<Begin Segment 9>

MU: Okay, now comes Pearl Harbor. Where were you when Pearl Harbor happened, December 7, 1941?

HW: I was in my bed at Fort Lewis. And I had been in Seattle, visiting, Friday, Friday night, all day Saturday. And Seattle was a nice, quiet town so I went home -- I shouldn't say home -- but I went back to Fort, got back to Fort Lewis about midnight and went to bed. And in the morning the guys, bunk mate says, "Harvey, get up, get up." I says, "Oh, let me sleep." He says, "Get up, get up. Listen to the radio." Everything was on the radio. Yeah.

MU: That's how, that's how you found out?

HW: That's how I found out, yeah.

MU: Okay. Now, do you, can you recall the feelings you had at that time?

HW: I said, "Aw, shit." [Laughs]

MU: I'm sure you had mixed emotions?

HW: Well, it was probably inevitable. There had to be a...

MU: Well, Japan was building up for years.

HW: Well, not only that but Japan was allied with the Axis.

MU: And there was a war on in Europe, wasn't there?

HW: Sure. Uh-huh.

MU: Now, here you are in the Japanese -- I mean, the American army fighting against the country of your father. Did you have any special feelings concerning that point?

HW: No, I just kept reminding myself what my father kept telling me several times.

MU: Were you able to talk to your dad about that time, do you recall?

HW: Well, yeah, I was home when I got drafted.

MU: Yeah.

HW: But...

MU: Yeah, but on Pearl Harbor time?

HW: No, I had, I'd been home on furlough in July of '41. Yeah.

MU: And did you try to contact your folks to see how they were?

HW: We were too shook up to...

MU: Even think of that?

HW: We were, we went short-handed. Took off from Fort Lewis and went -- occupied positions up in the north end of Whidbey Island.

MU: That's your unit that was in Fort Lewis -- got...

HW: Yeah.

MU: ...dispersed?

HW: Yeah. We set up guns on the bridge that connects Whidbey Island to mainland. There's a little island in the middle of the bridge. Bridge jumps from mainland to a small island and then over to Whidbey Island. We set up our guns there that we could look down towards the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.