Hickam's heroes: Airmen to return to flagpole

by Staff Sgt. Mike Meares
Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam Public Affairs

12/7/2012 - JOINT BASE PEARL HARBOR-HICKAM, Hawaii  – As the years pass, fewer men and women who survived the horrific events of Dec. 7, 1941, return to the place where their lives changed forever.

For the 71st time, Airmen, civilians, family and friends will gather around the flagpole Dec. 7 to salute and remember the ones who gave their lives on that infamous day. Among the crowd, several men will be honored for their role in surviving the attacks and fighting for their country.

“As these men get older, their tales die with them,” said Jessie Higa, Hickam History Club president. “Those who remain can’t travel the distance from their home town any longer because of their age and variety of health issues.”

Among the guest, and oldest at 98 years old, Col. (Ret.) Andrew Kowalski, of Honolulu, is a native of Pittsburg. He enlisted in the Army in 1934, sum 78 years ago. He arrived to Hickam Field in 1939 and quickly rose through the enlisted ranks. On the morning of Dec. 7, then a master sergeant, fell asleep at friend’s house in Hickam housing having stayed up late playing poker. At approximately 7:55 a.m., he was awakened by loud explosions and immediately reported for duty at the wing headquarters building where he was the assistant to the commander.

“When I heard the explosions, I bee-lined it to the headquarters building,” Kowalski said.

For the next several hours, his job was to answer the phone and maintain the official list of Hickam casualties. A few months later he was recommended for Officer Training School.

“I had to man the commander’s telephone to receive the names of all the casualties as they were being called in,” he said. “I handled the casualties list when we set up a command post in the Aliamanu Crater. Those lists were then transferred to the morgue in preparation for burials.”

He maintained the entire lists of casualties for the Army department, which including Wheeler Field, Bellows Field, Schofield Barracks and Fort Shafter.

Another of the Hickam Field survivors who returned to Hawaii and made it his home is Master Sgt. (Ret.) Kenneth Ford, of Honolulu. In 1940, the Kentucky native lied about his age and enlisted in the Army at age 15.

“It’s the best thing that ever happened to me, because it saved my life,” Ford said. “If I hadn’t gone into the military, I would have probably been killed or led a life of crime.”

On Dec. 6th, while en-route to Dutch Harbor, Alaska, he had a lay-over at Hickam Field and spent the night in the consolidated barracks. Early Sunday morning, he was taking a shower when the first bomb exploded. While running out of the bathroom the nearest place to seek cover was under on office desk.

“Machine gun bullets came through the windows of the shower room I was in while the Japanese was strafing the parade grounds,” he said. “That’s why I hid under a desk, it was a big thick desk. When I finally looked up, I could see the Zeros attacking the flightline and blowing up hangars.”

He then ran outside in his underwear where he could see smoke rising into the sky all over the area. Dead and wounded littered the grounds. Later that afternoon he was issued a WWI Springfield rifle and five rounds of ammo to man the beach at Fort Kamehameha against possible Japanese invaders.

“The first sergeant said to me ‘After you shoot five, use the bayonet,”‘ Ford said, who was 16 years old at the time of the attacks. “So, I waited on the beach for three days for them to land, and they never landed.”

Months later, he arrived in Alaska, but found himself again at war with enemy Japanese forces, surviving yet again. When he was transfered to Europe to fight the Germans, he was captured and sent to a prisoner of war camp in Italy. After spending 14 months in captivity, his unit was saved by Japanese-Americans soldiers of the 442nd Regiment Combat Team, made up of Soldiers from Hawaii. He continued his military career and is also a combat veteran having fought in both Korea and active combat fighting during the Tet Offensive in Vietnam.

“Anyone who says they weren’t scared is probably the biggest liar in the world,” Ford said. “Everybody’s got a breaking point. Today, more than 70 years later, I still have nightmares. It stays with you and you never really get over it.”

A third WWII veteran will be in the crowd and among fellow Airmen, but he wasn’t at Hickam during the attacks, even though he was assigned there. Col. (Ret.) Roy Bright, was a B-17 navigator assigned to Hickam Field, but at the time of the attack was at Hamilton Field, California, with his crew preparing to fly a new B-17E model back to base. The radar operator reported a large group of airplanes coming in, but the Japanese were mistaken for the B-17s, who were late.

A few days later his crew would make the trans-Pacific flight. The aircrew endured the bird’s eye view of the unimaginable destruction and devastation inflicted on the island of Oahu. Bright might have missed the attacks, but he has never missed a Dec. 7 ceremony since 1946. At age 98, he celebrates 65 years of perfect attendance.

A final guest of honor making his last trip to the islands, Senior Master Sgt. (Ret.) Raymond Perry, of Arizona, will join the ranks at the ceremony. Elizabeth Perry, his widow, and other members of his family, will bring the urn containing his remains, to be scattered in a private ceremony after the remembrance.

Then an Army Air Force private first class, Perry, of the 29th Car Company, was on temporary duty at Fort Armstrong in downtown Honolulu when the first attack occurred. Everyone was scrambling around trying to get away from the anti-aircraft shells that were raining down all over. The shell contained contact fuses, which explode on impact of anything. Perry said he was “tired of getting shot at” so he volunteered to take trucks to Hickam to transport wounded to Tripler.

“I went over to our first sergeant and said, ‘I’m volunteering,”‘ Perry remembers telling his first sergeant. “‘You don’t even know what I want volunteers for.’ I said, ‘I don’t care. I just want to get out of here.’”

The 14-bed Hickam Clinic had wounded lining the halls inside and the sidewalk and grassy areas outside. He said Hickam had asked volunteers to help pick up wounded and get them to Tripler.

Two military motorcycle policemen escorted their convoy of five trucks to Hickam Field. They proceeded along Hangar Avenue, past the consolidated barracks, and pulled into the area between Hangars 9 and 13. With the help of Army Air Forces personnel, they began loading wounded men into their trucks. One of the men took white sheets and painted a large red cross on them and draped it over the trucks.

Then at 8:45 a.m., someone nearby shouted, “Here they come again!” People scattered from plain view and ducked inside the closest hangar door well. After the explosions and firing subsided, they went out and found all their trucks completely demolished. Of the 17 men they had picked up, only three were still alive as the red crosses proved to be targets for the attackers.

Perry went on in his Air Force career to be known as a master parachutist and become one of the founding members of the Air Force Special Operations Forces pararescue career.

For 71 years, different men and women who witnessed the attacks and lived to tell their tale have returned to the spot it all started. Even the flagpole took a barrage of bombs and bullets to topple it from waving proudly in the Trade Winds, never giving up its position in the sky. The scarred buildings tell many stories without saying a single word of survival and heroism. Once the last of their generation passes, their legacy will endure in the continued service of Airmen.

(Jessie Higa contributed historical information to this story)

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