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Many of those who witnessed Pearl Harbor recorded their thoughts in letters home. And worried families stateside reached out to sailors stationed there that terrible morning. Here are some dramatic examples preserved by historian Andrew Carroll and the Center for American War Letters project at Chapman University.
Ensign William Czako, Fremont, Ohio, writing to his family as the attack roared around him.
Our anti-aircraft guns are yammering and every so often a bomb strikes so close as to rock this ship. Again a bomb. We’re helpless down here in the Forward Engine Room because our main engines are all tore down. We’re trying to get underway if possible. We were just struck by a bomb near the bow. We’re fighting back as much as possible because we have no power to load our guns, no power circuits to fire them. It is all being done by hand.
This seems to you like a nonchalant letter, but it’s the straight dope. There is only a handful of us down here as most of our men are ashore on liberty. They really caught us sleeping this time. For a ship being in a Navy Yard for overhaul, we’re putting up a good fight ... Those bombs are getting closer — God grant that they do not hit that loaded oil tanker that is lying right across from us. Ten million gallons of fuel oil would bathe this ship in an inferno of fire ...
I don’t know why I am writing this because if we are hit with a bomb here — they won’t find enough of me and the rest — let alone this letter.
(Eventually, the crew of the New Orleans was able to fix the damage done during the attack and put the ship into service. Czako survived the war.)
Lt. Cmdr. Paul Spangler, M.D., Portland, Oregon, writing a firsthand account of the attack to his hunting buddies days afterward.
We had a little disturbance out here a week ago Sunday and it was sumpin. I must hasten to tell you that we all survived it without a scratch but I expected to see my maker most any moment that Sunday morning. They are begining [sic] to evacuate those who want to go but the family will stay here untill [sic] ordered home.
