Bob Fernandez thought he would dance and see the world when he joined the U.S. Navy as a 17-year-old high school student in August 1941.
Four months later, he found himself shaking from explosions and passing ammunition to artillery crews so his ship’s guns could fire back at Japanese planes bombing Pearl Harbor, a naval base in Hawaii.
“When things turned out like that, we didn’t know which was which,” says Fernandez, who is now 100. “We didn’t even know we were at war.”
Godofredo A. Vásquez / AP
Two bombing survivors – each 100 years old or older – plan to return to Pearl Harbor on Saturday to mark 83 years since the attack that plunged the US into World War II. They will join active-duty troops, veterans and members of the public for a commemoration ceremony hosted by the Navy and the National Park Service.
Fernandez initially planned to join them but had to cancel due to health problems.
More than 2,300 American soldiers were killed in the bombing. Nearly half, or 1,177, were sailors and Marines aboard the USS Arizona, which sank during the battle. The remains of more than 900 Arizona crew members are still buried on the submerged ship.
A moment of silence will be held at 7.54am, the same time the attack began eighty years ago. Planes in missing man formation will fly overhead to break the silence.
Dozens of survivors once took part in the annual commemoration, but the numbers have dwindled as survivors have grown older. Today, only 16 remain alive, according to a list maintained by Kathleen Farley, California state chairwoman of the Sons and Daughters of Pearl Harbor Survivors. Military historian J. Michael Wenger estimates that there were approximately 87,000 troops on Oahu on the day of the attack.
Mengshin Lin / AP
Many praise the survivors of Pearl Harbor as heroes, but Fernandez does not consider himself that way.
“I’m not a hero. I’m just nothing but an ammunition passer,” he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from California, where he now lives with his cousin in Lodi.
Fernandez was working as a cook on his ship, the USS Curtiss, on the morning of December 7, 1941, and planned to go dancing that evening at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel in Waikiki.
He brought the sailors coffee and food while he waited on tables during breakfast. Then they heard an alarm sound. Through a porthole, Fernandez saw a plane fly by with the red ball insignia painted on Japanese aircraft.
Fernandez rushed down three decks to a magazine room where he and other sailors waited for someone to open a door that stored 5-inch (12.7 centimeter) and .38 caliber shells so they could pass them to the ship’s guns .
He has told interviewers over the years that some of his fellow sailors were praying and crying when they heard gunshots overhead.
“I felt a little scared because I didn’t know what was going on,” Fernandez said.
The ship’s guns hit a Japanese aircraft which crashed into one of its cranes. Shortly afterwards, the guns hit a dive bomber, which then crashed into the ship and exploded below deck, setting the hangar and main decks on fire, the Navy History and Heritage Command said.
Fernandez’s ship, the Curtiss, lost 21 men and nearly 60 sailors were injured.
“We lost a lot of good people, you know. They didn’t do anything,” Fernandez said. “But we never know what will happen in a war.”
After the attack, Fernandez had to clean up debris. That night he stood guard with a rifle to make sure no one tried to get on board. When it was time to rest, he fell asleep next to where the ship’s dead lay. He only realized this when a fellow sailor woke him up and told him.
After the war, Fernandez worked as a forklift driver at a cannery in San Leandro, California. His 65-year-old wife, Mary Fernandez, died in 2014. His eldest son is now 82 and lives in Arizona. Two other sons and a stepdaughter have died.
He has traveled to Hawaii three times to participate in the Pearl Harbor commemoration. This year would have been his fourth trip.
Fernandez still loves music and goes dancing once a week at a nearby restaurant when he can. His favorite tune is Frank Sinatra’s rendition of “All of Me,” a song he still knows by heart, according to his cousin Joe Guthrie.
“The ladies come to him like moths to a flame,” Guthrie said.
