Bob Fernandez thought he would go dancing and see the world when he joined the United States Navy as a 17-year-old high school student in August 1941.
Four months later, he found himself shaking from the 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 explode like that, we didn’t know what was what,” said Fernandez, now 100 years old. “We didn’t even know we were in a war.”
Two survivors of the bombing, each aged 100 or older, plan to return to Pearl Harbor on Saturday to observe the 83rd anniversary of 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.
Initially, Fernández planned to join them, but had to cancel due to health problems. The bombing killed more than 2,300 American service members. Nearly half, or 1,177, were sailors and Marines aboard the USS Arizona, which sank during the battle. The remains of more than 900 members of the Arizona’s crew are still buried in the submerged vessel.
A minute of silence will be observed at 7:54 am (local time), the same time the attack began eight decades ago. Planes in missing man formation are scheduled to fly over the area to break the silence.
In the past, dozens of survivors joined the annual commemoration, but attendance has declined as survivors have aged. Today only 16 are left alive, according to a list kept by Kathleen Farley, California state president of the Sons and Daughters of Pearl Harbor Survivors. Military historian J. Michael Wenger has estimated that there were about 87,000 military personnel on Oahu on the day of the attack.
Many praise the Pearl Harbor survivors as heroes, but Fernández doesn’t see himself that way.
“I’m not a hero. “I am nothing more than a munitions passer,” he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from California, where he now lives with his nephew in Lodi.
Fernandez was working as a cook on his ship, the USS Curtiss, on the morning of December 7, 1941, and planned to go dancing that night at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel in Waikiki.
He brought coffee and food to the sailors while waiting tables at breakfast. Then they heard the sound of an alarm. Through a porthole, Fernández saw a plane fly by with the red ball insignia painted on Japanese planes.
Fernández ran across three decks to a magazine room where he and other sailors waited for someone to open a door storing 5-inch (12.7 centimeters) .38-caliber shells so they could begin feeding them into the ship’s guns.
Over the years he has told interviewers that some of his fellow sailors were praying and crying when they heard gunshots in the sky.
“I felt a little 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 afterward, its guns hit a dive bomber that then crashed into the ship and exploded below deck, setting the hangar and main decks on fire, according to the Navy History and Heritage Command.
Fernández’s ship, the Curtiss, lost 21 men and nearly 60 of its sailors were wounded.
“We lost a lot of good people. “They didn’t do anything,” Fernández said. “But we never know what will happen in a war.”
After the attack, Fernández had to sweep up the debris. That night, he stood guard with a rifle to make sure no one tried to board. When it was time to rest, he fell asleep next to where the ship’s dead lay. He only realized this when a fellow sailor woke him up and told him.
After the war, Fernández 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 years old 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 commemoration. This year would be his fourth trip.
Fernández still enjoys music and goes dancing at a nearby restaurant once a week if he can. His favorite tune is Frank Sinatra’s version of “All of Me,” a song that his nephew Joe Guthrie said he still knows by heart.
“Women flock to him like moths to a flame,” Guthrie said.
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