Bob Fernandez thought he was going to dance and see the world when he joined the U.S. Navy as a 17-year-old high school student in August 1941.
Four months later, he found himself reeling from the explosions and passing ammunition to the gunnery crews so his ship’s guns could return fire on the bombing Japanese planes. Pearl Harbora Navy base in Hawaii.
“When these things happened like that, we didn’t know what was what,” said Fernandez, now 100 years old. “We didn’t even know we were in a war.”
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Two survivors of the attack, each aged 100 or older, plan to return to Pearl Harbor on Saturday to mark 83 years since the attack that launched the United States into World War II. They will join active-duty troops, veterans and members of the public for a remembrance ceremony hosted by the Navy and the National Park Service.
At first, Fernández planned to join, but had to cancel due to health problems.
The attack killed more than 2,300 American soldiers. Nearly half, or 1,177, were sailors and marines aboard the USS Arizona, which sank during the battle. The remains of more than 900 crew members of the Arizona are still buried on the submerged ship.
At 7:54 a.m. there will be a moment of silence, at the same time that the attack began eight decades ago. Missing men formation planes have to fly over to break the silence.
Dozens of survivors once joined the annual remembrance, but attendance has dwindled as survivors age. Today, only 16 are alive, according to a list maintained by Kathleen Farley, the California state president of the Sons and Daughters of Pearl Harbor Survivors. Military historian J. Michael Wenger has estimated that there were about 87,000 military personnel on Oahu on the day of the attack.
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Many hail the survivors of Pearl Harbor as heroes, but Fernandez doesn’t see himself that way.
“I’m not a hero. I’m nothing more than an ammunition pin,” he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from California, where he now lives with his nephew in Lodi.
Fernandez was working as a cook on his ship, the USS Curtiss, on the morning of December 7, 1941, and had planned to go dancing that night at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel in Waikiki.
He brought coffee and food to the sailors while he waited on tables during breakfast. Then they heard a sound of alarm. Through a door, Fernandez saw a plane flying past with the red ball insignia painted on the Japanese plane.
Fernandez rushed three decks to a magazine room where he and other sailors waited for someone to open a door that stored 5-inch (12.7-centimeter) 38-caliber shells so they could begin feeding them to the ship’s guns. ship
Over the years, he has told interviewers that some of his fellow sailors were praying and crying as they heard gunshots overhead.
“I felt a little scared because I didn’t know what the hell was going on,” Fernandez said.
The ship’s guns hit a Japanese plane that crashed into one of its cranes. Soon after, their guns hit a dive bomber that then crashed into the ship and exploded below deck, setting the hangar and main decks on fire, according to the Naval History and Heritage Command.
Fernandez’s ship, the Curtiss, lost 21 men and nearly 60 of his sailors were wounded.
“We lost a lot of good people, you know. They didn’t do anything,” Fernandez said. “But we never know what will happen in a war.”
After the attack, Fernández had to sweep away the debris. That night, he stood guard with a rifle to make sure no one tried to board. When it was time to rest, he fell asleep next to where the dead from the ship lay. He only realized this when a fellow seaman woke him up and told him.
After the war, Fernandez worked as a forklift driver at a cannery in San Leandro, California. His wife of 65 years, Mary Fernandez, died in 2014. His oldest son is now 82 and lives in Arizona. Two other sons and a stepdaughter have died.
He has traveled to Hawaii three times to participate in the Pearl Harbor commemoration. This year would have been his fourth trip.
Fernandez still enjoys music and goes dancing at a nearby restaurant once a week if he can. His favorite song is his rendition of Frank Sinatra’s “All of Me,” a song his nephew Joe Guthrie said he still knows by heart.
“Ladies flock to him like moths to a flame,” Guthrie said.