100-year-old Pearl Harbor survivor recalls chaos during Japanese bombing in 1941

Bob Fernandez thought he’d go dancing and see the world when he joined the U.S. Navy as a 17-year-old high school student in August 1941.

Four months later, he found himself shaking from explosions and passing ammunition to artillery crews so his ship’s guns could return fire on Japanese planes bombing Pearl Harbor, a Navy base in Hawaii.

“When those things go off like that, we didn’t know what’s what,” said Fernandez, who is now 100. “We didn’t even know we were in a war.”

Two survivors of the bombing — each 100 or older — are planning to return to Pearl Harbor on Saturday to observe 83 years since the attack that thrust the U.S. into World War II. They will join active-duty troops, veterans and members of the public for a remembrance ceremony hosted by the Navy and the National Park Service.

Fernandez was initially planning to join them, but had to cancel because of health issues.

The bombing killed more than 2,300 U.S. servicemen. Nearly half, or 1,177, were sailors and Marines on board the USS Arizona, which sank during the battle. The remains of more than 900 Arizona crew members are still entombed on the submerged vessel.

A moment of silence will be held at 7:54 a.m., the same time the attack began eight decades ago. Aircraft in missing man formation are due to fly overhead to break the silence.

Dozens of survivors once joined the annual remembrance but attendance has declined as survivors have aged. Today there are only 16 still living, according to a list maintained by Kathleen Farley, the California state chair of the Sons and Daughters of Pearl Harbor Survivors. Military historian J. Michael Wenger has estimated there were some 87,000 military personnel on Oahu on the day of the attack.

Many laud Pearl Harbor survivors as heroes, but Fernandez doesn’t view himself that way.

“I’m not a hero. I’m just nothing but an ammunition passer,” he told The Associated Press in a phone interview from California, where he now lives with his nephew in Lodi.

Fernandez was working as a mess cook on his ship, the USS Curtiss, the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, and planned to go dancing that night at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel in Waikiki.

He brought sailors coffee and food as he waited tables during breakfast. Then they heard an alarm sound. Through a porthole, Fernandez saw a plane with the red ball insignia painted on Japanese aircraft fly by.

Fernandez rushed down three decks to a magazine room where he and other sailors waited for someone to unlock a door storing 5-inch (12.7-centimeter), 38-caliber shells so they could begin passing them to the ship’s guns.

He has told interviewers over the years that some of his fellow sailors were praying and crying as they heard gunfire up above.

“I felt kind of scared because I didn’t know what the hell was going on,” Fernandez said.

The ship’s guns hit a Japanese plane that crashed into one of its cranes. Shortly after, its guns hit a dive bomber which then slammed into the ship and exploded below deck, setting the hangar and main decks on fire, according to the Navy History and Heritage Command.

Fernandez’s ship, the Curtiss, lost 21 men and nearly 60 of its sailors were injured.

“We lost a lot of good people, you know. They didn’t do nothing,” Fernandez said. “But we never know what’s going to happen in a war.”

After the attack, Fernandez had to sweep up debris. That night, he stood guard with a rifle to make sure no one tried to come aboard. When it came time to rest, he fell asleep next to where the ship’s dead were lying. He only realized that when a fellow 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. His oldest son is now 82 and lives in Arizona. Two other sons and a stepdaughter have died.

He has traveled to Hawaii three times to participate in the Pearl Harbor remembrance. This year would have been his fourth trip.

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

“The ladies flock to him like moths to a flame,” Guthrie said.