Dec. 7 Still Holds Pain : 52 Years Later, Solemn Veterans Remember Comrades Who Died

The sounds of birds chirping and waves lapping at the shore play softly in the background. But these sounds fade away, replaced by the loud rumble of airplane squadrons and the scream of falling bombs. The date is Dec. 7, 1941.

The chilling sound recording of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was broadcast before more than 75 veterans and their relatives who gathered at El Toro Memorial Park in Lake Forest on Tuesday, marking the 52nd anniversary of the devastating attack that drew the United States into World War II.

Among those who paid tribute to the dead and wounded was keynote speaker Harley Eppler, a survivor of the attack and chaplain with the Orange County Chapter of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Assn. Eppler, 71, of Orange, worked in the foundry aboard the Vestal, a Navy repair ship moored alongside the U.S. battleship Arizona.

At 7:55 a.m. that day, Eppler was eating breakfast below deck when he decided to go above for a cup of coffee. He heard explosions all around and suddenly, saw a plane swooping down.

“I saw the two red dots and I knew it was Japanese,” he said. “When he dropped the torpedo, he was so close I could see his goggles. When the torpedo dropped, the plane jumped up three feet.” The torpedo swept underneath the Vestal, hitting the Arizona and lifting it gently upward before the warship exploded into a fiery blaze and sank, trapping hundreds of sailors below decks, Eppler said.

“Somebody hollered and said, “Oh, my God, the Arizona is gone,” he said.

After the sinking of the Arizona, the 800 people aboard the Vestal, which was damaged when the battleship exploded, were ordered to abandon ship, but Eppler couldn’t swim. “With all that fire between us and the Arizona, I wasn’t about to jump over the side,” Eppler said. He recalled seeing a gun crew aboard the Arizona that was surrounded by flames.

“There was not a thing we could do to help them,” he said.

The ship’s captain reversed the abandon ship order and as the sinking Vestal pulled across the harbor toward Pearl City, Eppler was sent to fight a fire in one of the ship’s holds. Later, he spent the afternoon in waist-deep water, plugging rivet holes on the side of the ship, he said.

Those aboard the Vestal survived because a boatswain’s mate had the good sense to cut the lines attaching the Vestal to the sinking Arizona, he said.

“It was a miracle,” Eppler said.

During Tuesday’s ceremony, veterans wearing caps laden with medals sat quietly and one brushed a tear from his eye as soloist Bobette Craycraft sang “God Bless America.”

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A poignant moment came when 10 Pearl Harbor survivors, most wearing colorful Hawaiian shirts, were called to lay a wreath in memory of those who died. This was followed by volleys fired into the air by members of the Mission Viejo Post of Veterans of Foreign War, as veterans stood with their hands over their hearts.

John Tanczos, 76, of Westminster was in the mess hall at the Ewa Air Base when he heard “all this popping and banging. . . . It sounded like a bunch of hailstones.”

“As I looked out through the cheesecloth, I saw our planes on fire,” said Tanczos, who maintained the base carpentry shop.

He went outside with a rifle and narrowly escaped death when two planes came at him from different directions. He happened to turn just as a “ball of fire” whizzed past his shoulder, he said. A few minutes later, “I saw something screaming down at me” and crouched on the ground in a ball, he said.

“When I was laying on the ground and my life was passing before me, I just prayed. It was very emotional,” he said. The objects turned out to be anti-aircraft shells that had been improperly set by their American gun crews and exploded prematurely.

About 2,400 Americans were killed, 1,300 wounded and 1,000 were missing on Dec. 7, the “date which will live in infamy,” as President Franklin D. Roosevelt called it. Japanese forces hit 18 U.S. ships and damaged or destroyed more than 200 aircraft.

As they paid tribute to those who died at Pearl Harbor, speakers at Tuesday’s ceremony urged America to stay alert.

“My old history teacher told me the pendulum swings both ways,” Eppler said at the close of his speech. “Let’s hope we never see ’41 again.”