Crippled, burning ships blotted out the sun

A typical day at Camp Malakole included four hours of building and four hours of anti-aircraft gun practice to prepare for the United States' eventual entrance into World War II.

Dec. 7, 1941, was definitely different, Leo Priest said.

“We were looking forward to our own Sunday mass in our chapel that we had just finished building,” said Priest, then a member of the California National Guard. “We were in a group of six or seven returning from chow when we heard ‘big gun' sounds across the island and saw anti-aircraft puffs of smoke and airplanes flying through it.”

Then, the now-89-year-old Palm Springs resident said, planes flew toward the group.

“They were coming right at us,” he said. “We thought they were ours til we saw the red balls painted on their under-wings. The pilot banked sharply and his gunner in the rear cockpit swung his machine gun down on us and opened up.”

The group, at first stunned by the sight, immediately felt the coral from the gunfire kicking up around their legs.

“Then (we) rushed for cover, diving under our barracks,” he said. “He missed every one of us.”

Priest's commanding officer told him to get into his car.

Priest's job was mapmaking and plotting gun positions in a triangular pattern around the runways and forts around the island — some of which were at Pearl Harbor and others near downtown Honolulu.

“Since I was familiar to all those positions, I was called to drive the skipper and his executive (officer),” he said.

“First stop was Pearl Harbor,” said Priest. “It was a beautiful, sunny morning back at camp, but like night in Pearl Harbor.

We saw the skies filled with aircraft, dive bombers and torpedo planes diving on and torpedoing our ships. The harbor was ablaze with thick oil burning all around the ships.”

While idling in the car for a moment, the men watched the USS Nevada trying to use the only escape route out of the harbor.“(That's) when a dive-bomber exploded a bomb on her and about the same time a torpedo bomber sent a fish (torpedo) into her side just below her water line. The brave skipper quickly gave her a right-rudder and beached her on a shoal out of the way of the harbor,” Priest said as tears welled up in his eyes.The USS Arizona sunk before their arrival, “but we saw the rest of our battleships that were tied up right close to her all ablaze,” he said.

There were whale boats in the water, with men reaching out with boat hooks to pull sailors from the burning oil.

“Some were burned severely, other burned to death,” he said.

“The skipper ordered us to our command post — one minute from Hickam Field just beside Pearl Harbor — to check for casualties of our own.

“All hands were safe and accounted for — while the airplane hangars were completely destroyed and burning.”

Priest expressed immense sympathy for the men who died fighting and those who never left their beds that morning.

“It was a precision, planned attack that murdered over 2,400 of our military while they were asleep in their bunks,” he said. “They never knew what hit 'em.”