Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day, 2022

December 7th we will commemorate the 81st anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, an event that changed our country and the world. Though the attack was long ago, the memories of those who lived through it remain vivid and painful. Visiting with us this past weekend, Jack Holder, at 101 years of age, shared his personal story as though it happened yesterday.

Jack remembers the fear that he and his buddies felt that morning:

“As we ran, I looked up and saw a Japanese plane circle and head straight for us. The pilot saw us and as he approached, I helplessly clung to the side of the ditch, sure this was the end for us all. I could see the expression on his (the pilot's) face l froze. The war had started and I just knew I was going to die. I'm an old man now, and it is for me to remember things… but as long as I live, I'll never forget that moment: the face of the pilot, the roar of the plane's engine, and sight of its gun’s aimed right at me....l remember my hands clenching my shipmate's shoulders God, don't let me die in this ditch.

“Our fear was intense but our determination was unrelenting...First the fear, then the adrenaline, and then you act. When I left the ditch, I saw the devastation of the PBY hangars...and all our aircraft engulfed in smoke and flames l knew I was in the middle of the beginning of something that would change the world and my life. The flames and wreckage surrounded and suffocated me with grief, but I had little time to review the damage. What was really the horror was seeing my shipmates jumping off the ships into the water that was covered in oil and on fire."

As the attack on Pearl Harbor becomes more distant, and our memories become more clouded, let us not forget the sacrifice of those who protect our freedom, then and now. Franklin D. Roosevelt was right -"Those who have long enjoyed such privileges as we enjoy forget in time that men have died to win them."

Elissa Lines
Executive Director, Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum