Kenneth E. & Hannah Todd US Army Reserve Schofield Barracks |
Information provided by Kenneth E. & Hannah Todd. |
In 1941, I was a 1st Lt. in the US Army Reserve. I volunteered for Foreign Service and was sent to Hawaii. I was assigned to the 35th Inf. Regiment, 25th Inf. Division. Since it was peace time, we could take our spouses with us, so, Hannah was with me. We were assigned to Schofield Barracks which is about 4 miles from Pearl Harbor. We rented an apartment in a little town of Wahiawa about 2 miles from Schofield Barracks. On the morning of December 7, 1941, a squadron of Jap planes flew right over the top of our house and headed for Wheeler Field, which is next to Schofield. They bombed Wheeler Field, destroyed all the fighter planes, bombed the mess hall where the men were eating breakfast then flew over Schofield Barracks, bombed and strafed the houses and streets. We turned the radio on and the first thing we heard was "The Island of Oahu is under Japanese attack. All military personnel report to their stations at once." I dressed quickly and drove through Wahiawa to Schofield. The car in front of me was strafed and the one behind me but my car was not hit. I helped get machine guns on the roof of one of the quadrangle buildings and we fired at the Jap planes. |
Santa Barbara News-Press By: Sally Cappon It's been over 60 years, but Ken and Hannah Todd of Santa Barbara remember Sunday, December 7, 1941, at Pearl Harbor as if it were yesterday. Todd, now a retired Army lieutenant colonel, was a 30-year old first lieutenant, a personnel officer at the Army's Schofield Barracks, five miles from Pearl Harbor. He and his wife lived in a house in the nearby town of Wahiawa. They went to Hawaii in the summer of 1941 when the Army asked for volunteers for foreign service. The men could take their wives since it was peacetime, said Todd, one of 12 at Fort Warren, Wyoming to sign up. He left in July, not knowing where he was going. He was one of six dropped off at Hawaii; the rest went on to the Philippines. "We never heard from them," Todd said. "They probably got into the Death march." Hannah Todd joined her husband in Hawaii in August. "We were the last ones accepted for foreign service with dependents," he said. "We just got in under the wire." The night of December 6 was festive, they recalled. There was a party at the Officers' Club. Ken Todd wore a tux, Hannah wore a long dress. "Everybody was having a good time," Ken said. "There was a dance and a nice dinner." Two generals were at the next table. The doors were open to the warm tropical night. Around 11 p.m., Hannah said, "I got a shiver. I wanted to go home. I had a premonition." At 8 o'clock the next morning, they were in bed, windows open. "We heard the zoom, zoom, zoom," Hannah said. They were puzzled. No maneuvers were scheduled on Sunday. "All of a sudden there was some big black smoke," Ken said. "A big oil tank blew up." Turning on the radio, they learned that the island was under "sporadic attack by the enemy." All military people were ordered to report to their duty stations immediately. Dressing quickly, Ken drove to Schofield Barracks. "Everything was bedlam," he said. "The storerooms were locked up. We had to break in to get machine guns out to get on the roofs of the barracks to shoot at the Japanese planes. We knew they were Japanese because they had big red circles." The 350 enemy bombers and Zero escorts came in two waves, at 8 and 9 a.m. "They all come in from different routes," Ken said. "They bombed everything. They were sinking ships in Pearl Harbor." All around, it was a disorganized thing. We were all taken by complete surprise." Ambulances squealed by, carrying injured people to hospitals from Wheeler Field, where a bomb had been dropped on the mess hall. In Wahiawa, Hannah ventured curiously out of the house. "I saw a plane coming. I backed into the doorway. He strafed in front of the house. They were not just at Pearl Harbor. They were all over." She didn't grasp the enormity of the action until that night when a truck drove her and other dependents to the Punchbowl, an extinct volcano inland from Honolulu, for safety. She remembered that the moon was big and bright. As a canvas flap at the rear of the truck flew open, "We got a full view of Pearl Harbor. It was a mass of flame. You cold see dark silhouettes of ships. You could see black hulks. Oh, it was devastating. If I live to be 100, it will always be seared in my mind. It looked like Dante's Inferno." For three days the women and children stayed at a school in the Punchbowl, spending the first night on Army blankets in the lanai, a sheltered patio. The school was locked and they had to break into a room to use as a shelter for the children. The next morning, Hannah volunteered to help cook food the Army brought in. "I never cooked so many scrambled eggs," she said. The shock and numbness of the first day remains with Ken, who went on with the infantry to the Pacific island battlefields of Guadalcanal, New Georgia and Bougainville. After serving three years in the South Pacific, he was sent to Santa Barbara in 1944 when the Army took over the Biltmore, Mar Monte (now the Radisson) and Miramar hotels to use as troop redistribution stations. He never left this area, later working for the Veterans Administration, at Vandenberg Air Force Base, and for the post office. A few months after Pearl Harbor, Hannah left Honolulu in a convoy that included the battleship Missouri. "We zoomed out at midnight. It took nine days to zig and zag back to San Francisco. There were depth charges dropped several times. One night they really banged." Today both Ken and Hannah belong to a chapter of Pearl Harbor survivors. "I was a survivor, too,: said Hannah, the only remaining woman survivor in the local group of about 100 from Simi Valley to Santa Maria. The group meets monthly in Santa Barbara. They rarely mention the day of infamy, Ken said. "We talk about grandchildren." The Todds' son, John, born here in 1947 and a graduate of San Marcos High School, today is a Marine colonel who is chief of staff at Camp Pendleton Marine Base. Intensely patriotic, Ken Todd frequently speaks at holidays such as Veterans Day and Flag Day. He regrets that "our schools don't teach anything about Pearl Harbor and World War II." He'd like "more programs for young people to learn what went on. Hardly any young people remember. We'd like them to know the reason for the war, how it happened to start. I thing we should do everything possible to keep our country more alert." Hannah saw December 7, 1941, as a time of bonding. "All of a sudden we realized we had to help each other: all races, creeds and colors bonded together for mutual protection." Also, today, she said, "The flag means everything to me." That is a legacy of December 7. "The next morning at the Punchbowl they ran up the flag that was.." She faltered as tears filled her eyes. "the most beautiful sight." Information provided by Ken and Hannah Todd. |
Pearl Harbor Survivors Tom O'Reilly, Lloyd Hunt, Ted Franco, Ernest Ruiz, M.R. Coleman and Kenneth Todd |
