Donald Long (98), who was a U.S. Navy radio operator stationed at Naval Air Station Kaneohe Bay, recounts his experience during the December 7, 1941 Japanese attack on Naval Air Station Kaneohe Bay, Marine Corps Base Hawaii, December 7, 2019. The 2019 Klipper Memorial Ceremony marks 78 years since the Japanese attack on Naval Air Station Kaneohe Bay, and honored the service members who fought and lost their lives in the battle. (U.S. Marine Corps video by Sgt. Luke Kuennen)
Transcript
I tell ya, you guys, I think, are a little bit young, but I’m gonna do it this way. Right now if you heard airplanes outside, you wouldn’t think anything of it, would ya?
[Child] No.
No, not a bit, right? Okay, if you heard more airplanes, you might go out and take a look at’em. Now, if those airplanes started attacking, if they used zeroes machine guns strafing and bombing, now what would you think?
[Child] Scared.
[Child] I’d be scared.
Okay, that’s what we were here. We didn’t know what was going on. We were shocked. I can recall seeing little water spurts coming up out of the bottom of the plane where the bullets had hit the plane, and at the same time, I guess it musta hit the gas tanks too. The planes on the water with that gasoline and stuff, they just burst into flames. Suddenly it was nothing and then suddenly it was a whole ball of flames. Well, that’s what happened to me. I’m in the middle of this thing, in the aircraft when that happened. I gave up the thought of a life jacket, I recall that, and just headed back toward the blister in the back to get out of the plane, and it was during that time, I think that’s when I got burned and stuff. I’m not really sure what happened. I jumped out of the plane. At that time, don’t panic or anything. That’s the biggest thing, I guess, don’t panic, but put your hands over your head when you’re under the water and start just waving them. The idea being that you separate the flames as you come up through the water, and now you’ve got a spot where there is no fire. You can come up, you got five seconds, ten seconds, enough to get a gulp or two of air, go back down, and swim again until that happens. Until you run out of air again, and just repeat the procedure. I did this two or three times, as I recall, before I got to the edge of the flame. Well then of course there was the bombing and the strafing still going on on the shore, and I was concerned that they might come and try and strafe me swimming in the water. And so I looked around if there was anything that I could do, and I spotted a buoy, oh, a couple hundred yards away, something like that. Swam over to that buoy with the thought in mind that if somebody would come strafing what I thought was at me, I can go under that buoy and have protection from the bullets. Fortunately that never happened. At no time did I see any plane that I ever thought was directing the action against me personally. Keep in mind, the people who are serving today are certainly providing our nation with a very, very much appreciated service that, for guys like me, it allows us to enjoy our retirement. We can only do that because you young people today are out doing what we were doing x years ago.