive use of full-scale mockups, model ships, and both U.S. and Japanese production teams and actual explosives firing off on the horizon to accurately portray both sides of the attack on Pearl Harbor. The producers didn’t have the special effects or CGI technology that film producers use today. Producers lined up Navy personnel to jump off the mockups when the explosives went off to provide the reality shots and paid them what in those days were more money than Navy pay.
Billy later was educated on the original attack on Pearl Harbor. The Japanese spies watch closely the Navy personnel and locals go out and hoop it up on Waikiki Beach on Saturday night and go back and sleep off their hang overs. The Japanese knew the best time of the attack was Sunday morning. Billy said not much had changed. Sunday morning was still much the same.
