Pearl Harbour attack: Survivor, 97, remembers ‘day of infamy’
US navy commander Don Long was alone on an anchored military seaplane in the middle of a bay across the island from Pearl Harbour when Japanese warplanes started striking Hawaii on December 7, 1941, watching from afar as the bombs and bullets killed and wounded thousands.
The waves of attacking planes reached his military installation on Kaneohe Bay soon after Pearl Harbour was struck, and the young sailor saw buildings and planes start to explode all around him.
When the gunfire finally reached him, setting the aircraft ablaze, he jumped into the water and found himself swimming through fire to safety.
Now 97, Long will remember the 77th anniversary of the “day of infamy” from his home in Napa, California.
Long was fresh out of boot camp when he arrived in Hawaii in 1941. “I got off that ship with my sea bag over my shoulder and we threw it on a truck and they carted me over to Kaneohe from Pearl Harbour where we had landed,” Long recalled.
It was a different experience when he flew to Hawaii for the 75th anniversary in 2016, a trip that was paid for by a survivor’s group.
“We came in on a first-class United chartered jet,” he remembered. “We ended up not in a bunk in the barracks, but in a very nice ocean room at the Hawaiian Hilton.”
He attended a dinner where survivors were seated at random with dignitaries. At his table were Japan’s Honolulubased consul general and his wife.
“He and his wife were there in full regalia,” Long said. He asked if they might be able to help him identify the pilot who attacked his plane 77 years ago.
“They did some searching I guess, or told somebody to do it, but within a month or so I got a message from them and the proof is not positive but they sent the information on three Japanese pilots. It was probably one of those three,” Long said. All three have died, but Long was impressed the consul general had taken the time to find out.
Long no longer harbours ill will against Japan or its people.
“I don’t know when that feeling left me. But as you are probably well aware, we were taught to hate those people with all our hearts, and when you’re looking at one down a gun sight, you can’t really feel much love for anyone - that’s for darn sure,” he said. “That has long since changed.”
To mark the event this year, Long plans to visit schoolchildren to talk about the Pearl Harbour episode, then will light a beacon atop Mount Diablo in Concord, California.