Man who survived Pearl Harbor recalls day that will live in infamy
Lawrence County vet, 97, will be honored
Isaac George remembers the tropical paradise that was Pearl Harbor in the months leading up to the Japanese ambush that drew the United States into World War II.
“It was a beautiful place before the attack,” he said this week at his home in Neshannock Township in Lawrence County wearing an Army garrison cap with the words “Pearl Harbor Survivors” stitched on the side.
That beauty turned bloody the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, when Japanese planes bombed the harbor, killing 2,403 Americans, injuring more than 1,100 and destroying or heavily damaging many of the battleships in the Pacific fleet.
Mr. George, 97, then a master sergeant in the Army Air Corps, said he was lucky to survive the assault and went on to serve the rest of the war in the Pacific Theater. He is one of four Pearl Harbor veterans from Pennsylvania who will be honored Friday in
Harrisburg during the capitol’s annual commemoration of the attack.
Mr. George had graduated from Shenango High School in 1939, and he and a friend decided to join the military. Though his friend backed out at the last minute, Mr. George went to Fort Dix, N.J., for basic training and then sailed out from New York to Hawaii.
He said he was at Pearl Harbor for about six months before the attack.
The morning of what President Franklin D. Roosevelt would later call “a date which will live in infamy,” Mr. George was at his barracks at Hickam Field, getting ready to go to the mess hall for breakfast when he heard planes approaching. He initially thought that the noise was coming from U.S. Navy planes practicing maneuvers.
“I went outside the barracks, and I saw one buzz by with the [red ball] on the wings,” Mr. George said. “I knew we were in trouble then, when the Japanese planes attacked us.”
The mess hall at Hickam Field was one of the first structures hit by Japanese bombs. Mr. George, a radio operator, went to a control tower and began taking and sending Morse code messages.
“We had a full view of the harbor, and I could see the Japanese bombing the ships,” he said. “One of the battleships turned completely upside down with sailors trapped inside.”
Mr. George said a lot of information that turned out to be false, such as that the Japanese were landing on the beaches, came over the air during the attack.
“I don’t know whether it was coming from the Japanese or not,” he said.
Enemy planes flew close by, but they never bombed the control tower. During it all, Mr. George said, he remained focused on his task.
“It all happened so fast it really didn’t quite register for a good while,” he said.
After the attack, Mr. George worked to set up a protected, underground communications system at Pearl Harbor. He then shipped off to New Guinea and eventually served in the Dutch East Indies and the Philippines.
The rest of the war, however, was not without tension for Mr. George.
His outfit shipped out on two boats when it left New Guinea. Half his company was lost when the Japanese sank the other boat, he said.
Mr. George was in Manila in 1945 when the U.S. dropped the first atomic bomb, on Hiroshima.
When Mr. George returned home, he went into banking and eventually became executive vice president at Peoples Bank in New Castle. He had five children; his wife, Helen, died in 2016.
Mr. George, a tall man with a thick white mustache, still lives on his own 77 years after the attack. He went back to Pearl Harbor in the mid-1980s
“It was pretty stressful,” he said. “They still had the bullet holes in the barracks I was stationed in.”
Mr. George doesn’t relish in telling his story, but he believes it’s vital for people — particularly younger people — to understand the sacrifices his generation made.
“I’ve talked a couple of times to different schools and told them I hope they never have to go through it,” he said. “But in case they do, they should be prepared for it.”