SEQUIM — Syd Carr remembers seeing a Japanese submarine surface in Pearl Harbor around 6:30 a.m. one day 65 years ago.
That day has, of course, lived in infamy.
But there’s more to remember about Dec. 7, Carr says.
If he were a history teacher, he’d talk about what led up to World War II, and how his experience of the Pearl Harbor attack changed him.
“I was 17, just a freckled kid,” from the Ozarks town of Crane, Mo.
Living through Dec. 7, 1941, “made me grow up fast. It made me appreciate the rest of the life I did have,” added Carr, now 83 and a 21-year resident of Sequim.
Carr is one of about a dozen Pearl Harbor veterans on the North Olympic Peninsula.
The Juan de Fuca Chapter of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association disbanded in October 2004, after their numbers had dwindled.
The Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor ended this country’s belief in itself as an invincible island floating above the geopolitical fray, said Carr.
“Our supreme confidence that some little pipsqueak country wouldn’t attack us led to our downfall,” Carr said. “We believed nothing could happen to us, and the Japanese believed they were all-powerful.
“We should be reminded that, by golly, we can get our butts kicked.”
Enlisted to escape poverty
Carr also remembers the humility with which he enlisted in the Navy on June 13, 1941.
“Things were tough,” during the Depression, he said.
Young men joined the military in droves, looking for a way out of poverty.
Carr’s father had a decent job, but the family still struggled.
Frank Putnam of Port Angeles was 18 when he saw Japanese planes descend on Pearl Harbor, where he was stationed with the Navy.
He also has a vivid a memory of his enlistment day, April 17, 1941.
“I joined so I could eat. That’s the reason a lot of guys went in,” said Putnam, 83.
He grew up in Redmond and had to have his father’s permission to go to the Navy recruiter in Seattle.
“He wanted to see me eat, too,” Putnam recalled.
Earl “Jonesy” Jones, another Pearl Harbor survivor who lives in Sequim, grew up in Wildwood, N.J., one of three sons raised by a single mother.
“We were poor. We didn’t have anything,” he remembered.
He enlisted on April 2, 1941, and soon began writing to his mother about the good food the Navy fed him.
Jones was severely wounded during the Pearl Harbor attack.
During nine months in the hospital his weight plummeted to 79 pounds.
But when Jones visits Steve Boots’ history classroom at Sequim Middle School today, he won’t talk only about the events of 65 years ago.
Jones says he’s grateful to be alive, at 83, surrounded by longtime friends.
He’s grateful, too, for the 60 years he spent with his wife, Torchy — so nicknamed for her red hair — and their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Iraq war `a mistake’
But when he talks with Sequim students, Jones will bring up a subject that greatly saddens him.
The war in Iraq, he said, “is the biggest mistake this country has ever made. It’s a worse mistake than [the war in] Vietnam.
“I don’t care if you’re a Democrat or a Republican . . . we’ve got to get out of there,” he said.
“Thousands of young people are coming home wounded . . . who’s going to pay for it?”
Bob Rains, 83, is another Sequim resident who belonged to the Juan de Fuca Chapter of Pearl Harbor Survivors.
The events of Dec. 7, 1941, “have a lot to teach us,” Rains said.
“We have to always look out, find out our enemies and stay alert.”
Rains said he wishes the local survivors’ group still held get-togethers.
“We didn’t have enough people attending the meetings,” as many grew frail or passed away.
Glad to be alive
So Rains said he’ll travel to Keyport today for a Pearl Harbor Day ceremony.
Carr said he too thought about going to a Pearl Harbor remembrance in Bangor, but decided against it. Poor circulation in his legs keeps him close to home.
“Maybe I’ll sit and reminisce a little bit,” he said.
Putnam, like Carr, said it doesn’t bother him to be among the few left to remember.
“I’m kind of pleased,” he said in a soft voice, “that I’m still alive.”
