Pearl Harbor survivors reflect on two dates - Dec. 7, Sept. 11

HONOLULU -- Just eight minutes passed from when the duty officer woke Clark J. Simmons from his bunk on the USS Utah until the ship sank from Japanese torpedoes on Dec. 7, 1941. In that time, the 20-year-old mess attendant scrambled to the deck, jumped into Pearl Harbor and swam to safety on Ford Island.

Nearly 60 years later, Simmons watched from the living room window of his Brooklyn, N.Y., apartment as a hijacked jet flew into the second tower of the World Trade Center.

"It was 100 times worse," Simmons said of the Sept. 11 attack, which left a friend's son -- a firefighter -- missing.

"It had civilians -- it wasn't aimed at a military facility. It was aimed at a building that has 50,000 people who worked at it during the day, plus the people who came to help."

As they prepare to mark the 60th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor bombings, the men who survived have special perspective on the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. And for many, what happened on Sept. 11 resurrected memories of that December day in 1941.

Evoked same feelings

"Nine-eleven just kind of stirred up my emotions all over again," said Ed Chappell, 77, of Lake Havisu City, Ariz., who was aboard the USS Maryland. "The same feeling as Pearl Harbor, all kind of emotions -- hatred, fear, anger. It rekindled the whole damn thing."

Bill Hughes, a survivor from the Utah, found his reactions on Sept. 11 were even stronger than in 1941. One difference: The Pearl Harbor bombing "was a military attack on military targets."

As for the Sept. 11 attack, "I don't have the descriptive adjectives to use -- and you couldn't print them if I did -- to describe how I feel," said Hughes, 79, of Grand Prairie, Texas.

The attacks at Pearl Harbor killed 2,390. More than 4,000 are presumed dead in the attacks on New York and Washington.

The Pearl Harbor 60th anniversary is being marked by several ceremonies. Some 800 survivors are expected at a reunion, and many will gather at the USS Arizona Memorial at 7:55 a.m. -- the time of the attack -- on Dec. 7 for the Navy's annual service. Later that morning, the survivors will conduct their own service at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Punchbowl, and will gather for a banquet that evening.

Survivors from individual ships are holding ceremonies throughout this week.

After 60 years and a lifetime of other experiences, the images, sounds and smells of Dec. 7 remain vivid for many Pearl Harbor survivors.

"The waters all around the ships were on fire and people were falling off the boats and being cremated in the water," said Irvin Obermeyer, 82, of Littleton, Colo. "The smell was this black oil stench -- it was everywhere."

Another Colorado survivor, Wayne Martin of Federal Heights, recalls being without ammunition and unable to get back into his barracks for four days.

"We all smelled and looked pretty mangy by then, and the minute we got a hot shower we heard we were being shipped out to war," he said.

After Pearl Harbor, many survivors went straight to war, not stopping to phone or write the family back home.

Kyle Christensen, at 19 the youngest sailor aboard the Arizona, was standing on the deck waiting for his brother, Edward, when Japanese planes filled the sky.

He escaped, and without knowing what happened to his brother, he went back to sea. It wasn't until February, when the mail ship was approaching, that an officer told him to write his parents back in Kansas to tell them he was alive.

They had received word late in December that his brother was one of the 1,177 men killed aboard the Arizona.