thedrifter
12-07-05, 11:46 AM
'I'll always remember it'
By BRIAN SCHEID
Bucks County Courier Times
Sixty-four years ago today, Paul Brown of Upper Southampton was asleep aboard the USS Shaw off the coast of Oahu, Hawaii, when he awoke to chaos.
Brown vividly remembers Japanese fighter planes screaming into Pearl Harbor to attack the U.S. Navy's Pacific fleet.
"It was complete shock and surprise," Brown said Tuesday. "It was like I was asleep and someone stabbed me in the back."
Today marks the 64th anniversary of the most significant attack on America, a harrowing event that changed the course of American history, according to Jay Lockenour, a history professor at Temple University in Philadelphia.
"It certainly changed life in America," Lockenour said. "It's something that sticks in people's minds and it's something people always will remember."
Brown, 85, has a lot of vivid, grisly memories of Dec. 7, 1941.
He remembers standing on the deck of his destroyer, wearing a helmet and a gas mask, shooting at the Japanese planes with a rifle in a futile attempt to quell the attack that killed more than 2,400 and pulled the United States into World War II.
He remembers jumping from his ship after it was bombed three times and caught fire. He remembers the feeling of the burns on his arms and chest from a bomb that exploded nearby. And he'll never forget the stacks of bodies and body parts he saw piled up outside the naval hospital once he reached shore.
"I remember it; I'll always remember it," Brown said. "You're not going to forgot things like this."
Others also recall the events of that day in precise detail.
"They remember everything about that day," said Sandra Stewart Holyoak, director of Rutgers University's Oral History Archives of World War II, Korea, Vietnam and the Cold War.
"They remember the people they were with and exactly where they were when they learned of the attack," she said. "It's amazing the clarity with which they recall that date, which is the same, I guess, as when you ask someone about Sept. 11."
Through the oral history project, Stewart has interviewed more than 570 people, most of them veterans and former Rutgers students.
Pearl Harbor's tragic death count is only eclipsed by the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that killed nearly 3,000. On Sept. 11, parallels were instantly drawn between the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and Pearl Harbor.
"Both struck with the same resonance," said Doylestown resident Greg Urwin, a Temple history professor with a specialty in U.S. military history. "Both filled Americans with outrage and filled us with fear."
However, the impact of Pearl Harbor may have spread deeper into the American way of life than Sept. 11 ever will, Urwin said.
Pearl Harbor propelled this country into a war that changed nearly every aspect of American life, from the movement of women into the workplace to widespread rationing to the start of the peacetime draft. While still a massive tragedy, Sept. 11 didn't have as far-reaching an effect, Urwin said.
"In the aftermath of 9/11, we were told that the terrorists don't win if we go about our business as usual," Urwin said. "Not as much changed in this country."
Still, Lockenour said, the impact of Sept. 11 might end up having a deeper significance to American history than any attack ever will.
"We're historians, so it usually takes us 50 years to figure out what it all means," Lockenour said.
Brian Scheid can be reached at 215-949-4165 or bscheid@phillyBurbs.com
December 7, 2005 5:09 AM
Ellie
By BRIAN SCHEID
Bucks County Courier Times
Sixty-four years ago today, Paul Brown of Upper Southampton was asleep aboard the USS Shaw off the coast of Oahu, Hawaii, when he awoke to chaos.
Brown vividly remembers Japanese fighter planes screaming into Pearl Harbor to attack the U.S. Navy's Pacific fleet.
"It was complete shock and surprise," Brown said Tuesday. "It was like I was asleep and someone stabbed me in the back."
Today marks the 64th anniversary of the most significant attack on America, a harrowing event that changed the course of American history, according to Jay Lockenour, a history professor at Temple University in Philadelphia.
"It certainly changed life in America," Lockenour said. "It's something that sticks in people's minds and it's something people always will remember."
Brown, 85, has a lot of vivid, grisly memories of Dec. 7, 1941.
He remembers standing on the deck of his destroyer, wearing a helmet and a gas mask, shooting at the Japanese planes with a rifle in a futile attempt to quell the attack that killed more than 2,400 and pulled the United States into World War II.
He remembers jumping from his ship after it was bombed three times and caught fire. He remembers the feeling of the burns on his arms and chest from a bomb that exploded nearby. And he'll never forget the stacks of bodies and body parts he saw piled up outside the naval hospital once he reached shore.
"I remember it; I'll always remember it," Brown said. "You're not going to forgot things like this."
Others also recall the events of that day in precise detail.
"They remember everything about that day," said Sandra Stewart Holyoak, director of Rutgers University's Oral History Archives of World War II, Korea, Vietnam and the Cold War.
"They remember the people they were with and exactly where they were when they learned of the attack," she said. "It's amazing the clarity with which they recall that date, which is the same, I guess, as when you ask someone about Sept. 11."
Through the oral history project, Stewart has interviewed more than 570 people, most of them veterans and former Rutgers students.
Pearl Harbor's tragic death count is only eclipsed by the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that killed nearly 3,000. On Sept. 11, parallels were instantly drawn between the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and Pearl Harbor.
"Both struck with the same resonance," said Doylestown resident Greg Urwin, a Temple history professor with a specialty in U.S. military history. "Both filled Americans with outrage and filled us with fear."
However, the impact of Pearl Harbor may have spread deeper into the American way of life than Sept. 11 ever will, Urwin said.
Pearl Harbor propelled this country into a war that changed nearly every aspect of American life, from the movement of women into the workplace to widespread rationing to the start of the peacetime draft. While still a massive tragedy, Sept. 11 didn't have as far-reaching an effect, Urwin said.
"In the aftermath of 9/11, we were told that the terrorists don't win if we go about our business as usual," Urwin said. "Not as much changed in this country."
Still, Lockenour said, the impact of Sept. 11 might end up having a deeper significance to American history than any attack ever will.
"We're historians, so it usually takes us 50 years to figure out what it all means," Lockenour said.
Brian Scheid can be reached at 215-949-4165 or bscheid@phillyBurbs.com
December 7, 2005 5:09 AM
Ellie