Reproduced on this web site through the courtesy of the Honolulu Star Bulletin
Sunday, December 7, 2003
ASSOCIATED PRESS
U.S. battleships were hit from the air during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. Japan's bombing of U.S. military bases at Pearl Harbor would bring the United States into World War II. From left are USS West Virginia, severely damaged; USS Tennessee, damaged; and USS Arizona, sunk. Sixty-two years after that haunting Dec. 7 at Pearl Harbor, thoughts of the Japanese attack that killed 2,390 people are not far off for a nation that has seen more dismal days, fought in more wars, lost thousands more sons and daughters.
Not to be forgotten
Three who survived the Pearl
Harbor attacks get a final resting
place with their brethren
The Pearl Harbor saga meant everything to Chief Gunner's Mate Ben Begley, who was on the destroyer tender USS Dobbin on Dec. 7, 1941.
It took Navy Cross recipient Lt. Guy Pierce six decades before he finally made his first pilgrimage to Pearl Harbor in 2001 to pay tribute to his shipmates -- some of them still entombed in the battleship USS Utah.
Boatswain's Mate 2nd Class Larry Roman saw the beginning of World War II from the deck of the battleship USS Nevada and the end aboard the USS Iowa in Tokyo Bay four years later.
All three Pearl Harbor survivors made their final journey home to Pearl Harbor this weekend. Pierce became the fifth Utah survivor yesterday to be interred within the rusty hulk of the battleship that still remains as a monument in 38 feet of water off the eastern end of Ford Island.
Roman's ashes will be scattered at 11:30 a.m. today off Hospital Point where his ship the USS Nevada was beached during the early morning raid, while Begley's ashes will be scattered near the USS Utah Memorial at 4:45 p.m.
"It was the turning point in his life," according to Begley's widow, Doris.
After Begley retired in 1982 as a tooling engineer with ITT in Florida, he would go to schools in the St. Petersburg area to talk about his wartime experiences and Pearl Harbor.
Begley was 24 when he enlisted in the Navy in 1939 and found himself on the destroyer tender USS Dobbin on Dec. 7, 1941. The Dobbin was located in a nest of ships, including the destroyers USS Hull, USS Worden, USS Dewey, USS MacDonough and USS Phelps, located across from battleship row.
Begley said her husband didn't tell her too much about the attack. "These survivors really don't do much talking about," she said, "and if they do, it's to one another."
But her husband would return to Pearl Harbor every five years, making at least eight trips since 1966. He also was active in the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association, serving as state chair first for Mississippi and then later for Florida. In 1978, he was elected president of the national organization after serving a term as vice president.
Begley was 85 when he died on Christmas Day last year.
His last wish was to be buried at Pearl Harbor. "It will be a very fitting ceremony," Doris Begley said. "He wanted to be with the boys he served with. He always believed that as one who survived he owed it to those who didn't make ... to make sure they were remembered.
Pierce was 79 when he finally was able to overcome his painful memories to make his first trip to the island since World War II to attend the 2001 memorial services.
"I was saddened," Pierce said after the ceremony. "It brought back a lot of sad memories."
Pierce had enlisted when he was 17 to fly, but Navy regulations did not allow him to attend flight school until he turned 18 after the Japanese raid. He was assigned to the USS Hornet as a Grumman F6F Hellcat pilot and was credited with downing 13 Japanese fighters -- earning the Navy Cross, the Silver Star and two Purple Hearts -- before he was shot down in January 1945. He spent six months in a prisoner of war camp on Luzon.
Pierce said there was feeling back then that the Japanese would attack. "Maybe Wake or Midway or some other island. We just didn't think they had the nerve enough to bomb Pearl Harbor."
Dressed only in his skivvies when bombs started falling, Pierce was able to swim to Ford Island after Japanese fighters mistook the Utah for an aircraft carrier. Six officers and 52 sailors were killed that day, either trapped inside the ship or as they swam to Ford Island. Only four bodies were recovered. Thirty officers and 431 sailors survived.
Pierce died on Dec. 16, 2002, at his home in Cathedral City, Calif. He was 80.
Until a few years ago Roman "never talked about Pearl Harbor with anyone," his daughter, Sue, recalled this week. "It wasn't until he went to the veteran center in Casper, our home town, where he joined a close knit group. It became an integral part of his life. He started giving interviews and going to schools to talk about Pearl Harbor and his veterans."
Roman had gotten off watch and was headed for his berth below deck when the Japanese attacked, Sue Roman said. "He went to his gun turret to help and watched as the bombs fell on the Arizona. He was on deck when the Nevada was beached."
Roman's only trip to the islands after the war was over was two years ago and "he was surprised over the way everything had changed," his widow, Cindy Roman said.
In the end, "it was a dream of his to be buried here at Pearl Harbor," she added. "We talked a lot about it, but we never thought it would happen."
Roman was transferred to the cruiser USS St. Louis after the Japanese attack and served the last three years of the war on the battleship USS Iowa. He died of cancer on Feb. 15 in Casper, Wyo., at the age of 82.
Two years ago he encountered a group of Gulf War veterans at the USS Arizona Visitor Center and ended up spending a half hour with them reliving the Dec. 7, 1941, attack. "His descriptions were so vivid," said Sue Roman. "He remembered so much detail. It showed how important this place had become."
