A (frightening) bird's eye view.

AuthorRyder, Robert Randall
PositionThe World Yesterday - Veteran Jack Evans on Pearl Harbor attack - Interview

AS THE 75th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor approaches, there are few veterans who had a better overall view of the devastation than 92-year-old Jack Evans. He was a 17-year-old lookout on Dec. 7, 1941, when the Japanese struck one of the U.S.'s largest and most important naval bases.

"We were burning all over. Everything was on fire," recalls Evans, who witnesses the Hawaii bombing from the top of one of the main masts aboard the battleship USS Tennessee, 90 feet above the main deck and 150 feet above the water.

Seaman First Class Evans got up at 6 o'clock that Sunday morning, had breakfast, and finished his cleaning duties. He was trying to decide whether he should attend church services when General Quarters sounded about 7:55 a.m. "We all thought it was a drill," remembers Evans. "We were kind of mad about it being Sunday morning."

That anger soon turned to surprise as he made his way toward his battle station. "I got up one deck higher and heard a 'fra-ump,' and thought, 'What is this? Is something is going on?' So, I picked up my speed and got to the main deck.... As soon as I got to the main deck, I could see that bombs had been dropped, planes were upside down, [something] really bad had been happening. I went up that ladder really fast to get to the top of the foretop.

"Just as I got there, what I thought was the first Japanese [torpedo] plane to drop [one] crossed over our [forecastle] area. I was standing there on the foretop and as he passed over the mast, in the rear seat [of the plane was a Japanese crew member] and if either one of us would have had a potato we would have hit the other it was so close. We were practically eyeball to eyeball. I knew then we were under attack."

The Tennessee was docked in what was called "Battleship Row," a line of battleships docked closely together along Ford Island that made them easy targets for the Japanese aircraft. Directly behind the Tennessee was the USS Arizona, which exploded in a ball of flame when a Japanese bomb detonated in one of its ammunition magazines, ripping the ship apart and killing most of its crew.

"I wasn't looking at the ship at the time of the explosion, but I felt it," remembers Evans. "It felt like the foretop was going to snap off; it was that violent--and, of course, as soon as I could I turned and looked and ... the heavy smoke and fire ... was coming up to a great height, and that's when I saw the great chunks of metal flying from the ship. So, I knew the Arizona had blown up.

"I guess I was scared, but I could function. I didn't have any problem doing what I was supposed to do.... The first thing I did when the Arizona blew up and I felt that surge coming [was] I ducked and grabbed hold of that stanchion [an upright post]--and I didn't know if the foretop was going to break off or not, but I realized I was in deep trouble."

Evans says some of the debris flying out from the exploding Arizona was "as big as a locomotive.... I knew damn well I could die ... especially when I saw what was happening to all of the other battleships. I watched all of those torpedoes go into those...

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