Even after 67 years, Joe Nuckols feels the shock of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that pulled the United States into World War II.
"It was unbelievable. You just didn't believe it was happening," he said yesterday of the assault on the naval base in Hawaii.
"You were living on the island of paradise. You were having a ball. Then, all of a sudden everything was turned upside down."
Nuckols, a 90-year-old Army veteran, was one of six Pearl Harbor survivors who gathered at the Virginia War Memorial in Richmond to remember those who died Dec. 7, 1941, "a date which will live in infamy" as President Franklin D. Roosevelt described it.
That Sunday morning, Nuckols was transporting soldiers in a boat when they saw Pearl Harbor under attack in the distance. He said the relentless Japanese bombers made the naval base look like a beehive.
As Nuckols, who lives in Mechanicsville, spoke quietly during a reception after yesterday's ceremony, a man interrupted and offered his hand. "God bless you, sir," the man said.
Max Green, another Army veteran and survivor, recalled a feeling of helplessness when he got word of the attack and dashed from his barracks to Hickam Field.
"It wasn't anything you could do. Everything was on fire and exploding," he said.
Yesterday, as a bitter wind whipped the Virginia War Memorial's flags and its eternal flame, the survivors listened as the names of 34 Virginians who died at Pearl Harbor were recited. Nearly 2,400 Americans were killed, with almost 1,180 injured.
Tom Hassell, president of the Richmond Council of the Navy League of the United States, described how the attack brought the United States into the war and to eventual victory.
"Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty," he said.
Hassell called the survivors "a living reminder that we, as a nation, can persevere and overcome tremendous odds and insidious enemies."
During the ceremony, Green picked an 11-year-old boy from the crowd and presented to him copies of newspaper clippings from the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, a military photograph and other materials related to Pearl Harbor.
"I plan to show it to people, that's for sure," said Ian Mills, a sixth grader at Lucille M. Brown Middle School in Richmond and a grandson of Pearl Harbor survivor Bill Thornton.
Green, who lives in Highland Springs, said he does what he can to teach children about the war and how the United States got involved.
"To let them know what happened in our time," he said. "Hopefully it doesn't happen in their time."
Contact Will Jones at (804) 649-6911 or wjones@timesdispatch.com.
Email
Facebook
Google
Twitter
Favorites
More
Advertisement