John F. Jurasits US Army Ft. Shafter |
John Jurasits remembers December 7, 1941, as if it were yesterday. On that day, Japanese fighter planes darkened the skies above Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, killed 2,403 Americans and crippled the Pacific Fleet with a shower of bombs. "The faces of the Japanese pilots were visible from the ground", said Jurasits, a corporal in the Navy. "They were smiling," he said, "I've never in my life seen anything like that. It was quite a sight." Jurasits was walking to church that Sunday morning when he first heard the sound of airplanes buzzing overhead. The man in front of him was downed by machine gun fire on the church steps. Mayhem broke out, and Jurasits and others, stunned by the surprise attack, ran to their battle stations. "It was quite an ordeal. Everyone was shook up", he said. Jurasits fled to high ground, an area on Oahu known as the "Punch Bowl". From his view on high, the harbor was shrouded in darkness after the attack. "That was the longest night of my life," Jurasits said. "I've never heard so much crying and hollering." Jurasits didn't know whether the Japanese had invaded the island. People cried out for help, but soldiers were frozen because they didn't know whether they were being deceived by the Japanese into exposing themselves to be killed. Jurasits remembers hiding under a truck. "Everything was in an uproar," Jurasits said. "Nobody knew what was going on. Everyone was firing at everything that moved." The attack was swift, but tension lingered for weeks, Jurasits recalled. He left Hawaii in 1942 to fight in the Philippines and New Guinea. He had planned to be a career Army Man, but after what he saw in the Pacific, he decided on civilian life and was discharged in 1944. He received three bronze stars, one for his service in Pearl Harbor. After being discharged, Jurasits worked for 39 years as a millwright for Hercules Cement Co., retiring in 1980. Jurasits doesn't like to talk about what happened 60 years ago. He tries to keep in touch with old war buddies, but even that can be difficult. When he recently met with a veteran friend near Harrisburg, the friend spent most of the reunion in tears. "If you were there, you know where you were at 7:55 a.m. when the bombs fell and what you did," he said. |
Information provided by John F. Jurasits. |
