what is called nesting; you would have six submarines tied up to a submarine tender,
or six destroyers tied up in a group, here and there. But you would have maybe 100
ships in the harbor. It was really the biggest concentration of warships that anybody
had ever seen at that time. Once in a while at night, one of the most beautiful things
was, the whole fleet would have a searchlight parade. Bang--these huge searchlights
would go on the Pennsylvania (flagship), pointed straight up. And all of the other
ships would follow immediately. They would choose a night when you had a flat
cloud cover and all of a sudden the world is lit up. We used to go out and lie on the
lawn and watch this. Then they would maneuver these in a pattern or in a random
pattern. For about thirty minutes you would have this searchlight drill, and then they
would all go off at the same time. It was an absolutely magnificent thing to see.

But, back to the story. Ships would come in. They did not start their liberty until
4:00, so I had time enough to get downtown. And then the flood would come; here
came all of these people off of the ships. Street cars could not move [because] there
were so many men there, all milling around and doing various things. This was very
exciting to me and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The interesting thing about it was that
the navy people, the marines, the coast guard and the soldiers, all seemed to get
along so well together. It was amazing that we had as little trouble as we did. This
went on for month after month after month, until December 7. On the night of
December 6, I had been ashore. I came back aboard and I did not get there until
about 5:00 in the morning. It had just been so exciting over in town, and everyone
was having such a good time. I had gone in and gone to bed.

When 8:00 came I was really dead to the world. When all of a sudden [there was
a loud] "BOOM!" I jumped straight up and said, "What was that?" Somebody said,
"Oh, shut up Jonesy." And by that time [there was another] "BOOM!" I vaulted out
of my bed and I said, "My god, we are being bombed. The Japs are on us." I lived
up on the top floor of the enlisted barracks and I ran out on the roof and here all
the battleships were tied up right in front of me, about 100 yards away. I looked to
the west. That was where my squadron was located. The first bomb of the war had
gone through my hangar roof. [That is where] the only person [was] killed on Ford
Island that day. The Japanese were not interested in seaplanes; they were interested
in ships. I looked down that way and coming from the north was a string of Japanese
planes that I recognized immediately as being torpedo planes. They were just at
treetop level, because if they dropped the torpedos above forty feet the torpedos
would broach, [which] means they would hit the water and just kind of bounce out.
And then [the torpedo] would not be accurate. So they had to be below forty feet,
drop the torpedo, and it would stay close enough to the surface [so] that it would do
the damage it was supposed to do and not run into the bottom (the bottom of Pearl
Harbor is only about forty feet).

Anyway, I knew immediately what they were after. They continued in their turn,
came over the navy yard and then turned and came straight toward me. They


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