JUST 10 DAYS BEFORE THE ATTACK, THE U.S. HIGH COMMAND WARNED THAT AN ATTACK APPEARED IMMINENT -- BUT NOT ON U.S. SOIL.
By RANDY KREHBIEL, World Staff Writer
From "The Tulsa World," Tulsa, Oklahoma, Tuesday, December 7, 2004
Section A, Page 1, Continued on Page 8
Howell Ballard was playing touch football when the planes flew overhead. Joe Rossman was just finishing breakfast.
Both knew instantly that something was very, very wrong.
"I heard that darned plane diving, and I knew we were in trouble," Rossman said. "It didn't have the sound of an American airplane."
Rossman, of course, was right on both counts. The planes were not American, and we were in trouble.
By Dec. 7, 1941, most American expected to be drawn into the war engulfing Europe and Asia. Just 10 days before, on Nov. 27, the U.S. high command warned all Pacific commanders that an attack appeared imminent. Most analysts, however, thought it would come in the Philippines, or against British or Dutch colonies in the Far East.
Regular servicemen such as Ballard and Rossman didn't know anything about that anyway.
"I enlisted," said Ballard. "Let me tell you why. I was in the third group eligible for the draft, and the fisrt two groups were sent to Fort Benning, Ga. to train for the infantry. Hitler was raining heck on Europe at the time, and I figured I'd go the other way. So, I walked right over there into the frying pan."
Ballard was assigned to heavy automotive ordnance at Fort Armstrong, in the mouth of the Port of Honolulu a few miles down the Oahu coast from Pearl Harbor.
"That morning our people were out playing touch football on the parade ground, having fun," said Ballard. "Then a plane with the Rising Sun came across, and that put a stop to the fun."
The mechanics at Fort Armstrong, armed with only .45-caliber pistols, watched helplessly as Japanese planes zeroed in on Pearl Harbor and the adjacent Hickam Field. Wheeler Field, just north of Pearl Harbor, and Bellows Field, on Oahu's southeast coast, were also hit.
Rossman, a communications officer for the Third Battalion, 21st Infantry, was scrambling around Schofield Barracks, north of Oahu, trying to avoid strafing from the 350 Japanese planes descending on Oahu on two waves, beginning just before 8 a.m.
The personnel at Schofield Barracks were initially powerless; the base's rifles and ammunition were locked up and nobody had a key.
"I went into the barracks, looked up at the ceiling, and figured a .22 bullet could go through it. Then I ran outside, thinking I was going to lay as spread out as I could. But when I got outside that didn't seem like a good idea, either."
More than 2,400 Americans died in the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor. An additional 1,200 were wounded. Japan lost 64 men, including the commander of a midget submarine captured at Bellows Field.
Rossman, who had joined the Army to get away from his native South Dakota's cold winters, was sent back to the states after Pearl Harbor. He wound up at Camp Gruber, near Muskogee (OK), then was shipped to Europe in 1944. He was discharged in July 1945, came back to Oklahoma and settled at Miami, where he worked in the B.F. Goodrich plant for 30 years. Now 89, Rossman lives in a Tulsa assisted living center.
Ballard's company spent the weeks following the attack working as stevedores and cleaning 1903 Springfield rifles in storage since World War I, just in case the Japanese came back.
In 1944 Ballard was sent to Saipan. He also was discharged in July 1945, and shortly after went to work for U.S. Steel.
Now 89, he lives at Kellyville. He plans to spend Pearl Harbor Day at American Legion Post 308 in Tulsa.
"We just want the young people of today to remember Pearl Harbor," Ballard said, "and remember it as a day of infamy."
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Randy Krehbiel 581-8365
[email protected]
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