 There's a perfume of a million flowers clinging to the heart of Old Hawaii. We got up at 5.30 in the morning and hit Reveley and got out in a clean sweep down to the decks. It was Sunday morning with no holy stoning and no painting scraping, but clean sweep down and then Chow Call and we went to Chow and we ate in number 6 Kate's Mate, which were where we slept. And I picked up some oranges to take off. Some of the sailors didn't pick up to take to my buddy in Sick Bay. Anyway, I walked back to my locker in the bakery passageway and got something and I went back out on the folks' deck and the port side and some sailors were hollering and pointing toward the Fort Island so I went to have a look and about that time one of the planes made a turn and I could see the big orange wing spots and right away I knew it was Japanese. Interrupt this program to bring you a special news pollute. The Japanese have attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii by air. President Roosevelt has just announced. The attack also was made on all naval and military activities on the principal island of Ohio. I started from my battle station which was what they called SkyCatrule platform was about seven decks up on the foremost. I was actually at my battle station before the General Quarters sounded but they started bombing runs and whatever and they were die bombing us and they were torpedo bombing us from IA landing and over toward the sub base coming in and we were right in direct line with West Virginia and Oklahoma. So we started firing at the high altitude bombers and we could see our shells bursting before they got to the planes so we caught a couple of bombs after the deck of the Arizona and one bounced off the top of one of the numbered four turrets I think and went in the water and one went clear through the after hole there and then we caught the big bomb right behind number two turret on the starboard side right in the magazines and a million pounds of ammunition exploded. It just shook the ship like it was just a dog would shake a rat or something. It was just tremendous explosion and it blowed like 120 foot of the bow of the ship from there clear off. It blowed number one turret up in the air and it came back down. It's still there to this day. We were trying to just sell preservation there because we were getting burnt all the hell. We knew that we were trying to just move around inside the director. We had a little protection there because we were inside but it was just so hot and whatever just terrible and after the fire kind of went down and the sea breeze blow the smoke and stuff away where we got out on the deck and the deck was just so hot you couldn't hardly stand on it and we couldn't sit down and we couldn't do anything. We were trying to get away to get off there and noticed a gentleman on the vessel on the after deck and got his attention and he throwed us a heaving line which is a lead line on a smaller line and tied off a heavier line and we pulled it across and tied it off on the Arizona and proceeded to go hand in hand across that line. There was only six of us going across that line I think but they finally got us in a shore boat and took us to the dock and took us in an open air truck to the hospital which was a terrible mess. So many casualties there that you couldn't imagine and you couldn't imagine the turmoil. They all done their job to tell you and they saved a lot of lives. I like to go and pay my respects and I look at the room there where all the names are and think about a lot of pictures that come into my mind of my shipmates and whatever and say a little prayer for them and thank the God that I'm still here.