PEARL HARBOR SURVIVORS REMEMBER

MAP - Oahu

Leonard and Agnes Webb survived the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor a half century ago. But the memory of bomb bursts, skies streaked with tracer rounds and fouled with billowing black smoke and the Mitsubishi "Zero" A6M fighters and Aichi D34 bombers remains etched in their memories.

The Webbs lived just outside the Navy yard at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

They are among thousands of Pearl Harbor survivors planning to attend the 50th anniversary of the this week. It will mark the couple's second visit to the island.

"I didn't have the stomach to go back for 45 years," said Webb, who was a 21-year-old Navy yeoman in 1941.

"The death, destruction, blood and gore you can't explain. Pieces of bodies were everywhere. Bodies got ripe and kept coming up out of the ocean. The Navy was small at that time. I knew a lot of those people personally."

But they did go to a 45-year reunion. "There were some good memories too," he said. "Our house just outside the Navy yard gate is still standing.

The Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor hardly took two hours. In that time 2,330 Americans died, the Pacific Fleet was devastated, and America was launched into a world war.

The Webbs recall events of the infamous day with vivid clarity. "It's not hard to remember," Webb said. "It's sort of burned in my memory."

The attack began about 7:30 or 7:45 a.m. on a Sunday, he said.

"Our oldest son was 15 months old and he was squawking, wanting to be fed," Webb said. "My wife got up. I was still in bed. She came in and told me there was a big fire in the Navy yard. With the accompanying explosion, I informed her I wasn't a fireman and laid back down."

He didn't stay in bed long.

Three torpedo bombers flew down the street outside their home, about utility-pole height.

Webb thought the planes belonged to the aircraft carrier Enterprise until the pilots banked at the end of the street.

"I saw the red meatballs and broke all records getting my pants on," he said.

The planes were strafing Navy housing as well as the Navy yard.

At the end of the street was a multistory building. Beyond that building lay the Pacific Fleet. Webb said the people aboard vessels moored at Battleship Row couldn't see the planes coming in for the deadly attack until it was too late.

"And those bombers couldn't possibly miss the fleet; they were out there, moored bow to stern."

Webb said he, his wife and son were standing outside their home watching the scene unfold when a friend came "chugging around the corner in an old car."

"He told me his wife was getting out of there. I thought that was a good idea. But just as they were about to get in the car, she said the baby doesn't have any diapers."

Webb charged back into the house and collected some diapers for his son. "The end of the world was here, I thought, and I was hustling diapers."

The car left for Honolulu, about seven or eight miles away.

The road from Pearl Harbor to Honolulu was a main artery for military vehicles also. "The Japs shot at us all the way," Agnes Webb said.

After his wife and son were on their way, Webb "beat it down to headquarters."

Yeoman First Class Webb was "a paper pusher" attached to staff of Admiral C.C. Block, who was in charge of the western sea frontier.

Webb said: "I had no battle station. I didn't even have a gun. We all had to kind of play it by ear."

When Webb arrived at the headquarters building only one other yeoman had arrived. "I felt sure they (the Japanese) were coming ashore. I decided we better get a gun."

The two sailors went to the armory, where, despite the bombs exploding all around them, they were told they must have a chit signed by an officer to be issued a weapon.

They found a "fuzzy-faced young ensign and physically assisted him in signing his name."

With the chit, Webb was issued a Colt .45, three empty clips and a World War I tin helmet.

"I asked him, where's the ammunition? He answered, `I don't know.'"

They headed outside and saw a Marine gunnery sergeant driving a motorcycle with a sidecar filled with ammunition. Webb loaded the gun.

"I don't think I could have shot down a plane with a .45, but I sure tried."

Armed, Webb headed back to the headquarters building. The admiral and chief of staff had arrived. "The admiral asked where we got the guns and told us to get some more.

"We had no trouble getting them this time. A loaded .45 does wonders," Webb said. "The admiral and chief of staff were armed. It seemed better."

Webb said one of the most powerful memories of the attack was "watching these two old-timers watching their entire lives go down before them. The fleet was theirs. There was such pain on their faces."

At the headquarters, they scraped together a phone bank and began fielding calls and piecing together what had happened.

"I got a call from a major at Bellows Field. This guy was even more excited than I was. He said he had a Jap submarine tied to a palm tree with two torpedoes sticking out of it."

The major asked, in colorful language, that the Navy get that submarine out of there.

Webb said he was sure the major had snapped under pressure of the attack. "He was a Section 8; you can't tie a submarine to a palm tree and keep it there."

Several days later sirens went off in the Navy yard. A big Navy transport was carrying a tiny Japanese submarine. "It was a little two-man thing that had gotten caught behind a reef," Webb said. "The major actually had a submarine moored to a palm tree."

Agnes Webb and young Leonard Jr. stayed with friends in Honolulu for about a week. Three or four other military wives stayed at the same home. They weren't allowed to have lights on at night and had no news of their husbands.

When Agnes Webb went back to their home, she discovered a bullet lodged just inches from the baby's crib. She collected a few pieces of shrapnel from the yard, which she still keeps today.

Although the initial attack was over, Webb said, "I thought they were coming back."

Webb's paper-pushing assignment was in ship movements and overseas transports. As part of that duty, he assigned passengers to ships. "Guess who was on the first ship out?"

At the time of the attack, Webb had been out of the "sea-going Navy" for six or eight months.

He had been aboard the Mississippi. His job was processing the incoming mail, and he learned that the ship was headed to the Atlantic Ocean to hunt the Bismark.

"This was a case of out-thinking myself. I transferred to the Navy yard. I would have been better off in the North Atlantic."

Webb is a past state commander of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association. The group has 13,000 members nationwide.

"The valor and bravery I saw I remember. We were beaten to our knees, but men came back fighting.

"The motto of our organization is not only `Remember Pearl Harbor' but also ~~`Keep America Alert,' Webb said.

"We got clobbered at Pearl Harbor. I don't ever want to see something like that happen again."