Day of Remembrance : Friends Honored at Tearful Unveiling of Memorial to Victims of Attack on Pearl Harbor

Early on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, Lenny Dorf returned from shore leave to his ship, theS. battleship Arizona, docked in Pearl Harbor, just long enough to pick up the $20 he had stashed aboard.

At 7:55 a.m., 10 minutes after Dorf left the ship, the bombs began falling from the sky.

“The next time I saw the Arizona, it was settling into the sea,” he said. “I started crying like a baby.”

Dorf, now 69 and a retired Sherman Oaks barber, also had tears in his eyes Sunday as he helped place a floral wreath on a new marble and bronze Pearl Harbor memorial honoring the more than 2,200 United States military personnel who lost their lives that day in 1941.

“It just wasn’t my time to go,” said Dorf, one of a handful of men stationed aboard the Arizona who survived.

200 People Attend

The memorial, at Valhalla Memorial Park in North Hollywood, was unveiled during a ceremony commemorating the 45th anniversary of Japan’s surprise attack, which destroyed most of the U. S. Pacific Fleet. Almost 200 people, including about 50 survivors of the bombing that marked this country’s entry into World War II, attended the event.

“Let us always remember the events of this terrible day 45 years ago,” said Robert Cunningham, master of ceremonies for the event sponsored by the San Fernando Valley Chapter of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Assn.

The association was founded in 1958 and, nationwide, has 8,000 members who share “the awareness of survival,” Cunningham said.

“Most of us are in the autumn of our lives now, and we count our blessings since we survived that day of infamy,” he said. “We’ve put aside our feelings of hate and tried to work together for the good of all mankind.”

As he spoke, several vintage World War II aircraft led by a B-17 called “Sentimental Journey” flew overhead. At the same time, which Cunningham said was the precise time of day of the 1941 attack, survivors attending the group’s 45th reunion in Hawaii witnessed a similar fly-by.

The sounds of the fighter planes, which included P-51s and B-25s, reminded more than one person of the survivors of that fateful morning.

Jim Donis, a 67-year-old resident of the community of Oak Park near Agoura, said he was waiting to be relieved of hangar guard duty at nearby Wheeler Air Force Base when he first heard the drone of aircraft engines.

Saw First Bombs

“I was looking at the mountains to the west,” he said. “Then, I saw the planes make a pass over the field. I watched the first bomb drop, but what was happening didn’t sink in right away. I just stood there and watched a building explode not far from me.”

Donis said he ran to a transportation building and stayed there until the attack ended some 40 minutes later.

“It wasn’t until then that I saw the devastation,” he said. “It was terrible. We lost everything. We had 100 planes and only two were left that could fly.”

Back home in Milwaukee, Donis’ fiancee didn’t know if he was dead or alive until three months later.

“Those were hard weeks,” said Dorothy Donis, now his wife of 42 years.

Jim and Dorothy Donis sat with two other survivors, Joe Rizziello, 67, of Sunland and Barney Gilliam, 65, of Glendale.

Rizziello said he was sitting down to a breakfast of pancakes in the U. S. Army’s Schofield Barracks when he heard the planes.

“We thought it was maneuvers of some kind,” he said.

As the engines grew louder, Rizziello said, “We all ran outside. . . . I hauled ammo all day long. We were sure there was an invasion coming.”

He said he didn’t have breakfast until 7 p.m. that night.

Could See Pilots’ Faces

The planes flew so low, Rizziello said, that he could see the faces of some of the Japanese pilots.

Gilliam, a cook on the Medusa, a battleship on the outer edge of the harbor, said he had just finished serving breakfast when the battle alarms sounded.

“We all went to our battle stations but we never were able to fire,” he said.

Frank Balas, 70, of Van Nuys, chairman of Sunday’s ceremony, said he was in the barracks at Hickam Field at the time of the attack.

“I had just come back from eating breakfast,” he said. “I was reading the funnies in the paper. One of the bomb hit the mess hall I had just left. Three hundred men died there.”

Balas, an Air Force pilot, went on to fly 44 months in combat. He said he was shot down three times during that time but survived “by the grace of God.”

Dorf, whose shipmates still are entombed in the Arizona, the only battleship the U.S. Navy was unable to salvage, said he visited the Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor in 1981.

“I couldn’t see the names on the memorial,” he said. “All I could see were faces jumping out at me.”