<Begin Segment 7>

TI: So I'm trying to get a sense, so on December 7, 1941, when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, what was going on in the Philippines at this point?

BB: Well, at that time, we were all asleep when it happened. And I had a, I was in a supply room which is, oh, our supply building was about half as big as this living room, and I slept in one end of it.

TI: You called that the "spy room"?

BB: Supplies.

TI: Oh, supply room, okay.

BB: Supply room.

TI: Right, okay.

BB: And I was the supply sergeant, and I had a radio, I had all the radios, extra radios from tanks sitting on shelves, and so I had a radio on, and I had my own radio on, and I heard when he said that this is the... this, we're being bombed and this is real, it's not a, it's not any practice, it's not a drill, this is the real thing. I heard that on the radio, we picked it up on shortwave. And I immediately realized something had happened, I went over and talked, talked to the first sergeant, woke up the first sergeant, he says, "Oh, you're crazy. We have nothing to do with, that's too far from the United States. It's either gonna be here or in our, or on the Pacific Coast." I said, "Well, that's what's on the radio, though, you could listen to it." "Oh, go back to bed, Bill." So I went back to bed. About four hours later, the news reached every place that we were at war.

TI: And so what happened in the Philippines once you realized --

BB: We got bombed.

TI: So almost that same day, that...

BB: We got bombed the next, the very, the same day, actually. Oh, about seven or eight hours later, and at that time, remember this was the Army Air Corps, it was under the army, and we had the generals in charge of army, were in charge of the air force, the air corps. They had lined up all the planes, wing tip to wing tip, because of, they were afraid that spies would count the vehicles... well, they would tell Japan exactly who was there, so this was close defense, keep 'em together. So when we got bombed, all it took was a couple bombs, and the air force was gone.

TI: The same thing happened, I think, in Hawaii, too. They, they had the planes...

BB: All close together, wing tip to wing tip. So we...

TI: I'm surprised a little bit that given the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and you still had several hours, that the Philippines, you weren't on a heightened sort of, sort of level in terms of having the, the planes ready to scramble at a moment's notice.

BB: We were on emergency status, actually. Well, what was it? Second alert or third alert is when the real thing happens, we were on second alert. And all the tanks were dispersed in different areas to protect the airfield at the time. So the closest tank was in between two barracks there, right close to me, and that was it. All the rest of them were scattered all over.

TI: So the, the bombs came from airplanes off a carrier, a Japanese carrier, is that...?

BB: Apparently from Formosa.

TI: Okay, so they... because the Japanese fleet was, was in Pearl Harbor, so, so they were able to do it from Formosa.

BB: I guess, the Japanese had Taiwan, Formosa at the time. That's how we got bombed, they were all from Formosa.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2005 Densho. All Rights Reserved.