Pearl Harbor survivors remember Dec. 7, 1941
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By Dawn Feddersen | Friday, December 08, 2006 |
Larry Fisher/QUAD-CITY TIMES Pearl Harbor survivor Eldon Baxter of Davenport shows a newspaper article about himself — telling how his parents were told he had died during the Dec. 7, 1941 attack — before ceremonies at the Moline American Legion Post 246 on Thursday morning.
Eldon Baxter of Davenport kept his trusty briefcase handy Thursday.
Though some of the papers inside of it are yellow and beginning to crumble, 86-year-old Baxter is eager to bring them out and show them to anyone who is interested. The papers, pictures, and newspaper clippings, some more than 60 years old, all center around the surprise bombing of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.
On that day, Baxter, a Davenport native, was a 21-year-old serving in the Navy aboard the USS West Virginia.
He is one of five remaining Pearl Harbor survivors in the Quad-City area, four of whom met at the Moline American Legion on Thursday to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the attack.
“It’s just always something to look forward to,” Baxter said of getting together with fellow Pearl Harbor survivors.
Jim Joseph of Moline, who served in the Navy in World War II and the Army in the Korean War, now serves in the honor guard that performed at Thursday’s ceremony.
“At exactly 11:55 we fired the salute and played Taps. You see, 11:55 here corresponds to 7:55 in Pearl Harbor, the time when the attacks began,” Joseph said.
John Danay, a Centerville, Iowa native, is also a member of the honor guard that performed. He and three of his four brothers were drafted into World War II. An Army artillery man whose division landed at Normandy 16 days after D-Day and led the first armored division across Europe, Danay remembers where he was when he heard about the attack on Pearl Harbor.
“We were in training. I was in Sunday morning Mass and they interrupted Mass to tell us about the Pearl Harbor attack. I’ll never forget that,” he said.
There’s a lot of things Baxter will never forget about that day.
“I remember I was on the quarter deck when one of their planes launched a torpedo right at me. That plane wasn’t more than 300 yards away,” he said.
He remembers another plane flying so close to his ship that its Japanese pilot waved at him before continuing his assault nearby.
Baxter’s ship was docked just in front of the USS Arizona, which took a bomb down its smoke stack that hit the ship’s artillery and created a massive explosion.
When it was all over, the surprise attack by the 1st Air Fleet of the Japanese Imperial Navy killed nearly 2,400 Americans, sank or damaged 18 ships, and destroyed 188 aircraft.
The carnage of that morning was so close and vivid, Baxter said everything he did that day was unlike anything he’d ever done before or since.
After abandoning ship and reaching the shore of Ford Island, he drove a pickup truck to the bomb shelter.
“Two aircraft carriers came in. I helped load 500 pound bombs and machine guns onto the planes. I’d never done anything like that before in my life!” he exclaimed.
While he was busy sifting through the wreckage, unbeknownst to him, word got back to his parents in Davenport that he had died in the siege. They even held a funeral for him.
His parents received the best Christmas present they’d ever received when a letter arrived from their son the day before Christmas telling them how he had survived the attack.
“When I came home on leave, my mother still had the funeral flowers in her basement,” he said.
In the last few years, there have been many real funerals for area Pearl Harbor survivors.
Though he misses his old friends, Baxter says he has reason to outlive them all.
“One guy, he got a whiskey bottle and made it into a plaque for all us Pearl Harbor guys in the area. Last man standing gets it,” he said.
The city desk can be contacted at (563) 383-2450 or newsroom@qctimes.com.
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