0:00 the Japanese attack on Hawaii on
0:03 December 7th 1941 sparked the defiant
0:07 battlecry remember Pearl Harbor and even
0:10 75 years later the dwindling ranks of
0:13 those who watched the attack happen
0:16 remember it still our cover story is
0:19 reported by Lee
0:21 Cowen Hawaii's Pearl Harbor it was just
0:24 a place before it became a memorial a
0:27 tropically tranquil place that was
0:30 darinda Nicholson's childhood home this
0:33 was my favorite part of the neighborhood
0:36 because darinda was just 6 years old
0:39 that Sunday in
0:40 1941 born in Hawaii her family was
0:43 civilian and lived near the dock for the
0:45 famous PanAm
0:49 Clippers the idea of War coming to this
0:52 remote Pacific Outpost seemed to most
0:55 here about as likely as a white Hawaiian
0:58 Christmas but at 7:55 a.m. on December
1:02 7th a storm did indeed
1:08 come they were coming right over the
1:11 house and when you came outside and you
1:13 looked up they were right there right
1:18 overhead canopies pushed back and could
1:22 see the Pilot's faces they were that
1:25 close what did you think when you saw
1:28 that oh
1:31 I just leaned closer to my dad and
1:33 hugged him a little
1:35 closer six Japanese aircraft carriers
1:38 had sailed to within 300 miles of the
1:41 Hawaiian Islands loaded with more than
1:43 350 planes that were on a waho like a
1:46 swarm of angry mosquitoes dinda's family
1:50 fled to the relative safety of the
1:51 island sugar cane Fields but Navy Seaman
1:54 dick jrao now
1:57 95 had nowhere to go two 300 yard over
2:00 there is where I was he had joined the
2:02 Navy at age 19 and was part of the crew
2:05 that manned the pby Catalina flying
2:07 boats out of the Naval Air Station at
2:09 Fort Island how close were the bombs
2:11 falling to
2:12 your within 100 yards he High tailed it
2:16 to a nearby ditch for cover and when I
2:19 first went in it I'm laying on the
2:20 bottom of
2:21 it
2:23 and another fella come jumping in right
2:25 on top of laying on top of me and he was
2:28 saying Hil Mar as fast as he could see
2:31 him and then I said well that takes care
2:34 of that part I don't have to do
2:36 that but then a Japanese pilot spotted
2:40 him this fell says well you might as
2:42 well turn over and watch this DB me I
2:45 turn over I just looking up I'm looking
2:48 up at a dive armor coming down straight
2:50 at you oh yeah banked out over the
2:52 Airfield and looked right down in the
2:54 ditch and I could look him right in the
2:56 eyee hanger 79 just one down from where
3:00 dick was still Bears the scars the
3:03 bullet holes and its bright blue window
3:05 panes remain reminders of the serenity
3:09 shattered on a quiet Sunday morning were
3:12 you mad were you angry confused I don't
3:15 really recall whether I was angry or not
3:17 a lot of people asked me if I was scared
3:20 and I'm sure I was if I wasn't something
3:22 wrong with me scores of planes were
3:25 bruised and battered by at the Army
3:27 Aires hiam Airfield nearby the Japanese
3:30 assault continued parked wing tip to
3:32 wing tip nearly every American warbird
3:35 was incinerated before ever Taking
3:37 Flight but Japan's real Target was
3:40 Battleship Row the Utah shown capsized
3:43 and partially sunk within minutes the
3:46 California was sinking and the Oklahoma
3:48 had also capsized trapping hundreds in
3:52 her Hull the whole side of Battleship
3:55 Roll Clear down to the Arizona is
3:58 covered with flames the people in the
4:01 Water Swimming trying to get out it was
4:05 a terrible terrible scene 95-year-old
4:08 Delton Wally Walling was perched high in
4:10 a patrol tower that day and saw it all
4:13 unfold can you imagine how I'm feeling
4:16 now when I'm watching my great Navy
4:19 stuffed down my
4:21 throat I'm
4:23 devastated man and it got worse not far
4:27 away the shaw a destroyer exploded with
4:30 such ferocity it sent pieces flying a
4:33 half mile away a moment captured in this
4:36 iconic photograph that almost knocked us
4:40 off in the
4:41 tower but it was the Arizona that got
4:44 the worst of it hit by armor-piercing
4:46 bombs it too exploded killing
4:51 1,177 the single largest loss of life in
4:54 American Naval History her Hull is still
4:57 in the mud where she
5:00 the Arizona Remains the final resting
5:03 place for most of her crew including 23
5:07 sets of Brothers family dying
5:09 shoulder-to-shoulder in a war that
5:11 hadn't even been declared when we talk
5:14 to people they will say oh my father or
5:17 my grandfather wouldn't s us anything
5:19 until he was 60 or 70 years old they
5:21 were told to forget about it to just get
5:23 on with their lives and forget it Craig
5:25 nilson spent the last 5 years compiling
5:28 one of the most recent accounts of Pearl
5:30 Harbor published by Simon and Schuster a
5:32 CBS company December 7th 1941 he says
5:37 was arguably just as pivotal to our
5:39 identity as the 4th of July
5:42 1776 it completely transformed the
5:44 United States at that moment we were
5:47 14th military power in the World Behind
5:50 uh Sweden so it served really as a
5:51 rallying cry in a way it made us put on
5:54 our big boy pants and grow up and become
5:56 a global
5:58 leader the US did bounce back in double
6:02 time all but three of the ships damaged
6:05 or sunk on December 7th were raised
6:08 repaired and sailed again in fact by the
6:11 end of the war the US had chased down
6:13 and destroyed every Japanese aircraft
6:16 carrier used to launch the attack this
6:18 is the greatest Generation in the world
6:21 and we're down to the handful left thank
6:25 you for your
6:26 service thank you Wally like most of the
6:30 other 40,000 or so enlisted men on aahu
6:32 that day was just a teenager back then
6:35 but history's clock is Relentless I see
6:39 their faces right before me and know
6:41 they're
6:42 gone Pearl Harbor's Chief historian
6:45 Daniel Martinez has worked here for 32
6:47 years and with each passing anniversary
6:50 he worries the collective memory of
6:52 December 7th is fading most of the young
6:55 people that come here don't have a clue
6:57 what happened at this place they don't
6:58 even know who won the War how will we
7:01 remember World War II after they're
7:03 gone this was a huge open part of the
7:07 harbor darinda Nicholson now lives in
7:09 Kansas City Missouri but has made the
7:12 nearly 5,000 m trip here to Pearl Harbor
7:14 for almost every anniversary to tell her
7:18 story sometimes bringing with her the
7:20 tiny gas mask that she and her brother
7:22 wore as children in the days after the
7:25 attack so why did you keep this all
7:27 those years oh it's my my
7:30 history it was history that changed her
7:33 life and ours the cry remember Pearl
7:37 harber sounds pretty obvious but the
7:40 challenge for the next generation is to
7:42 really remember absent those who will no
7:45 longer be here to remind us face to face
7:48 they are my heroes and I will tell their
7:51 stories as long as I live
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