A date which will live in infamy, 83 years later

By Kathy Nelson

People alive in 1941 can usually tell you where they were standing or sitting when they heard the news that Pearl Harbor had been bombed.

Some were in a church service. Others were huddled around the radio that Sunday with family members.

Eden Prairie resident John Holt was aboard the USS West Virginia that day – Dec. 7, 1941 – in Pearl Harbor.

Holt was one of nine Pearl Harbor survivors featured Friday during Air Expo 2001 at Flying Cloud Airport. As part of the upcoming 60th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, survivors were featured in a special symposium inside a plane hangar at the airport.

The Marine veteran explained his ship was parked in the harbor, awaiting inspection the next day. At five minutes to 8 in the morning, he was up on the quarterdeck with the rest of the men.

“We were getting ready for colors,” Holt recalled, “and all the ships were coming in. Then all of a sudden, these dive bombers came in.”

The World War II vet said he remembered someone saying, “What is the Army doing practicing on Sunday?” As the bombers got closer, the picture became clearer.

“‘That’s the (Japanese),’ someone said,” Holt added, noting the distinctive red rising sun on the planes.

The men on board attempted to fire on the Japanese, but to no avail.

“We didn’t have any ammo because the first torpedo knocked out our conveyor belt,” Holt explained.

Since the men couldn’t get the ammunition above board, he said the order came to abandon ship. Holt and his Marine buddies swam to Ford Island.

Before they abandoned ship, though, Holt said his Navy chief did a smart thing. He flooded the starboard side so the ship wouldn’t capsize like the USS Oklahoma. Instead, Holt said, it sank nearly straight down.

While the fighter pilots continued to fire on ships in the harbor, Holt and his fellow Marines watched from the island.

“There was not much more we could do. We had no rifles, no ammo. We waited until it was over,” Holt said.

At the time, he remembered they thought the Japanese would follow up their attack with ground forces. Those forces didn’t come to Pearl Harbor.

Although he was there on the scene, Holt acknowledged he didn’t get a close-up view from the island.

“People who have watched it on TV probably saw more,” he guessed.

From Pearl Harbor, Holt went on to serve in other places, including Tulagi and Guadalcanal, both in the Solomon Islands in the Pacific Ocean.

He served in the Marines through 1945, the end of the war.

Holt, born in Marshall, grew up in Minneapolis. He joined the Marines in 1940 after graduating from high school. Basic training came first, in San Diego, followed by sea school. Later that year, he went aboard the USS West Virginia and began his World War II service.

He and his wife had lived in Eden Prairie for the past 15-plus years. Typically, Holt said he didn’t talk about the war much. Usually, he talked about it only in response to someone’s question about the war.

Although he was starting to get more involved with the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association of Minnesota, Holt still didn’t dwell on talking about the past.

“I saw enough of it,” Holt said. “It’s war. It was the same at Tulagi, at Guadalcanal … you would see people getting shot next to you.”

This spring’s release of the movie “Pearl Harbor” brought the Dec. 7 bombing back into the spotlight for many Americans. Holt was one of the millions who bought a movie ticket.

His reaction?

“It was Hollywood,” he acknowledged, “but certain sections of it were very true.”

One Hollywood-type scene Holt noted was when they showed the fire in the water and people trying to swim to shore.

“They had the fire up way too high,” he said.

Impact on Dec. 7

As part of Friday’s Pearl Harbor symposium, local Pearl Harbor historian Capt. Jim Johns noted the importance of the invasion at the time and for the rest of American history.

At 7:55 a.m. that Sunday in December, when “all hell broke loose,” Johns said the Japanese plan was to cripple American forces in the Pacific so they could swoop in and conquer Malaya and the West Indies.

But what Pearl Harbor in essence did was wake up a sleeping giant. In that one event, the historian pointed out, the U.S. went from being an isolationist nation to “the top-notch military power we are today.”

“The air we breathe is a result of that,” Johns noted.