100-year-old Pearl Harbor survivor recalls chaos and chaos during Japanese bombing 83 years ago

In August 1941, 17-year-old Bob Fernandez joined the U.S. Navy as a high school student, hoping to dance around the world.

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Four months later, he found himself shaking from the explosion and passing ammunition to the artillery crew so that his guns could return fire on Japanese planes bombing Pearl Harbor, the naval base in Hawaii.

“When these things happen like that, we don’t know what’s going on,” said Fernandez, now 100. “We don’t even know we’re in a war.”

Two survivors of the bombing – each 100 years old or older – plan to return to Pearl Harbor on Saturday to mark the 83rd anniversary of the attack that plunged the United States into World War II. They will join active-duty service members, veterans and the public in a commemorative ceremony hosted by the Navy and the National Park Service.

Fernandez initially planned to join them but had to cancel due to health issues.

The bombing killed more than 2,300 U.S. service members. Nearly half, or 1,177, of the people on the USS Arizona that sank during the battle were sailors and Marines. The remains of more than 900 Arizona crew members remain buried on the submerged ship.

A moment of silence will be held at 7:54 a.m., the same time eight years ago the attacks began. Planes in the Missing Man Formation will fly overhead, breaking the silence.

Dozens of survivors once attended the annual commemoration, but attendance declined as the survivors grew older. Today, only 16 are alive, according to a list kept by Kathleen Farley, California president of Pearl Harbor Survivors. Military historian J. Michael Wenger estimated that there were approximately 87,000 military personnel on Oahu on the day of the attack.

Many hailed the Pearl Harbor survivors as heroes, but Fernandez didn’t see himself that way.

“I’m not a hero. I’m just a courier of ammunition,” he told The Associated Press in a phone interview from California, where he now lives in Lodi with his nephew.

On the morning of December 7, 1941, Fernandez was working as a mess cook aboard his aircraft carrier, the USS Curtis, and planned to dance that evening at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel in Waikiki.

During breakfast, he served coffee and food to the sailors. Then they heard sirens. Through the porthole, Fernandez saw a plane with the red ball insignia of a Japanese aircraft flying by.

Fernandez rushed down three decks to an ammunition magazine, where he and other sailors waited for someone to open the door where the 5-inch (12.7 cm) 38-caliber shells were stored so they could begin passing the shells to the ship’s cannon.

Over the years, he told interviewers that some of his fellow sailors were praying and crying when they heard gunshots above.

“I felt a little scared because I didn’t know what was going on,” Fernandez said.

The ship’s gunfire hit a Japanese aircraft, which crashed into one of the cranes. Soon after, its machine guns hit a dive bomber, which then crashed into the ship and exploded below decks, causing a fire in the hangar and main deck, according to the Naval History and Heritage Command.

A total of 21 crew members of Fernandez’s ship, the Curtiss, were killed and nearly 60 sailors were injured.

“You know, we lost a lot of good people. They didn’t do anything,” Fernandez said. “But we never know what will happen in war.”

After the attack, Fernandez had to clean up the wreckage. That night he stood guard with his rifle to make sure no one tried to board the ship. When it was time to rest, he fell asleep on the ship where the deceased lay. He realized this when a sailor woke him up and told him.

After the war, Fernandez worked as a forklift driver at a cannery in San Leandro, California. His wife of 65 years, Mary Fernandez, died in 2014. Two other sons and a stepdaughter died.

He traveled to Hawaii three times to attend Pearl Harbor commemorations. This year will be his fourth trip.

Fernandez still enjoys music and dances at a nearby restaurant once a week if he can. His favorite tune was Frank Sinatra’s cover of “All of Me,” which his nephew, Joe Guthrie, said he still knows by heart.

“Ladies flocked to him like moths to a flame,” Guthrie said.

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