PORT TOWNSEND — Tom Berg, who survived the Dec. 7, 1941, attack of Pearl Harbor, is back in Honolulu this weekend, partaking of commemorations of the day that propelled the United States into World War II.
The Port Townsend man used to return every five years or so but now goes back every year because the parade has turned into an annual event.
“When I go back, I feel that I’m dang lucky to be there and in relatively good health,” he said.
Berg said his survival of the surprise Japanese attack that killed 2,335 U.S. servicemen tends to make him a celebrity at this time of year.
“People give me a little too much credit,” Berg said last week before he and his wife, Lesa Barnes, left for Hawaii on Wednesday.
“Around now, I’m getting all kinds of fame, which boosts my ego a little too much.”
Said Barnes: “He’s 92 years old, and this was a small part of his life.
“He’s had a whole life since then.”
Berg said that when he wears his survivor cap, “people come up to me and ask, ‘Are you really a survivor?’”
“That’s a difficult question,” he said. “Aren’t I here?
“Some people get teary-eyed,” he added.“They compare me to someone they’ve lost in the war.”
Berg and Barnes planned to watch the Pearl Harbor Day Parade in Honolulu today.
In the parade will be a group familiar to them: the 59 students in the Chimacum High School Marching Band.
The Chimacum school band is the only one in Washington state to perform in the 73rd anniversary of the attack.
Berg talked with the band members last month about his experience on the day of the attack.
Berg was 19 then and working in the boiler room of the USS Tennessee.
He had requested assignment to the USS Arizona but was turned down because of space.
That probably saved his life, he has said.
The Arizona exploded and sank in the attack. Of the 1,512 aboard, 1,177 died.
The wreck still lies at the bottom of Pearl Harbor and the USS Arizona Memorial straddles the ship’s hull.
Five people died on the Tennessee, which was moored near the Arizona during the attack. The ship was repaired and modernized afterward.
On the day of the attack, a Sunday, the crew of the Tennessee was preparing for an inspection when Berg saw an airplane with the large red disc of the flag of Japan on its wings diving toward land.
At the time, he thought the training exercises had become more realistic by painting the planes to appear Japanese.
A few minutes later, a crewman yelled a warning of the attack.
Berg and the other crewmen didn’t believe him until an explosion knocked them off their seats.
After the attack, the ship’s deck was covered with spent shells stacked several inches high, Berg remembered.
After serving in the Navy for six years, Berg earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering. He worked as a professional mechanical engineer for 16 years in the Bremerton shipyard and for 12 years at Naval Torpedo Station, Keyport, before retiring in 1977.
He moved to Jefferson County in 1986 and married Barnes, who is 37 years his junior, in 1999.
“The first thing that people notice is our age difference,” Barnes said.
“I’ve been mistaken for his daughter and even his granddaughter.
“But once you take away that age difference, we are so alike in all ways.”
The couple met in the 1990s when Berg was on the Jefferson County Planning Commission and Barnes was the county Department of Community Development staff member assigned to the board.
Barnes, 55, is one year younger than the youngest of Berg’s three children.
Among their similarities are their joy in music.
Both play in the Port Townsend Community Orchestra, Barnes on flute and piccolo and Berg on violin.
Berg’s preferred instrument is the violin purchased for him when he was 16.
It was with him onboard the Tennessee during the attack — and so is also a survivor.
He played it on the ship to relax.
“There is a lot of spare time on a ship, so I’d go down into a metal room by myself and set the music up and play,” Berg said.
“It resonated and sounded like a big orchestra.”
He said his shipmates were preoccupied with swing and big-band music, which he called “noise.”
“A lot of them were from the South, and their taste in music was awful,” he said.
“They pooled their money to buy a Victrola and bought a stack of records they played continuously.
“I would take some of the worst ones topside and throw them into the water.”
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Jefferson County Editor Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or cbermant@peninsuladailynews.com.
