Jim Donis is a survivor of Pearl Harbor and lives in Palm Desert. / Crystal Chatham The Desert Sun
Age: 90
Hometown: Madison, Wisc.
Residence: Palm Desert
Military branch: U.S. Army Air Corps, 7th Air Force
Years served: Nov. 23, 1940-Sept. 9, 1945
Rank: Sergeant
Family: Dorothy (deceased); four children; seven grandchildren; 16 great-grandchildren.
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Sgt. Jim Donis was stationed at Wheeler Field on Oahu when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.
“I was assigned to base engineering hangars from midnight to 8 a.m. on Dec. 7, 1941,” Donis said. “I had no weapon, just a billy club instead of a 30-caliber rifle.”
Rifles, ammunition, steel helmets and gas masks had been issued a week earlier when the island was on alert for attack.
The alert was rescinded on Dec. 6 and the men were ordered to return their gear, the now-90-year-old Palm Desert resident said.
“At 7:45 a.m., while standing on Hangar Avenue in front of the base engineering hangar waiting for relief of guard duty, I witnessed a flight of aircraft approaching Wheeler Field from the west mountain range through Kolekole Pass,” he said.
The first plane to attack dove near his location and a bomb was released that made a direct hit on a supply building 300 feet from where Donis stood.
“The hangars were just blowing up,” he said. “It was total destruction. I'm a quarter-mile from my barracks and I have no weapon. They're firing right above the hangars. I can see (the pilots') faces. I think they were enjoying how open everything was.”
Donis started running to an adjacent transportation building where there was a clear view of P-40 aircraft burning and exploding.
Donis said days before, all of the aircraft were in earthen bunkers — placed there when the island was on alert for an attack.
When the alert was called off, they were all brought back out on the runway where the crew lined them up wing tip to wing tip, he said.
“The bombing had destroyed most aircraft for any counterattack,” he said.
“After the bombing attack ended, the aerial strafing began. I started to move between squadron buildings, as aircraft strafing permitted, to get to my assigned squadron in the 18th Air Base. I went to supply to get the military equipment I had turned in the day before.”
Donis said there was strong, emotional anger and language from air base personnel — himself included — as they fired weapons from the three-story air base building at the strafing Japanese planes.
