December 7, 2010, marks the 69th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Those old enough to remember that fateful Sunday morning in 1941 can tell you in great detail exactly where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news. Less than 24 hours later, President Franklin D. Roosevelt said it was “a date which will live in infamy.” He was right. The course of history changed and neither America nor the rest of the world would ever be the same again.
I will spend Pearl Harbor Day this year the same as I have since I began research for my book Radioman: An Eyewitness Account of Pearl Harbor and World War II in the Pacific. I will accompany Pearl Harbor Survivors in my region to lunch. Much of Radioman’s historical accuracy is due to their advice and counsel, but I stopped thinking of them as primary sources for my work a long time ago. Ranging in age from 86 to 95, the Lilac City Chapter (Spokane, WA) of this national organization are, quite literally, my oldest friends.
USS California sinking in Pearl Harbor
After lunch, I will introduce each of the Pearl Harbor Survivors, and they will dutifully and bravely give their eyewitness accounts and take questions from a spellbound audience. Last year, the Survivors received a standing ovation from a couple of hundred Navy Seabees, nearly half of whom were about to leave for Iraq and Afghanistan. This year’s Pearl Harbor Day audience will be a mix of retirees and high school students.
A Pearl Harbor Survivor is, by definition, any American who was on active duty in Hawaii at the time of the attack that triggered America’s entry into World War II. Most of the 2,403 Americans who died were Sailors on the battleships inside Pearl Harbor. However, nearly every U.S. military base on the island of Oahu was bombed and strafed during those two terrifying hours. For that reason, all of the Oahu-based Army, Navy, and Marine personnel who were not killed in action that day are known as Pearl Harbor Survivors.
In 1941, there were an estimated 70,000 Pearl Harbor Survivors. As Radioman was going to press in 2008, their national president reported, sadly, that their membership had dropped to 4,923. Twelve of them were living in my part of the country—eastern Washington/northern Idaho—until last month. We buried Jim Sinnott (NAS Ford Island) with full military honors and a twenty-one gun salute on the Saturday before Thanksgiving. He was 87.
Of the eleven remaining Pearl Harbor Survivors in my region, Ray Daves (CinCPac/Submarine Base) is the one who served as the subject of Radioman. When the region’s air traffic controllers read the book last fall, so inspired were they by this Sailor’s story of the war years from ground zero to VJ Day, they began a grassroots campaign to name the new control tower at Spokane International Airport in his honor.
What an appropriate way for younger Americans to show their respect for an entire generation of combat veterans, I thought. But, I did not believe it was possible. The control towers for America’s international airports are federal buildings. It would be unprecedented to name one of them for any individual and it would take an Act of Congress to do it!
September 2010, HR 5591 sailed through a vote on the floor of the House of Representatives. Under its current designation as S 3938, the bill is already out of Committee and on a “hotline” through the Senate. It may even arrive in the Oval Office before Pearl Harbor Day this year.
Whenever President Obama signs this bill into law, from that day forward, every plane that flies into or out of Spokane International Airport will be taking orders from the men and women who are proud to work in “The Ray Daves Air Traffic Control Tower.” And anyone who reads Radioman will understand why.
